By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 15 Apr: CSIR IIP celebrated its Diamond Jubilee Anniversary by hosting a fully digital first of its kind Intra-Institutional Seminar session on 14 April. The seminar was hosted on a web-based platform due to the ongoing crisis of Covid-19. CSIR IIP was privileged to host the event on the birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna awardee Dr BR Ambedkar.
Dr Anjan Ray, Director, CSIR-IIP, initiated the event with a tribute to Dr BR Ambedkar and quoting some of his visionary thoughts. He congratulated all on the occasion and applauded the dedicated efforts of volunteers of CSIR-IIP in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Shekhar C Mande, Director General, CSIR, and Secretary, DSIR, greeted the CSIR-IIP family and delivered the opening talk on the Diamond Jubilee. Dr Mande recalled the dream of CSIR’s first Director General Dr SS Bhatnagar. He highlighted the importance of research and development in the Oil & Gas sector, both, in the upstream and downstream areas, especially for a developing nation like India. He appreciated the efforts of all the personnel of the institute for making it an institute of great repute. He appreciated CSIR-IIP’s contribution and breakthroughs and emphasised its contribution in waste management, agro-bioscience developments, and alternative fuels for a future moving away from conventional fossil fuel.
Dr Mande appreciated CSIR IIP’s initiative of setting up a COVID-19 testing facility in this most challenging time. He added that, for a high performing institute, the expectations were always high and IIP needed to match up to these.
Former Directors of CSIR IIP, Dr MO Garg, Dr RKrishna, Dr TSR Prasada Rao and Dr Sudhir Singhal also joined the web seminar.
The Intra-Institutional Seminar was conducted in two sessions and these were chaired by former Chief Scientists of CSIR IIP, Dr Arunava Dutta and Dr Shrikant Nanoti, respectively. The Young Scientists and research scholars from each of the research divisions of CSIR-IIP each made technical presentations on one of the research highlights of their divisions.
Dr MO Garg highlighted the importance of conducting research on industrial applications. He mentioned that almost all the refineries and petrochemical complexes in India have at least one CSIR IIP technology, process or product. He advised that scientists should target high value chemical and petrochemical compounds and develop economical ways to produce them to keep up this reputation.
Dr Sudhir Singhal, too, addressed the participants and encouraged all to work for the betterment of society, Institute and the Nation as a whole. He also stressed on the importance of technology commercialisation and industrial acceptance of developed products and processes.
Amar Jain, Chief Scientist, shared fond memories of his almost 40 years at the IIP and appreciated the efforts of all previous Directors and the present Director for their contributions. The seminar was attended by more than 120 participants including scientists, students and other staff, ex-employees as well as previous Directors and also the Institute’s Research Council members.
Director Dr Anjan Ray applauded Amar Jain for his contribution and declared the Institutional Seminar closed with extended thanks to all. Dr OP Khatri, Suryadev and Dr Anil Jain contributed to the success of the seminar.
