ESSO - Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services

Preamble:

India International Science Festival (IISF) 2020 is an annual event organized jointly by science & technology-related Ministries and Departments of the Government of India (DST, MoES, DBT, CSIR, ICMR) and Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA). IISF is a huge platform to bring together various stakeholders such as students, researchers, innovators, artists, and the general public to celebrate India's achievements in S&T. IISF is a conglomeration of the events successful in promoting the scientific temper among masses, mainly young scientists and students. This Mega Science Festival will be organized on virtual platform during 22-25 December, 2020. The theme for the IISF 2020 is Science for Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) and Global Welfare. Due to the restrictions on public gatherings because of the ongoing pandemic, the IISF 2020 will be organized on virtual platform.

Honorable Union Minister of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the Curtain Raiser Ceremony of the 6th edition of IISF-2020 on 17^th November 2020.

As part of promotional activities of IISF 2020 Vigyan Yatra is being organized, during 30^th November to 21^st December 2020, starting from Northern (Jammu - Palampur - Jalandhar - Chandigargh - Dehradun - Kurukshetra - Hisar), Southern (Thiruvanathapuram - Kochi - Coimabatore - Chennai - Benglaluru - Goa - Hyderabad - Vishakhapattanam - Nagpur - Jabalpur), Eastern (Guwahati - Gangtok - Kolkata - Bhubaneswar - Dhanbad - Nalanda - Varanasi - Lucknow) and Western (Mumbai - Pune - Ahembadabad - Indore - Bhopal - Jaipur) part of India to New Delhi.

Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt. of India will be conducting one day event on 13^th December 2020 as a part of Vigyan Yatra. The event will be organized in association with VIBHA - Telangana chapter.

Event Details:

The Vigyan Yatra of IIFS 2020 at Hyderabad will have three activities such as a popular science talk, a virtual tour of INCOIS and Science-Expo under the theme "Science for Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) and Global Welfare".

The popular science talk will be delivered by an eminent Indian scientist. INCOIS often conducts open-day event for students, which this year could not be conducted due to pandemic situation. The "Virtual INCOIS Tour" will be the step to overcome the social distancing limitations, and showcase activities carried out by INCOIS including Services, Instrumentation, Laboratories and Computational facilities. The "Science-Expo" is for the school students from class VIII to XII. The students will present their science project in the form of a (hard copy or digital) 3-D model or a sketch on the chart relevant to the theme "Science for Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) and Global Welfare". These participants will make a 2-3 min video explaining the project and describing the relevance/importance of the idea with regard to the theme. The projects will be showcased during the 'Vigyan Yatra' event.

The event will be organized virtually using Microsoft TeamsTM and also broadcasted live at (https://incois.gov.in/Live/).

Program and Participants:

The Director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) will host the event along with Directors of CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (CSIR-NGRI), National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB), International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI) and dignitaries from Vijnana Bharathi (VIBHA) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) and Former Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) will be delivering a science talk. In addition, the audience will be attending the live event through INCOIS Website (https://incois.gov.in/Live/). This will be followed by the programs of respective institutes in parallel.

Schedule: