Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) celebrated its 79th Foundation Day at S S Bhatnagar Sabhaghar on its premises here on September 26, 2020. Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Health and Family Welfare Minister and Vice President, CSIR, presided over the event.
In view of the Covid-19 pandemic while the physical event was small gathering with appropriate social distancing, Dr Shekhar C Mande, DG, CSIR & Secretary, DSIR (Department for Scientific & Industrial Research), A Chakraborty, Head, HRDG, and all CSIR labs and several others joined the event through various social media platforms.
The Minister appreciated the work done by entire CSIR during this current Covid-19 crisis. He said the CSIR labs have risen to the occasion and delivered diagnostics, drugs and ventilators among many others. Dr Vardhan also released a digital book and a short film on the CSIR’s COVID-19 efforts, which highlighted the people behind the various initiatives of CSIR in its fight against Covid-19.
On the occasion, various CSIR Awards were announced virtually, including CSIR Innovation Awards for School Children-2020, CSIR Young Scientist Awards-2020, CSIR Technology Awards-2020, CSIR Award for S &T Innovation for Rural Development (CAIRD) – 2017, 2018, 2019, CSIR Diamond Jubilee Technology Award -2019, and G N Ramachandran Gold Medal for Excellence in Biological S&T-2020. Finally DG-CSIR Dr Shekhar Mande announced the winners of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards 2020.
In his address, Dr Vardhan stated that the pandemic posed unprecedented difficulties and some extreme challenges, and expressed happiness that CSIR converted challenges into opportunities and for the first time in its history, all the laboratories of CSIR pooled their strengths, focussed their energies on one problem at hand, the COVID-19. “The 5-verticals approach of CSIR that brought about inclusivity among all the labs, irrespective of the specialisation of the lab resulted in the creation of the 100 odd technologies that the CSIR labs came up with,” he added.
The Minister noted, “Be it drugs, vaccine, testing, sequencing, PPEs, hospital assistive devices, masks, sanitisers, disinfection systems, CSIR came up with quick and innovative solutions.” He pointed out that “CSIR’s CCCMB was among the first labs to not only initiate testing in the country, but the Centre also trained a number of medical professionals to carry out the testing. “Today, as you are aware testing counts have exponentially increased in the country,” he said, according to a PIB release.
To enable farmers transport and sell their produce without the help of middlemen, CSIR developed the hugely successful Kisan Sabha app and later the AarogyaPath App.The Minister said, “CSIR has been the organisation that has always responded whenever the nation looked up to it in challenging situations. It has happened in the past and the rapid responsiveness has been ably demonstrated in the recent times as well.”
Dr Vardhan urged CSIR to brainstorm and come up with roadmap and strategy for achieving ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ through S&T. He expressed happiness to see the innovativeness of the young school students and complimented all the Young Scientist Awardees, Technology Award Winners, CAIRD award winners.
Dr Mande, in his address, highlighted that in March, CSIR identified the unmet needs, assessed its strengths and capabilities for addressing the pandemic and adopted a multi-pronged strategy of working on diagnostics, surveillance, drugs, hospital assistive devices, personal protective equipment and supply chain and logistics. This strategy is now beginning to yield exciting solutions.