Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

Second day of 13th Punjab Science congress

Date of Submission: 2010-02-08 20:07:10

CHANDIGARH- February 08, 2010: The second day of 13th Punjab Science Congress started with a very intellectual and vibrant talk of Prof. S. S. Johl, who is a renowned agriculture economist and President of Indian Society of Agricultural Economics. In his 30 minutes talk in jam-packed auditorium of Panjab University, he stressed upon organic farming, reduced use of chemicals in agriculture and novel environment friendly methods of farming. In his talk, he compared the farming in China and India and stated that organic farming is a prevalent method of agriculture in China and due to high organic carbon content in soils fertilizers prove more efficient and less harmful there. In the scenario of changing climate and day by day lowering water table of Punjab and Haryana he insisted on aerobic farming of paddy in which less water is required and paddy can also be grown with poplars. He told the eminent delegates that the growth of poplars is observed 25% more if it is grown with paddy, thus providing double benefit. On rising commodity prices he stated that no government can control the rising prices but the only solution is increasing the supplies. On the issue of Bt brinjal, he said that new technology should be welcomed but with precautions. He also told the audience that another kind of pollution prevalent in the country is political pollution and removing this is important of all and should be cleaned on priority basis. The second talk of the day was by Prof. S. S. Gill, Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot. His topic of discussion was “Climate Change and Medical Education: Preparing Medical Professionals for Climate Change”. He talked about the anthropogenic causes of climate change and the induced human health risks. He emphasized that the medical professionals should be made skillfully made competitive to deal with health risks due to changing environment, which will avert and reduce the serious effects of changing climate of health. After this Prof. R. C. Sobti, Vice-Chancellor of the host university gave a very informative and interactive talk about stem cells and their importance. His topic of talk was “Homing in stem cells: An overview”. He stated that stem cells are important because they are able to cure many deadly diseases including heart ailments. He highlighted the research work in the field of stem cells going on in Panjab University He admired the efforts of Dr. Sanjeev Puri in this field. Prof. Sobti and Dr. Puri also interacted with media after his talk. After lunch the technical sessions started at respective venues. Lead speakers of the A-1 (Agriculture & Environment) session was Prof. Inderjit Singh (Director, CMDE, University of Delhi, New Delhi). Session B (Applied Physics, Applied Chemistry, Sugar Technology, Food Technology and Textile Chemistry): Chemistry Auditorium The lead lecture was delivered by Dr. Samrat Mukhopadhaya, IISER, Mohali (Punjab) on “Single molecule biophysics approach to study protein folding and mis-folding”. Dr. A. Singla also delivered a talk on “Comparative study of stability constants and thermodynamic properties of complexation of linoleic acid and docosahexaenoic acid with divalent metal ions by potentiometry” followed by the oral presentation made by Ms. Ramanjit Kaur on “Differentiating phalaris minor from wheat crop through remote reming under natural field conditions”. Different posters were presented by the delegates on various fields such as Nanotechnology and its applications, Agriculture and Food Technology, Molecular Biology and Chemical Engineering. Both oral as well as poster presentations made by the different participants were highly informative and useful according to Dr. Paramjit Singh. Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh The Technical Session of Section-C which consists of Chemical, Mathematical and Physical Sciences under the Convenership of Prof. M.M. Gupta started on 7th February, 2010 at 3.00 p.m. with Prof. Rajpal Sharma of Dept. of Chemistry, Panjab University, Chandigarh delivering the lead lecture on “Anion Receptors with Particular reference to Cobalt (III) Anion Receptors. He highlighted the characterisitsics, preparation and easy methods to study the anion receptors. The use of these receptors in removing the toxicants were highlighted. Two oral presentations and 15 poster presentations in the field of Chemical, Mathematical and Physical Sciences were presented. Most of the posters highlighted the scientific principals involved in their application for applied technologies. Surfactants’ emulsions in colloidal chemistry and nanoscience were highlighted in few of the posters. On 8th February, 2010, Prof. K. Mahajan, Co-Convener opened the technical session with the lead lecture of Prof. A.N. Gill of Dept. of Statistics, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Prof. Gill spoke on two species growth models and their relevance to ecological systems. The oral presentation of Ms. Jaswinder Kaur dealt with GIS, Remote sensing techniques in the study of drainage system in and around Chandigarh. The dynamics of suspended particles in Elasto-viscuous fluids were discussed by Mr. Rajesh Gupta. 10 posters were presented according to Prof. M.M. Gupta. Chemical Engineering & Technology Lead Lecture was delivered by Dr. Pawan Kapur, Director, CSIO, on Carbon Conservation in Indian Sugar Industry and advocated requirements of advanced sensing, instrumentation and control methodologies for optimum production of sugar. He also discussed one case of study of sugar industry installed in U.P. Second lead lecture was delivered by Mr. Ashok Mehta on Entrepreneurship. The talk was about his success story and was on interactive and interesting session that inspired the young minds to use innovative skills and analytical capabilities. The third & last lead lecture was delivered by Mr. Sandeep Sharma from Indian Acrylic Ltd. on Energy Conservation in process industry. He concluded that energy conservation in process industry is of utmost importance. In oral presentations, delegates discussed in the areas of Green buildings to stop climate change, detection of soft errors in CAM, Multi function Radar Resource Management. In poster presentations five delegates presented their posters in the areas of CSE , ECE & IT. Lead lecture was delivered by Dr. Naveen Kumar on Modeling Mechanical Behavior of Nanoscale structures & materials and discussed the research areas in Nan technology. Five delegates presented their paper in the areas of N/W coding, image processing, routing protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks s/w automation and use of wavelets packet free in image processing. Posters were also presented by delegates in the fields of image compression, microwave technologies and focused web crawling according to Prof. V.K.Rattan, Chairperson, University Institute of Chem. Engg. & Technology. Press Note No.58