Page 6 - Annual Report 2019-20

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Several regular webinars/lectures on various topics were organized where subject matter experts from various streams of science & technology have spoken in Tamil. Similar to our efforts in Bengali, we were able to get five manuscripts of popular science books written in Tamil.
The journey of outreach in Indian languages did not stop here. We went ahead and sought help with internal and external science communicators in Urdu. Tajassus, which means curiosity in Urdu was the title of our monthly newsletter, which we started early last year, acquired a regular status. I’m glad to share with you that we have been publishing Tajassus regularly since its inception. We are also proud to share that we were able to finalize more than six manuscripts received in Urdu for publication. We were able to support the organization of National Urdu Science Congress 2020 through popular science resources in Urdu. Additionally, we organized a number of several other conferences in Urdu related to science communication, popularization, and extension.
Kannada, Gujarati, and Marathi are the other Indian languages where we initiated our efforts to popularize science & technology through newsletters, books, seminars, district- level school-level workshops, webinars etc.
During the course of the year, Vigyan Prasar was entrusted with organizing the mammoth event called the India International Science Festival 2019 at Kolkata. Despite a limited time at disposal and festival season in the city, a dedicated team of resources rose to the occasion and pulled through the event successfully. With more than 28 events, the five- day programme witnessed more than 18,000 participants, delegates and speakers from India and abroad.
Project Science Channel, another major project of the organization, witnessed a surge in quantity and quality of freshly made programmes for the DTH and OTT channels. With more than 798 programmes produced for DD Science and IndiaScience.in, during the
period number of viewership increased manifold. This, thus, indicated the wide acceptance of the programmes developed by the project team. Innovative ideas to popularize science and technology through electronic media led the team to evolve programmes in every possible genre. On the lines of the literature festival, the project science channel brought to the fore, India’s first science literature festival called Vigyanika. This was organized at the IISF 2019 in Kolkata exclusively for the channels that this project created the content for.
Organizing Science Film Festivals have been another important programme of the organization. At IISF 2019, the International Science Film Festival of India was successfully organized with the help of SRFTI, Kolkata. A record number of entries were received in a short period of time for the festival from various organizations within and across the national boundaries. While all preparations were made to host the 10th National Science Film Festival at Agartala, Tripura in March 2020, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic halted the programme. We eagerly await to continue with this annual event on the other side of the epidemic.
Programmes on enhancing women’s participation in science & technology, women technology park and related issues have been high on the organization’s agenda always. Visits to various initiatives in progress were duly monitored by timely visits by the principal investigator. At the IISF 2019, Women Scientists & Entrepreneurs Conclave witnessed a large number of participants, thereby ensuring the contribution of women scientists in shaping a new India.
Amongst this, Vigyan Prasar was given a responsibility to enhance the presence of news in all four media. This was to be accomplished by aggregating and repurposing news content from all four constituents under the Ministry of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences – DST, DBT, CSIR, and MoES. With the help of various nodal officers from various ministries, the team of Vigyan Prasar rose to the occasion and started delivering news to various media sources
VIGYAN PRASAR ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020