The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Month-long science festival from July 1

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Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
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Month-long science festival from July 1

T.S. Ranganna

Siraj Hassan will inaugurate the festival
Eminent scientists to be invited to deliver lectures

BANGALORE: The knowledge capital of the country is hosting a month-long science festival commencing from July 1.

Invitations will go out to illustrious scientists from India and abroad to give lectures on current issues ranging from astronomy, astrophysics, medicine, climate change, space missions, nanotechnology, nuclear energy and application of computer science for setting up social networks.

Speaking to The Hindu, Bangalore Science Forum president A.H. Rama Rao said that this was the 32nd science festival.

It would be inaugurated by Siraj Hasan, director of Indian Institute of Astrophysics, followed by his lecture on “New windows on the mysteries of the Sun”.

He said Prof. Hasan was chosen because 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy when Indian Space Research Organisation had achieved great strides, including its preparations to go to the moon. Three other experts S.K. Shivakumar, Telemetry Tracking and Command Network, ISRO; S.V. Subramanyam, former professor, IISc.; and H.R. Ramakrishna Rao, professor in physics in Christ University; would speak on Chandrayan-1 and Galileo and new science, respectively.

The forum, brainchild of late H. Narasimhiah, who strained every nerve to spread scientific temper among his students, had bagged the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru National Prize and National Award by the Union Ministry of Science and Technology for popularising science.

It organises a lecture or film show on science every Wednesday and 2,277 lectures and 627 film shows had been exhibited at the forum in 32 years.

Since its inception, not a single Wednesday has passed without a programme being held, according to S. Sitharama Iyengar, chairman, Department of Computer Science, Louisiana State University.

Dr. Iyengar will be delivering a lecture on “science and cyber tools” on July 3.

Nobel laureates such as Dorothy Hadgkins (crystallography), Sir C.V. Raman, nuclear scientist and former Union Minister Raja Ramanna, M.G.K. Menon, M.S. Swaminathan, the then Atomic Energy Commission Chairman R. Chidambaram, former ISRO Chairmen such as U.R. Rao, K. Kasturirangan and Madhavan Nair, C.N.R. Rao, R. Narasimha, H.N. Mahabala, Founder President of the Computer Society of India, Siddiqui and Yashpal, educationist were a few prominent persons, who enthralled the intelligentsia for more than three decades.

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