Dehradun: A five-day-long toppers' conclave was inaugurated by Uttarakhand Governor Dr K K Paul at Rajbhawan Dehradun in order to bring out excellence in various disciplines of higher education. The conclave was attended by 20 toppers of all government universities in Uttarakhand. The first session of the conclave was presided over by Prof A S Kiran Kumar, former Head of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), who addressed the students on the need of academic excellence in the pursuit of dispassionate research work. Meanwhile, Dr K K Paul said that a souvenir would be published on the academic debate that would take place in different sessions of this five-day-long conclave.
Addressing the press, Dr A S Kiran stressed on the need to save the glaciers of Uttarakhand which are fast receding over a decade. He said the work of monitoring the glaciers would be undertaken by ISRO as the task is entrusted to ISRO by Dr K K Paul. He further added that Uttarakhand has 968 glaciers and district Pithoragarh has largest number of glaciers found in any other district of Uttarakhand.
"Pithoragarh has 295 glaciers, while Uttarkashi 277 and Tehri district has the lowest number of glaciers that are merely 13." He said. On being asked about Mission Aditya's role in studying the coronagraph of the sun, he said to The Hawk correspondent that Aditya L1 spacecraft is supposed to be launched in 2019-2020. "Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and was planned to be launched in an 800 km low earth orbit. A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/ eclipses. Therefore, the Aditya-1 mission has now been revised to
"Aditya-L1 mission" and will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth," he elaborated. On this occasion, Dr Rajendra Dobhal, FNASc, and Director-General of Uttarakhand Council of Science and Technology (UCOST) also stressed on the need to conserve the shrinking glaciers. He said the USA has highly advanced technology to study the glaciers and India is trying to import those equipments from the US in order to make an intensive study on the glaciers so that they could be conserved. "Glacier outlines are mapped for the upper Bhagirathi and Saraswati/Alaknanda basins of the Garhwal Himalayas using Corona and Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite images acquired in 1968 and 2006 respectively. A subset of glaciers was also mapped using Landsat TM images acquired in 1990. Garhwal Himalayan glacier retreat rates are lower than previously reported. More recently (1990–2006), recession rates have reportedly increased," he reiterated. It is to be known here that Dr Rajendra Dobhal has published three research papers on the receding Garhwal glaciers.
Dr C S Nautiyal, Vice-Chancellor of Doon University said that technical knowledge would certainly facilitate productivity in every field. While lecturing on "technological innovation for prosperity of India" he declared that during the Second World War, Japan, India and China were economically on a similar plane, but today India is exhibiting better financial growth as we are technologically sound. By taming advance technologies, we can make india a prosperous country and that is not only the responsibility of scientists but also every citizen of our country".
Minister for Higher Education, Dhan Singh Rawat added that the President of India has consented to inaugurate Gyan Kumbh in Uttarakhand, in which 2200 academicians across the globe would participate. He also added that the condition of higher education has been improving since the BJP came to power in the state and that is why today upto 93 percent teachers regularly come to the colleges and regularly perform both academic and research work. The conclave was attended by Arvind Pandey, Minister for Education, Dr U S Rawat, Vice-Chancellor of Sri Dev Suman University, Dr A K Mishra, Vice-Chancellor Pantnagar university, Dr D K Nauriyal, Vice-chancellor Kumaun university and other academics from Uttarakhand.
---Prashant P Singh