IISc Alumina Association (IIScAA) Science Forum – Popular Lecture Series

To enhance the scientific temperament amongst the community at large and inspire young aspirants in particular, IIScAA Science Forum – Popular Lecture Series was launched today at the Faculty Hall at IISc campus. It was hoped to promote the quality of the dialogue on the new roles and challenges of scientific knowledge within today’s global society. 

IIScAA Science Forum would be disseminating the emerging frontiers of Science & Technology globally to the society, along with history & philosophy, discoveries, inventions, revolutions, limitations, use & abuse of Science & Technology and the impact of Science & Technology on society. The IIScAA Science Forum will also share with the society the contribution of IISc in Science & Technology by arranging Lectures by eminent scientists of repute from IISc & outside. 

To meet these objectives, regular monthly invited Lectures are being organized. The speakers will include eminent personalities both from IISc and persons of national importance. IISc. Alumni Association felt that conducting such regular monthly Lectures by eminent Scientists / Technologists will go a long way in augmenting the cause of scientific temper. 

Dr. V. K. Aatre, Former Scientific Advisor to the Defense Minister, moderated the meeting and the discussions there after. Dr. Aatre is currently a Visiting Professor at Indian Institute of Science and Senior Advisor to IISc Alumni Association. Dr. Aatre emphasized the fact that responsibility of educating the general public about Science and technology was with the IISc. IISc shoulders the responsibility of not only promoting Science and technology but also needs to show case it to the public at large. To days lecture was the inaugural one. 

The Inaugural Lecture in this series was delivered to day by Dr. K. Radhakrishnan Secretary, Department of Space & Chairman, ISRO on “ISRO SAGA FORWARD" at the Faculty Hall, IISc, Bangalore. 

Prof Satish Dhavan was the first Chairman Of ISRO and Dr. Radhakrishnan was the last student of the Prof at IISc when Dhavan left the IISc. 

The next two hours were captivating with the chairman’s talk. The lecture covered with lucid  talk with informative presentation slides. He talked about the ISRO space facility at Srhari kota with the basic launch pad and the various launches pertaining to SLV to GSLV. 

In short one could see the Indian Space program was mainly to exploit the planets resources from close vicinity space observations rather than manned space flights. The credit should go to Prof Dhavan’s vision. As manned flights is order of magnitude tougher and would cost astronomical figure expenditures. The credit of discovery of Water on moon surface goes rightly to ISRO. This is an ample demonstration of the vision and superiority of the Indian program. The chairman talk made it clear that slow and steady wins the race. He said that Mars was their next venture by 2012.