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.