Theme of the Congress -‘Science & Technology: Rural Development’

The 107th session of Indian Science Congress, was held in January, 3 – 7, 2020 at University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. Nobel laureates, scientific luminaries, policy makers, scholars and academicians from India and many countries across the world participated in this Congress. Dr. Sashikala Chandrasekar, Chair, SC RH represented the ICOH Scientific Committee on Rural Health in the Congress.

Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi inaugurated the Congress and urged the young scientists to work for rural development. Experts from different agriculture sectors discussed on the themes – Farmers innovation on integrated agriculture and entrepreneurship for doubling farmers income; Climate change, bio-diversity, conservation, ecosystem services; farmers empowerment, Agrarian distress and rural bio-entrepreneurship. Farmers were encouraged to practice organic farming to reduce the ill effects of    agro chemicals and pesticides. Development of different types of organic farming systems in niche areas was also announced.

The main objective of the summit was to bridge the gap between farmers and tech-developers and innovators. It had a special focus on rural development through science and technology. The innovations, technology & devices which were in display in the scientific exhibition will improve the quality of Occupational Health and Safety of rural workers. The role of IT enabled technology, Geo tagging and data science in the timely completion of several rural and urban projects was highlighted. Besides this, digitization, advent of e-commerce, internet and mobile banking has played a huge role in the rural development in the recent days.