The Hindu in association with FIITJEE organised a student awareness programme at the Navy Children School here on Thursday. As many as 450 students participated in two sessions.
Addressing the students, NSTL scientist Krishna Kumar reminded the students of the rich cultural heritage of India while focussing on the scientific inventions of the Indian scientists and that of the scientific community of the western nations.
Students should have a scientific concept of life and should have an observing mind to make new inventions. The ability to question and think would improve the thought process and result in scientific inventions. Several scientific inventions were made in the western countries after years of observation of sea, air, and land species. The scientists were able to mimic some of the qualities and invent technology and gadgets based on the way the species live and work. Aeroplanes and automobiles were products of such observations of motion of animals, he said.
The NSTL scientist drew a parallel between Indian scientists and western scientists saying that inventions and observations of Indian scientists failed to get the attention and publicity they deserved, even though observations like ‘the earth is round in shape’ were made much earlier than the western scientists. He pointed out that for every western invention there was an Indian parallel but the latter’s achievements could not be effectively focussed.
He hoped that Indian students would rise to the level of winning a Nobel Prize for which keen observation and not education was the criterion. He gave a power-point presentation on the career opportunities for emerging as scientists, engineers, and technocrats.
Heavy competition
FIITJEE centre head Gurunadh spoke on students inculcating a scientific bent of mind and on the level of competition at the national level, thus narrowing down the scope of becoming achievers to only a handful of people. He said that the best IIT of the country at the national capital was ranked 128th internationally. This speaks of the magnitude of competition the students were being subjected to, he added.
Earlier, The Hindu senior deputy regional manager A. Seshagiri Rao in his welcome address stated that the aim of the awareness programme was to give students more exposure to knowledge and to resource persons who could guide the students to decide their career while studying in high school itself.
Navy school principal Nikhita Thomar and vice-principal Vijaya Lakshmi and NSTL Joint Director Prasanna Kumar were present.
