97th INDIAN science congress

97th INDIAN science congress


Prime Minister Manohan singh on Sunday 3rd January, 2010 inaugurated the 97 th annual session of the Indian science congress. Prime minister said that though very limited progress was made at the recent climate change summit at Copenhagen. The fact remained that the world had to move to a low green house gas emissions, and energy efficient development path. India should not lag behind in developing science and technology related to both the aspects of mitigation and adaptation. Dr singh said climate change is a problem that is challenging the knowledge and wisdom of human kind. India had been decided to launch a national solar mission for establishment of 20000 MW solar generation capacity by 2020. the ministry of science and technology has already launched research programes to being down the costs of solar energy technology options.
The prime minister also high lighted the need for strengthening food security,particularly in the context of climate change through more research, He said the country should pursue leads that biotechnology offered to increase crop productivity
Dr Kasturirangan said that India can utilize climate change and global economic crisis as opportunities to forge research alliances and secure a leadership position in the research and development (R &D ) sector.
Dr Kasturirangan stressed the need to provide science and technology inputs in select areas such as solar energy research in the 12 th five year plan. He called for engaging the public and private sectors in R & D activities and providing business models for growth. Tem work and partner ship should emerge out of the strategy”
He emphasized the importance of balancing discovery science that essentially worked towards securing a leadership position for India with solution science that contributed to the improvement of living standards by solving socially relevant problems, such as food, water and energy security, public health and hygiene,migration of talent and excessive urbanization
Dr Kasturirangan said the inadequate linkage among the academic, research and industrial sectors, an aging institutional frame work and
S & T man power base weak innovation ecosystems and poor couping between technology and trade were major challenges.
Dr M.S Swaminathan, agricultural scientist, who spoke on “sustainable food security in the era of climate change' warned that the rain-fed wheat yield in India could decline by 44 percent in the yer 2050 if adaptation measures were not taken.
As much as 50 percent of Indians wheat- growing area may be classified as heat stressed, lower potential areas, for every one degree Celsius rise in mean temperature, the wheat loss is estimated to be of the order of six million tonnes per year.
Dr Swaminathan said food and water security would be the greatest
victims of climate change. Community based , systems such as gene bank, seed bank, grain bank and common water resources would help to tide over the problem. M.S swaminathan Research Foundation had launched a project to conserve 105 threatened plant species. H e said climate risk managements research should focus a on alternative cropping strategies and seed reserves as well as market pricing .Farmers should be assured of remunerative prices.

Prof. John Kurakar