NORTH EAST: Fortress varsity set for meet
Posted by barunroy on January 3, 2009
FROM THE TELEGRAPH
Shillong, Jan. 2: For the Northeast, some things in life are absolute, like a proven scientific theory – life has to go on despite the bombs and the bullets.
The 96th Indian Science Congress will get under way here tomorrow as scheduled, with the hosts – North Eastern Hill University (Nehu) – confirming today that “there are no security concerns” after the serial blasts in Assam on New Year’s Day that left five dead and nearly 60 injured.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a Rajya Sabha MP from the Northeast, will inaugurate the science congress on the sprawling Nehu campus at Mawlai where a large pandal has been set up for the programme. The campus is around 20km from the heart of the city.
More than 3,500 delegates, both from India and abroad, will participate in the five-day congress, the biggest science congregation in the state till date.
But there could not have been a better place than Shillong – the erstwhile capital of undivided Assam – for the science conclave, bathed in mist and frost at this time of the year to provide a panoramic backdrop to the scientific minds to mix and discuss.
Nehu vice-chancellor and chairman of the organising committee Pramod Tandon told The Telegraph that yesterday’s serial explosions in Guwahati, around 85km away, “will have no effect on the participation of delegates from other parts of the country. There, is no problem as far as security is concerned”.
“We have made careful security arrangements to ensure that the conclave passes off peacefully,” Meghalaya chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee said this afternoon.
The inaugural function, to be attended by the Prime Minister, is only meant for delegates and the media because of security reasons. However, other sessions are open for the students and the public.
The Special Protection Group (SPG) personnel, who started pouring in three days ago, have already made different layers of security rings at the venue of the conference.
Besides state police, additional companies of central paramilitary forces will also be deployed.
While Nehu is the host, the Meghalaya government is taking care of the security arrangements.
A senior police official said that Singh will fly from Guwahati in a helicopter and land in Upper Shillong at 9.30am. From there his cavalcade will take the road to reach the conclave venue, a 30-minute drive.
Earlier, Singh was scheduled to arrive this evening. Police denied that the change in travel plans “has anything to do with the Assam blasts”.
He will return to Delhi via the same route after the inauguration at 10am.
Security concerns, after the Mumbai blasts, have already led at least five Nobel laureates from abroad to withdraw from the conclave. However, delegates from the US, China, Japan, Germany and Bangladesh have “already arrived for the conclave,” Tandon said. Other prominent personalities who will address the conclave include former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, space scientist M.G.K. Menon, “the father of the green revolution” M.S. Swaminathan and Chandrayaan scientist G. Madhavan Nair.
The theme of the 96th Science Congress is Science Education and Attraction of Talent for Excellence in Research.
