tiol Children Science Congress begins

FROM A CORRESPONDENT

JORHAT, Oct 31: Minister of State for Fisheries and Water Resources Basanta Das on Friday formally iugurated the ongoing 23rd tiol Children’s Science Congress being held from 29 October till 1 November at the Jawahar vodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) in Titabor in the presence of a large number of participating students from various schools across Assam. The programme is a initiative of the tiol Council for Science and Technology Communications, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and the State Level Children’s Science Congress Assam organized by the Assam Science Technology and Environment Council (ASTEC) Guwahati in association with the Jorhat District administration and District Organizing Committee NCSC, Jorhat.

Addressing the students, Minister Basanta Das stressed on the importance of understanding ture and the need to study climatic changes and urged the students especially the child scientist to develop, innovate and research on the implications of the tremendous climatic and environmental changes that have been affecting human lives while giving a live example of floods, erosion and active deforestation.

“I love children and that’s why when I was directed to do the iuguration of the science congress on behalf of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, I could not resist the idea and came all the way to meet young and inspiring minds. I did matriculation in the year 1987 and that was the last year of science in my life. Today I come here to inspire the young scientist to develop interest on the studies related to environmental changes. Being a water resource minister, I have understood that it’s only us, the human beings who are responsible for this drastic climate change. The felling of trees for 4 lane road construction, the filling up of Khal’s, Dubi, Doobas in the wake of migration of the rural population to the urban sector, growth of population are some of the reasons for this change. Assam is mainly dependent on two rivers mely the Brahmaputra and the Barak and that continuous erosion have cost Assam to lose a sizeable volume of land that has gone down to the river bed. Even after constructing thousands of kilometers of embankments we have failed to contain floods. Excessive rainfall of 20% more than the average this year in June resulted in artificial water logging in Jorhat and worst case scerio was with Dibrugarh that had to remain submerged for days and without electricity. Every person whether I, the people, the professiol and technical people, jourlists and the students have a role to play in bring out renewed ideas to safeguard our environment for our present and our future generations. And I believe the young sparking minds will definitely show us a way” said the Minister.

On a one to one session students of various schools displayed their projects and presented their thesis through an open discussion with the jury members and other students. Notably Progyasree Borthakur a student of class 9, Sankardev Sishu Niketan, Dergaon presented a wonderful presentation on the effect of oily materials vapour on weather and climate using kitchen while Debarshish Das a class 7 student of the Sankardev Sishu Vidya Niketan, rayanpur of North Lakhimpur gave a detail impression through chart presentation on the subject of rise in temperature, shortage of rainfall in the last 34 years in Lakhimpur, population explosion and increase in vehicular emissions. While Progyasree Borthakur aims to be an aeroutical engineer, Debarshish wants to earn a me as a scientist.

Also present in the iugural function were the Deputy Commissioner Jorhat, Solanki Vishal Vasant, ASCTEC Director Dr, A.K Mishra, Principal JNV Binod Kumar, Chairman of the Thengal Kachari Autonomous Council Kumud Kachari and a host of others who kept their scientific views in front of the students.