Press Release (April 23, 2022)
“The JNCASR: Its Conception, Present Status & Impact” is the title of a lecture delivered by Prof. G. U. Kulkarni, President of JNCASR, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru. This was the thirteenth Lecture of the Web-series: Institution Building and Nurturing Initiatives in Independent India The Society for Promotion of Science & Technology in India (SPSTI) in association with Chandigarh Chapter of the NASI and Chandigarh chapters of INSA & INYAS and Punjab Engineering College (PEC) (Deemed to be University), Chandigarh and with support from the Department of Science & Technology, Haryana. It started at 11.00 am on April 23, 2022 through online mode on Zoom and Facebook.
JNCASR, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research is a multidisciplinary research institute and a Deemed-to-be-University with a mandate to pursue and promote world-class research and training in the frontier areas of Science & Engineering. It came up (inaugurated 1995) as a brain-child of Bharat Ratna, Prof. C. N. R. Rao, who was then Govt. of India’s Science Policy Adviser. Dr. Rao has since been associated with it and nurturing it in many ways.
The Centre has many front-ranking modern areas of research such as advanced materials, neuroscience, energy, environment, etc. It has only about 55 faculty members and associates, post-doctoral fellows and visitors number around100. Besides Ph. D., the Centre, which is a deemed-to-be-university, grants M. Sc. In varuous areas. It has produced an impressive number of publications and patents, and its ranking is 813 on global scale, 8th in India by ‘Nature’ and NIRF Rank 11.
Prof. Giridhar U. Kulkarni, the currents president of the centre, with a beautiful presentation, using precious memories of pictures of campus expansion, silver jubilee, other achievements etc., delivered a very interesting lecture on (JNCASR) along with personal association with the institute about its conception, growth, courses, centres, trainings, research, faculties, students, industry connections, start-ups, extensions, activities, ranking achievements also. Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) was established in the year 1989 as an autonomous institution, by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, to commemorate the birth centenary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. The first Chairman of the Council of Management of JNCASR was Dr. Raja Ramanna, former chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, with Bharat Ratna Prof. C.N.R. Rao, as the founder President. In a short span of 32 years, JNCASR has received numerous accolades and recognitions at both national and international levels. The presentation covered the Centre’s development from its early years to the present days. As a world-renowned place for academics, its impact on basic research in the country and on technology development and in general, on society were be described with illustrative examples.
One of the key factors in the growth of scientific environment has been its nature-friendly and interaction-friendly spaces designed by the famous architect Charles Correa. Uniqueness of JNCASR lies in its ‘strong interactions’ – Theory with experiments, Biology and Chemistry with Physics, the Centre with Industry and National Labs, and with public through Science Outreach (the Educational Technology Unit, ETU, was established by Prof. C. N. R. Rao and is fondly guided by him and Indumati Rao).
At the veginning of the program, Prof. Satyajit Banerjee, IIT Kanpur introduced the Guest of Honor, Prof. Venugopal Achanta, Director CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi to the audience. Prof. Achanta in his address introduced NPL to all. CSIR-NPL is the custodian of National Standards and maintains the Indian Standard Time (IST). Prof. Suvankar Chakraverty, INST Mohali introduced the speaker of the day.
Also present on the occasion were Shri Dharam Vir, President, SPSTI, Keya Dharamvir, General Secretary, SPSTI., Prof. Arun K Grover, former Vice Chancellor of Panjab University, Vice President SPSTI, Rajni Bhalla, Joint Secy., SPSTI and many other eminent scientists. The session was much appreciated by the audience and followed with lively questions and discussion.