While Mysore University is nearing its centenary, its post-graduate centre began its golden jubilee celebrations.
It was in 1916, the then Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV established the first university in his princely state of Mysore and the sixth in India. Some 45 years later, its post-graduate departments moved into a spacious 300-acre land, after the university purchased the Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion, a palace built for the kin of the royal family, for Rs 1 lakh and later named it ‘Manasa Gangotri’ which today boasts of 52 P-G departments and institutions.
The inauguration of the year-long ‘Suvarna Manasa’ jubilee also marked the inauguration of a week-long academic exhibiton by its 42 departments and eight other institutions, the third conference of the Karnataka State Science & Technology Academy, academy award for well-known agricultural scientist Dwarakanath, and open public access catalogue of the university library where those interested can browse through the books in the library.
Inaugurating the jubilee expo, minister for science & technology Krishna Palemar said the government had taken up schemes to expand S&T in the state. Among them was a regional S&T centre in Mysore work on which Work will start soon, two regional centres at Dharwad and Mangalore, with the Centre and state splitting the Rs 85 crore cost equally, 10 district-level sub-centres for which Centre’s approval was expected, a planetarium at Mangalore costing Rs 15.5 crore and an observatory at Nandi Hills.
Stressing on the research and conservation of bio-diversity, he cited the number of medicinal plants that had fallen to 1,200 from 4,800 in the Western Ghats. In order to save some of them from extinction, the Forest Department had taken up cultivation of 2,320 varieties of plants.
They included a plant which had curative quality for blood cancer.
District in-charge minister A S Ramadas said at the recent conference on ayurveda in Bangalore, in which 30 countries had participated, 18 had come forward to sign MoU.
Offering 35 acres opposite the Lalitha Mahal Palace, he suggested to the university to set up a children’s science park to mark the Manasa Gangotri golden jubilee to develop children’s interest in science subjects. He also suggested a herbal garden at the Kukkarahalli tank area.
Delivering the lecture on ‘Globalisation: Opportunities and Challenges for S&T Development’ Academy Chairman U R Rao lamented that the data made available by satellites were not being used while planning programmes and schemes. “We are stuck in uitlising satellite data,” he said, pointing out issues like problems arising from the 70 per cent growth in larger cities and stagnated agricultural production at 350 million tonnes against rising population.
Saying that remote sensing can find solutions to such issues, Rao said, “Make sure remote sensing become an operational system. What we are seeing since 50 years will change in the next 50 years,” he said pointing out the challenges before the country.
Referring to global warming, the former ISRO chief said, “Though we are using coal abundantly for power generation, we do not have a coal research centre.”
