The seminar was divided into five sessions.
Session 1 discussed the theme - Running Science Journals for the
Interested Non-expert/ Student. The speakers were Sunita Narain
(Down to Earth), Prof. N. Mukanda (Current Science) and Parvinder
Chawla (Science Reporter). Session 2 was highlighted by Subhadra
Menon (Tata Energy Research Institute) and R. Shankar (New Indian
Express) as speakers on the theme - Presenting Science in Popular
Press. The theme of session 3 was - Presenting Science in Audio
Visual Media and the speaker was Dr. Man Mohan Chaudhari of the
‘Turning Point’ fame. The session 4 discussed ‘Indian Science in the
Popular Press’. The speakers in this session were Dr. Subbiah
Arunachalam (M S Swaminathan Research Foundation), Pallav Bagla
(Science), Dr. Nirupa Sen (Current Science) and Dr. Manoj Patairiya
(IJSC).
In conjuction with the
seminar, INSA had organised three prestigious lectures on previous
days. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal (2001) Lecture was delivered
on ‘On Putting Life into Gels’ by Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Director
General, CSIR on August 3. INSA Golden Jubilee Research
Professorship Lecture on ‘A View of Transition Metal Chemistry’ was
delivered by Prof. A Chakravorty, on August 4. Finally, The Jawahar
Lal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture on ‘The Progressive Decline of
Anthropocentricism in Cosmology’ was delivered by Prof. Ramanath
Cowsik, Director, Indian Institute of Atrophysics Banglore on August
5.
Media Fellowship Award
Indian Renewable Energy
Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA) recently announced its media
fellowships awards for young and mid career journalists/ writers to
provide exposure to them on various aspects of energy. The
fellowships are to allow them to take time off from their routine to
research and publish indepth articles on issues concerning non
conventional and renewable sources of energy, conservation and
energy efficiency, that needs to be high on national agenda.
The fellowships have been
awarded to Manoj Patairiya and K A Badrinath in the senior category
for Hindi and English respectively and Chandra Prakash and Sunanda
Sanganeria in the junior category respectively for Hindi and English
languages. The fellows are required to publish articles in the
languages in which they are awarded fellowships. This fellowship
programme has been recently instituted to facilitate the process of
sensitisation to development and policy issues in the above areas
among media professionals and also strengthen public opinion
regarding the positive measures to support people and industry
centred renewable energy technology development.
