Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 4: On the second day of ongoing Indian Science Congress at Jammu University, former President A P J Abdul Kalam formally inaugurated the Children Science Congress.
On the occasion, Kalam also gave away the Infosys Foundation- ISCA Awards to eight students. The first award went to Manya Sharma of Sainik School, Rewa.
Prof Arun Kumar, General Secretary of ISCA, welcomed the gathering while Prof Pankaj Srivastava, Convener, Children’s Science Congress, outlined the objectives of the event. Prof R C Sobti, General President, ISCA delivered formal vote of thanks.
JU VC, Prof Mohan Paul Singh Ishar, in his brief address, said that without Dr A P J Abdul Kalam coming and addressing the gathering, the Science Congress would have not been complete.
In the interaction session, the students from various schools in Jammu, who had arrived there for the participation, asked question to Dr Kalam and former ISRO Chairman Prof Yash Pal.
Later, Dr Kalam also visited the Children Science Exhibition in the Gymnasium Hall where about 200 child scientists coming from different states of the country have displayed their research project and models. He also interacted with the child scientists and discussed their models.
Meanwhile, as per schedule of the ongoing Science Congress, various technical sessions were held.
In the `Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences’ session, Dr R L Bharadwaj presented the presidential address. The Platinum Jubilee Lecture was delivered by Prof Arti Bakshi from Department of Psychology, JU.
1st technical session of Plant Sciences started with the introductory remarks of Prof A K Pandey of University of Delhi. A total of five invited lecturers were held.
Prof Paramjit Singh, Director, Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata introduced the audience to “The status of Plant taxonomy in India” under platinum Jubilee Lecture as the 2nd lecture of the session. Prof S C Verma from Punjab University, Chandigarh elaborated on “Ferns in the genomic age” in the 3rd lecture and he was awarded with “Archana Sharma memorial award”. Prof V Puri memorial lecture was delivered by Dr P S Ahuja, Director, CSIR-IHBT, Palampur, who spoke on Bioresource and biotechnology at high altitude.
Awards and citation in the session were given by JU VC Prof M P S Ishar and Prof R C Sobti, General President ISCA.
Session ended with the lecture on “New Frontiers of fern ecology” by Klaus Mehltreter from Instituto de Ecologia, A C, Xalapa Veracruz, Mexico.
In today’s session of Materials science, Sectional committee meeting was held during which Prof A K Sexena was elected as the president for the next Science Congress in Materials Science.
In the session on `Animal, Veterinary and Fishery Sciences’, the presidential address was given by Prof P P Mathur, an eminent scientist and Vice-Chancellor of KIIT University, Bhubaneswar.
This was followed by Platinum Jubilee Lecture by Prof T Madhan Mohan, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, New Delhi. He highlighted various funding schemes given by the department for the upliftment of research in India.
It followed Gouri Ganguly Memorial Award Lecture in which Dr Mahua Gupta Choudhary of Shillong. Concluding lectures were given by Dr Subodh Kumar Jain and Dr Dheer Singh.
Dr R Chindambaram, DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor & Principle Scientific Advisor to Govt of India, gave lecture on the topic “Innovation, Inclusive growth & the knowledge Economy”. The session focused on the Human Development.
During the Dr Arya Bhatta Symposium, titled ` Algebra, its interaction and advances in Mathematics’, the speaker focused on the various techniques of group theory and how these can be applied to various field of study.
Awtar Singh Paintal Symposium was held at The Business School. The lecture was delivered by Prof G D Lopaschuk on the topic ` Stimulating Cardiac Glucose Oxidation as an Approach to Treat Heart Failure’.
An impressive lecture on “War and Peace: Conflict and Cooperation in an Insect Society” was delivered by Dr Raghavendra Gadagkar at General Zorawar Singh Auditorium. Another lecture was delivered by G N Qazi on the topic entitled “Scientific Evidence Based Natural Medicinal Products for Indian Systems of Medicine” at General Zorawar Singh Auditorium.
In Prof B K Bachawat Symposium, the session focused on ‘Nanotechnology; Dr Sanyog Jain from Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology talked about the importance of increasing the efficacy of some anti-cancer drugs and how to reduce their side effects.
Tomorrow, the Women Science Congress will be inaugurated at 10 a.m at the main Pandal.
Besides, there will special lecture by Nobel laureate Dr Farid Munar, plenary lectures, by Dr Ing Matthias Kleiner, Dr Robert Edwards, Dr Robert Roberts, Pt Madan Mohan Malviya Special symposium, sessions of Science Communicators Meet, etc.
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