National Technology Day celebrate at CSIO

National Technology Day celebrate at CSIO

Vinay Kumar

Chandigarh

May 11, 2018

Central Scientific Instruments Organisation celebrated "National Technology Day" today by holding an OPEN DAY and organizing National Technology Day Lecture. All the labs of CSIO were kept open for general public in the forenoon. Many visitors including students from various schools, colleges, universities and general public went around the laboratories of the institute. They interacted with the scientists and were given exposure to the technologies available & being pursued at CSIO.

A new facility of “Precision Optics Laboratory” was inaugurated by Padma Bhushan Dr. T. Ramasami, Former Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. With this laboratory it will be possible to develop space saving integrated optics instruments for the armed forces and the strategic sector. In recent past CSIO has equipped itself with contemporary optical fabrication facilities such as CNC optical grinding and polishing machines, two and three axis diamond turning machines, magneto-rheological finishing machine, etc which will be useful for fabrication of spherical, aspheric, off-axis, freeform and diffractive optical components for defence technologies.

Later in the afternoon Padma Bhushan Dr. T. Ramasami, Former Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India delivered the National Technology Day Lecture on “Enculturing Technology in Low Resource Setting: A Paradigm for Sustainable Future”. He said that the world view of technology as a driver of national economic development is leading to multiplicity of investments into Research and Development by Nation states. He emphasized that the prevailing culture of research and development in search of technology is built on the principle of Competitive Excellence. Currently used models of high resource intensity for research and development are not sustainable for future of the world. He said that technologies backed by large sizes of capitals by pass the affordability of people in low resource setting and such technologies inadvertently play the roles of economic and development dividers and contribute to global divides. He highlighted that a new paradigm for sustainable future of the world calls for enculturing technology space with Triple Bottom lines of Society, Economics and Environment. He was of the view that alternate models built on the three principles of societal relevance; long term sustenance and collaborative excellence are needs to the time. Culture of development and deployment of technologies needs to take into account that more than 60% of the world resides in low resource setting and that the current resource intense models of R&D are failing to serve their needs technology-led development. He emphasized that India with an established R&D infrastructure, low expertise costs and ability to create affordable innovations is in ideal and unique position to provide an alternative model for serving the of technology needs to more than 60% of the world. He said that a call would be made for enculturing global technology space with an alternate India-Inspired model built on the strength of Triple Bottom Line of Society, Economics and Environment on the Technology Day of 2018.

Prior to this Prof. R. K. Sinha, Director, CSIO welcomed the chief guest and said that National Technology Day is celebrated in India on May 11 every year to mark the Indian technological advancement in order to commemorate the history of India's technological capability and expertise. On this particular day, India achieved a huge technological progression. The first, indigenous aircraft Hansa-3 was test flown from Bangalore. India performed successful test firing of the Trishul missile on the same day and also executed three successful nuclear tests, carried out at Pokhran, in Rajasthan. He said that he hoped to provide many more technological solutions for societal and strategic applications. He said that there is a well chalked out plan to keep the pace of development of new technology and its integration with the existing system and new knowledge creation.