"Climatic change taking place in India and other parts of the world poses a great challenge for us and we have to rise to the occasion to arrest the impact of climate change for the survival of mankind," said Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi at the launching of Paryavaran Monitoring, a network of school weather stations, on the occasion of Sastricas 2012, the first annual techno-cultural fest of NETES Institute of Technology & Science at Mirza on the outskirts of Guwahati city Saturday.
Speaking as chief guest, Chief Minister Gogoi said scientific temperament coupled with the right type of education and training can go a long way in tackling the problems posed by climatic change. “Science and technology has made lot of advancement. We have to make use of the latest technologies for solving our problems as well as raising our standard of living,” he added.
Underscoring the need for new innovative ideas and thinking, Gogoi said, “It is through new innovative ideas we can cope up with any problem and make the society a better place to live in.” In the same breath, Gogoi while appreciating the commendable work done by the students and faculty of NITS, Mirza in research and development activities announced an assistance of Rs 50 lakh for the institute for research work. Appreciating the innovations by the students of NIT, Mirza as well as other individuals, Gogoi said, “These innovations will definitely bring positive changes in society and we will be able to reap their benefits.” The Chief Minister, who later interacted with the inventors, announced Rs 1 lakh each from the Chief Minister’s fund.
The Chief Minister said that his government has given emphasis on technical education for creating a pool of skilled and semi-skilled workforce much in demand. “We will constitute a Council for Skilled Development. We have plans to set up an engineering and a medical college in every district. A model school in every block too,” he said. Gogoi said that though some quarters ridiculed his government for distributing blankets and mosquito nets, these schemes have brought about positive changes in health parameters. “There is objective behind every scheme. Distributing blankets and mosquito nets have not only brought down the death toll due to cold and malaria but also caused marked improvement in health indices leading to increase in productivity. These schemes are no political gimmickry but basic economics,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Principal of NITS Mirza, Dr. A.K. Baruwa, said that economic development and all-round progress of a nation depend largely on the quality of its professional and higher education system. “The academic systems need to blend the right philosophy, theory and practice and combine it with true innovations and thorough professionalism to be world class,” said Baruwa, adding that the institute has been working in that direction since its inception in 2009. Baruwa said Paryavaran Monitoring - a network of school weather stations – the institute’s latest pioneering concept would initially measure, collect and collate various local environmental parameters like temperature and humidity through 300 schools across the North East region. “Our institute will supply the necessary equipment to measure temperature and humidity to the participating schools absolutely free of cost. In the second phase equipment for measurement of rainfall and wind speed would be added followed by recording and transmitting sound level including that of thunderstorm,” he added.
The brain behind Paryavaran Monitoring, Dr AK Gogoi, who is the president of NETES, said the objective behind it is to create a network of local weather monitoring units at the same time facilitating school students to assemble, operate and maintain gadgets to monitor and transmit various weather parameters. “The long term educative project would be maintained by the participating schools and weather data would be uploaded by NITS Mirza through internet,” said Gogoi. AK Mishra, Secretary, NETES, said Paryavaran Monitoring is perhaps the only unique weather monitoring system of its kind that helps to record the various weather parameters of local climatic conditions of different parts of the state and the region. Jatin Mali, local MLA, lauded the good work done by NITS Mirza in developing appropriate skills and promoting research and development at every level. Chief Minister Gogoi formally released the souvenir entitled Sastricas brought out on the occasion. Dolly Gogoi, wife of the Chief Minister, gave away certificates and prizes to the winners of essay writing contest sponsored by Usha-Kamal Gogoi Memorial Trust.
