The eighth edition of the Indian Youth Science Congress, being hosted for the first time by Mumbai University, saw 500 students from across the country submit research papers. Giving them and other young science enthusiasts invaluable tips in a video-recorded keynote address, eminent scientist M.S. Swaminathan said the two main challenges for the scientific community are malnutrition and climate change and its repercussions.
Mr. Swaminathan, 91, who was unable to attend the Science Congress due to ill-health, said in his address that “our own action or inaction will determine where we go”. He also stressed on the need to fight deficiencies in vital elements like iron, zinc, proteins in nutrition.
The three-day event at MU’s Kalina campus had ‘Food for All in the Anthropocene Era’ as its theme, and was jointly organised by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, SRM University and the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development. While the Youth Science Congress is meant to give students a perspective of the future, chief guest and retired oceanographer Arvind Untawale urged them to study the past which, he said, held keys to many subjects like archaeology, agriculture, astronomy and metallurgy. He said studying shlokas in the Vedas would help unlock scientific mysteries on many subjects.
