NASI National Symposium concludes at KIIT-Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar, Dec 19: The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) Allahabad held its 85th Annual Session at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar and organized a National Symposium on ‘Marine and Freshwater Ecosystem for National Development’ recently. This prestigious meet was held in Odisha after a gap of 19 years.
It is a scientific and social responsibility to protect and conserve our productive ecosystems. Therefore, the basic idea of organising the Symposium was to bring out the trends in aquatic ecosystem conservation, restoration and management including the hydrological, biophysical aspects, peoples participation and the role of non-governmental, educational and the governmental organizations with a focus towards future research needs, said Prof. (Mrs.) Manju Sharma, former Secretary to the Govt. of India, DBT, New Delhi and Past President, NASI, during the inaugural function of the session and the symposium on December 6.
She further explained the role of ecosystem services in nation development which covers – Physical processes conditioning the Ecosystems along Indian coastline, Climate Change in Indian Ocean Perspective, Utilization of Marine Resources, Coral Microbiome, Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture in India, its Advances, Potential and Strategies for Future Development, Chilka Lake – Ecosystems and Ecological Services, Blue Revolution in Coastal states, and Anticipatory research for the benefit of Inland open water fisheries, etc. The Chief Guest in the inaugural function was Prof. P. N. Tandon, President, NBRC and medical scientist of world repute.
During three-day meet, there were several other important speakers as Dr. S. Ayyappan, DG,DARE & Secretary to the Govt. of India, Prof. S. K. Sopory, VC, JNU, New Delhi, Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary to the Govt. of India, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr S. R. Shetye, Vice-Chancellor, Goa University, Prof. Pramod Tandon, Chief Executive Officer, BIOTECH PARK, Lucknow, Prof. J. P. Khurana, Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Dr. P. K. Ghosh, Former Director, CSMCRI, Prof. Amit Ghosh, Formerly NASI Senior Scientist, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (ICMR), Dr. Subrata K. Das, Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar, Professor Asis Datta, Former Vice Chancellor, JNU, New Delhi, Dr Gurdeep Rastogi, ASM-IUSSTF Professor, Wetland Research & Training Centre Chilka Development Authority, Govt. of Odisha, Dr. C. R. Babu, Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystem CEMDE, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, Prof. Jitendra Pandey, Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Prof. Akhilesh K. Tyagi, President, NASI; Director, National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, Prof. U. C. Srivastava, Prof. Veena Tandon, General Secretaries of NASI, Prof. P. P. Mathur, VC, KIIT and other senior scientists of world repute.
Several awards were also given on this occasion, as NASI-Reliance Industries (four awards, each of Rs 2 Lacs) and NASI-Young Scientist (13 Awards, each of Rs 25 thousand) Awards, NASI-Swarna Jayanti Puraskars, etc. More than 500 young and senior scientist participated in the three days programme from all across the country. On the concluding day, about 400 students from about 23 schools attended a parallel programme (Children Science Meet) jointly organized by the Academy and KIIT. Students got the opportunity to interact one-to-one with the top level scientists.