Indian Science Congress to focus on rural India

The 93rd session of the Indian Science Congress will commence at the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Hyderabad, on Tuesday.

The five-day event, to be held from January 3-7, 2006, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He will also inaugurate 'Bharat Nirman - Science Exhibition' that will showcase the contributions of science to society by scientific institutions and universities.

Distinguished economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen will deliver the 'Award Lecture' at the inaugural session. ANGRAU is the first agricultural university in the country to host the Indian Science Congress.

The focus theme for this year's session is 'Integrated Rural Development: Science & Technology'. The topic has been chosen keeping in view the increasing importance given by the Union and state governments to improve rural India, said I V Subba Rao, general president of the 93rd Indian Science Congress.

The focal theme for last year's Congress held at the Nirma Institute of Science and Technology, Ahmedabad, under the auspices of the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) was 'Health Technologies as a Fulcrum for the Nation Development'.

President of India A P J Abdul Kalam will also participate in the Science Congress. He will inaugurate 'National Virtual Congress of Farmers' and launch 'Mission 2007: Every Village - A Knowledge Centre' on January 5. He will also participate in the Children's Science Congress.

The dignitaries participating in the Congress, apart from Union and state ministers, include three Nobel laureates, six World Food Prize winners and 85 distinguished scientists from around 25 countries. Around 5,000 delegates from various parts of the country are expected to take part in the deliberations of the Congress.

The technical sessions slated for this year's session include six public lectures by eminent scientists C N R Rao, R A Mashelkar, M S Swaminathan, R A Chidambaram, Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Mathai and Loksatta convenor N Jaya Prakash Narayan, and four special lectures by Nobel laureate in chemistry Richard R Ernst, and eminent scientists P N Bhargava, Ulrich Kopke and David Hekkel.

Apart from the lectures, the programmes include nine plenary sessions, eight panel sessions, 14 concurrent sectional sessions in various science disciplines, and oral and poster sessions.

The recommendations of the Congress will be submitted to various science departments and ministries for incorporation and implementation in the forthcoming Five Year Plan.