107th Indian Science Congress Begins Today in Bengaluru

Bengaluru is hosting the 107th Indian Science Congress (ISC) for five days. It started today and will go on till Tuesday, 7 January 2020. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the summit.

The theme of the event is "Science and Technology for Rural Development", as an agriculture university is holding the event, the focal theme of the congress. It aims to bridge the gap between urban and rural India and improving the quality of farmers' life through science and technology.

Around 10,000 delegates, including students, academicians, researchers, keynote speakers, experts and policymakers are participating in the congress from India and 35 countries worldwide.

The national jamboree will cover 14 sectors in contemporary science, with concurrent sub-events like Women's Science Congress, Children's Science Congress, Science Communicators; Meet and Farmer's Science Congress.

For the first time in the history of ISC, there will also be a Farmers Science Congress on January 6. It will provide a forum to discuss farmer's innovation, entrepreneurship for doubling their income, climate change, biodiversity, conservation, agrarian distress, rural bio-entrepreneurship, policy issues, and more.

There will also be the Pride of India (PIO) ISC Expo, a science exhibition where organisations from the government, private or public sector can showcase new ideas, innovations and products from the field of science and technology.

The public lectures will be held on January 3-4 at the international convention centre on the campus. Nobel Laureate Stefan Walter Hell from Gottingen in Germany will deliver the first lecture on "Ultrasharp Fluorescence Microscopy", followed by a talk on "Science Across Disciplines and Some Consequences for Industry 4.0" by Subra Suresh, an India-born American scientist. Subra Suresh was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.

On January 4, the third lecture will be on "From basic science to an acute problem of modern medicine" by Nobel Laureate Ada E. Yonath, an Israeli scientist from Jerusalem. She was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Indian-born American physicist and molecular biologist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and American biophysicist and biochemist Thomas Steitz in 2009.

The fourth lecture will be delivered by eminent Indian cardiologist C.N. Manjunath, Director of the state-run Jayadeva Hospital in Bengaluru on "Lifestyle diseases and Recent advances in Cardiac Sciences".

SC President K.S. Rangappa said, "About 15,000 delegates, including 2 Nobel Laureates and eminent scientists from across India and abroad are set to attend the Science Congress from January 3-7 in the University Of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), which is hosting the annual event. This is the third time Bengaluru is hosting the science congress after 2002 and 1987. Modi inaugurated the 103rd session at Mysuru in the southern state on January 3, 2016."