108th INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS (ISC-2023, NAGPUR)
Indian Science Congress is a yearly event organized by Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), Kolkata. The 108th Indian Science Congress was held at Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Nagpur, Maharashtra from January 3-7, 2023 with the focal theme,‘Science and Technology for Sustainable Development with Women Empowerment’. Students, Professors, Research scholars and Scientists from multi-disciplinary sciences all over India and abroad attended this five-day event. On behalf of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, 7 Masters Students and 5 Doctoral students from Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (CPMB&B) attended the congress and presented their research work as 8 posters under the theme Agriculture and Forestry Sciences. The event was virtually inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Jan 3. In his inaugural address, he emphasized the necessity to focus on issues that are crucial for humanity. As 2023 is declared as the International year of millets, he pointed out the improvement of India’s millet varieties and strategies to reduce post-harvest losses with the help of biotechnology. He added that, Science in India should make the country self-reliant and also mentioned about doubling the participation of women in the field of research and development. Topics including space, defense, health, biotechnology, quantum communication, and start-ups were discussed in the inaugural programme. Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari and the Governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde, Vice Chancellor of Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Dr. Subhash R. Chaudhari, and General President of Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), Kolkata, Dr. Vijay Laxmi Saxena were also present at the inaugural event. The first plenary session was held in the first day afternoon on the title ‘India at 2030- Science and Technology- challenges and opportunities. Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences gave a talk on blue economy, blue biotechnology and deep ocean mission. Dr. Alka Sharma, Senior Advisor, DBT and Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Secretary, DST, delivered speech.
Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, Director General of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), gave an insightful talk on various challenges and opportunities for the scientific community and people in the areas of healthcare, energy, environment, food and nutrition, Industry 4.0, ease of doing science and attracting and retaining talents in India. She also briefed about CSIR’s technology vision 2030. The 108th Indian Science Congress technical sessions have been divided into 14 sections such as Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Animal, Veterinary, Fishery Sciences, New Biology, Plant Sciences, with parallel sessions taking place at various locations in the University campus. In addition to this, Women’s Science Congress, Farmers’ Science Congress, Children’s Science Congress, Tribal science Congress and Science Communicators’ Congress were also organized. On the second day, for the First time in India, Tribal Science Congress was inaugurated.
Tribal arts, handicrafts, tribal traditional medicines were exhibited in this congress. The main attraction of the event is the Pride of India Expo, which furnished the cutting edge technology developed by various government and non-governmental research institutes in area of healthcare, defense, agriculture, engineering, food technology. New emerging ideas and proposal to Government of India were stalled as models. Stalls by various CSIR institutes, ICAR, ICMR and DRDO were found fascinating. Tributes paid to Indian women scientists by exhibiting a separate section which portrayed the great women scientists of India along with their achievements and contribution in the various fields of science. Cultural events were organized at the end of the day that showcased the traditions of Maharashtra. We explored and gained knowledge on multi-disciplinary science by attending many endowment lecture, oral and poster presentations. Overall, ISC 2023 has given much emphasis for exploring and exploiting the potential of indigenous knowledge of India.