Thursday, January 31, 2019

New Book | Modi Doctrine, Science Diplomacy: Changing Dynamics of Foreign Policy of India | by Dr Pawan Sikka

New Book
Modi Doctrine, Science Diplomacy: Changing Dynamics of Foreign Policy of India
edited by Pawan Sikka, 2019, Synergy Books India. 

About the Author
Dr. Pawan Sikka (b. 1944) is a former Scientist-G, Advisor, Government of India, Department of Science and Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology) New Delhi. Prior to it as Director (International Relations) for about 7-8 years, he coordinated the Bilateral and Multi-lateral programmes of Iwo international cooperation towards extending the frontiers of new and emerging fields in science and technology. He was Leader of the Indian delegation to SAARC Group Meeting on Science and Technology at Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1995. He has received his M.Sc., Ph.D. as well as, D.Sc. degrees in Physics. He is recipient of the Commonwealth Visiting Fellowship (1984-85), at the University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K for carrying out Science & Technology Policy and Society and Government related studies, to shape the national and international development agenda. He also received Italian, Sweden, Switzerland, UNESCO, etc. scholarships for understanding the progress of science, technology and industry there. He is a well-read author and widely travelled in India and abroad. He has also delivered special lectures on Science Policy related issues to the M.Phil. and Ph.D. students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is a Life-Member of the: Materials Research Society of India, Semi-Conductor Society of India, Association of British Scholars (British Council, New Delhi), and Oxford and Cambridge Society of India.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

PIB: Central Government Announces Hike in Research Fellowship

Press Information Bureau, Government of India
Ministry of Science & Technology
30-January-2019 19:08 IST
Government Announces Hike in Research Fellowship 

All Research Fellows also Entitled to HRA as per Central Government Norms 

With effect from January 1, 2019, Central  Government has enhanced the fellowship of PhD  students and other research personnel enrolled in any area of science and technology, including Physical and Chemical Sciences, Engineering, Mathematical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Life Sciences, Pharmacy etc.  

Congratulating research scholars, Union Science & Technology Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that PhD scholars, working in science and technology, are the most significant contributors to the knowledge base of the country for its industrial competitiveness, academic vibrancy and technology led innovations.Emphasizing on the commitment of the government Dr. Vardhan said that improving the value of Ph.D  research cannot be a one-time exercise but requires constant input and efforts which the Government is fully committed to undertake.

The hike in fellowship will directly benefit over 60,000 Research Fellows and also provide a template to the States to consider increase in their fellowship rates. Fellowship of the Junior Research Fellows in the first two years of PhD  programme is increased from the current rate of Rs.25,000/- to Rs.31,000/- per month. Similarly, in the remaining tenure of PhD, Senior Research Fellow will get Rs. 35,000/- per month instead of the present Rs.28,000/- per month. 

Further, there is substantial 30-35% enhancement in the financial rewards for the scientists involved in the R&D projects as Research Associates. The top bracket of Research Associateship is fixed at Rs.54,000/-.  All the research fellows are also entitled to HRA as per Central Government norms. 

Government has ensured that this empowering mechanism is uniformly applicable across all the fellowship granting Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Academic and Government R&D Organizations of the country.  Science & Technology is a fast moving area in which a dynamic and holistic vision is required to secure the future of the nation. 

For the first time, the Government has also recommended a set of strong financial and academic incentives to enhance and recognize the performance of our research fellows.  This will be a performance based addition to the fellowship.  An Empowered Inter-Ministerial Committee has been constituted to periodically examine all the fellowship matters that have a bearing on enhancing the value, quality and experience of doctoral research, including the quantum of fellowship. One of the recommendations is to involve PhD students in undergraduate teaching and managing research infrastructure during their doctoral research. This will not only widen their scope of training but also enhance their career prospects. 

Further Information

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The International Year of the Periodic Table 2019 | Join the celebrations!

The International Year of the Periodic Table 2019
The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements is one of the most significant achievements in science, capturing the essence not only of chemistry, but also of physics and biology. 1869 is considered as the year of discovery of the Periodic System by Dmitri Mendeleev. 2019 will be the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements and has therefore been proclaimed the "International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019)" by the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO. Discover everything about IYPT2019 via its website. Join the celebrations!

The Mystery of Matter: "Unruly Elements"
About the Documentary: Over a single weekend in 1869, a young Russian chemistry professor named Dmitri Mendeleev invents the Periodic Table, bringing order to the growing gaggle of elements. But this sense of order is shattered when a Polish graduate student named Marie Sklodowska Curie discovers radioactivity, revealing that elements can change identities — and that atoms must have undiscovered parts inside them. The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements is an exciting series about one of the great adventures in the history of science: the long and continuing quest to understand what the world is made of. Three episodes tell the story of seven of history's most important scientists as they seek to identify, understand and organize the basic building blocks of matter. The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements shows us not only what these scientific explorers discovered but also how,using actors to reveal the creative process through the scientists' own words and conveying their landmark discoveries through re-enactments shot with replicas of their original lab equipment. Knitting these strands together is host Michael Emerson, a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor. Meet Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, whose discovery of oxygen led to the modern science of chemistry, and Humphry Davy, who made electricity a powerful new tool in the search for elements. Watch Dmitri Mendeleev invent the Periodic Table, and see Marie Curie's groundbreaking research on radioactivity crack open a window into the atom. Learn how Harry Moseley's investigation of atomic number redefined the Periodic Table, and how Glenn Seaborg's discovery of plutonium opened up a whole new realm of elements still being explored today. The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements brings the history of science to life for today's television audience.


Job Announcement: Vacancies at NIESBUD, Noida


Last Date: 19 February 2019

CfPs: "Post-Automation? Exploring Democratic Alternatives to Industry 4.0: An International Research Symposium" | SPRU, Brighton, UK, 11-13 September

Post-Automation? Exploring Democratic Alternatives to Industry 4.0: An International Research Symposium
When: 11-13 September 2019
Where: Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Organisers: Adrian Smith (SPRU) and Mariano Fressoli (Fundación Cenit)

Call for Papers
This Symposium will explore the idea and practice of post-automation for sustainability. 
We are delighted to invite proposals for papers for the International Research Symposium on Post-Automation? Towards Democratic Alternatives to Industry 4.0, taking place at the  Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, 11-13 September 2019. The Symposium will explore the idea of post-automation, critically and constructively. Theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded papers are invited that address what a "post-automation" vantage point might bring to ongoing debates about how societies produce and consume, in light of social concern for sustainable developments, dignified work and social justice, and a business-led push for Industry 4.0 and circular economy. Clues and hints about post-automation emerge in diverse places: hackerspaces, makerspaces and fablabs; citizen monitoring platforms and open science projects; open hardware platforms and grassroots innovation initiatives; new crafting practices; repair, repurposing and upcycling workshops; libraries and educational institutes opening technology to popular experimentation; citizen laboratories and DIY urbanism; workplace struggles for human-centred, democratic technology. Many of these places work through networks that cut across conventional categories; appearing simultaneously to constitute a movement and infrastructure for social relations with technology radically different to the depopulated visions of cyber-physical systems in Industry 4.0.

Looking beyond and beneath automating technologies 
Post-automation is a concept in the making. The idea is sparked by the observation that, globally, groups of people are appropriating and hacking digital technologies for design, prototyping, and manufacture that were implicated initially in successive waves of automation: code, sensors, actuators, computer numerically controlled machine tools, design software, microelectronics, internet platforms, 3D scanners/printers, video, etc. Yet, in place of logics typical in automation, such as enhanced labour productivity, managerial control, economic growth, people are subverting these technologies for other purposes - human creativity, dignified work, and sustainable production and consumption - and situating these activities in non-industrial and new-industrial spaces. 
The Symposium will interrogate these technological turnarounds: from their humandisplacing and human-disciplining origins, through to the creative experiments and prototypes today. In short, exploring post-automation possibilities. 

The Symposium
The Symposium will run from 11th September to 13th September at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. No more than twelve papers will be selected in order to maximise discussion and interaction. 
Selected participants will be required to produce a 4,000-5,000 word paper in advance of the Symposium (by 20 July 2019) and present it for discussion there. At the Symposium we will read and discuss all the papers, and there will be group activities that map and explore emerging themes. Collectively we will:
  • analyse subversions of society-technology relations characteristic of post-automation;
  • discuss how the idea of post-automation might contribute to future work, sustainable development, and technology politics; and
  • map out critical issues in post-automation and develop an agenda for future research and action.
  • develop new visions on how post-automation can foster more sustainable and democratic modes of production.
Once papers are accepted, the organisers will negotiate a special issue on post-automation with a leading scientific journal. Participants will contribute revised versions of their paper to the issue, drawing upon insights arising in the Symposium. Revised papers will be submitted to the journal.

Fees: The Symposium has no fees. Lunch, coffee breaks and the social dinner will be covered by the host organization. The organisers are able to cover the travel and accommodation costs for one author per paper only.

Why a post-automation agenda and why this Symposium?
How are radical redistributions in prototyping capabilities, socially and geographically, enabling (or deluding) people to design collectively, to produce knowledge openly, to manufacture carefully and to consume differently? How might the myriad artefacts, practices, ideas and communities being assembled, simultaneously anticipate and bring forth something deeper: new ways of working, new forms of social relation across production and consumption, and an openness to more diverse ideas, assumptions and social values in technology development? How are deeper social, cultural, economic and geographical transformations reinforcing or inhibiting the wider circulation of these capabilities and possibilities? How does conceiving these initiatives and issues as "post-automation" alter the politics of technology? How might post-automation work to test and even shift current assumptions about economy and society, and what kinds of political economy emerge in these spaces and through the experiments?
There are a variety of reasons for proposing post-automation and exploring it. "Post" because Industry 4.0 research, policy and practice are challenged by growing social pressures for sustainable development and related to contradictions in automated value creation. "Post" because people are appropriating hitherto automating technologies into non-industrial and new-industrial spaces beyond conventional manufacturing circuits and logics. "Post" because groups are seeking creative human capabilities and sustainable livelihoods across diverse yet interconnected places, and thereby creating new 'sociotechnical configurations' based in assumptions and values that contrast with, and move beyond, conventional labour productivity and economic growth models. "Post" because appropriations today recall and resignify forgotten technological genealogies going back to earlier waves of struggle over automation in manufacturing, and whose subversions today echo criteria proposed by workers and others in the past. "Post" because new social theory is required that engages critically and constructively with these developments, their future possibilities and their limits.
Of course, one of the drawbacks with post-positions is what lies beyond and beneath. Whether we mean post- in a conceptual, non-foundational way, or post- in a temporal, sequential way, it is unclear precisely what emerges from such displacements. Designing globally, manufacturing locally? Commons-based peer-production? Technologies for degrowth? Or is post-automation helping to forge an economy of abundance and postscarcity, but in what, and for whom? How can post-automation help to launch new models of sustainable production and consumption? Or perhaps post-automation simply serves the exploitative insertion of design entrepreneurialism and open innovation into the automated circuits of business-as-usual? Hip makerspaces or open science projects furnish novel (preautomation) prototypes for Industry 4.0 automation produced at scale? What might postautomation really mean for work, labour processes, material culture, sustainability, technology politics and governance? Might post-automation open-up useful plurality in thinking and practice, or simply exacerbate confusion over the real issues? How might postautomation challenge universalising visions like Industry 4.0, and offer more variegated possibilities attuned to different places?

The Symposium
This call is an invitation for diversity and plurality. Applicants from PhD students to senior Professors are welcome from science and technology studies, sociology of work, social anthropology, engineering, innovation studies, design, geography, sustainability studies, and other relevant areas. The key is to provide an explanation of how your proposed paper can contribute to an open, engaged and collaborative exploration of the idea of post-automation, and to see what work can and cannot be made of that idea. You can propose questions (and answers) that you think should be central to a post-automation research agenda. They can be critical and constructive. They might include, for example:
  • How can post-automation alter perspectives, understandings and practices in technology-society relations?
  • What methods can bring insight, facilitate dialogue, and assist developments in postautomation across the scales of projects, workshops, sectors and societies?
  • How is post-automation manifesting in different places and circulating between places, for example across the global North and global South?
  • How might social theory in post-automation reframe public debate and move policy beyond reactions to automation, and into proactive alternatives for sustainable technology-society relations?
  • How post-automation might help to re-imagine an economy based on commons goods?

How to apply: Please send a 500-word maximum paper abstract and 100-word bio for each author (including contact details and affiliation) as a single document. In both sections, please explain how you relate and contribute to the idea of post-automation. Please email your abstracts as a Word file to bsre@sussex.ac.uk stating the Symposium title in the subject area of the email. The deadline for abstracts and bios is 20 March 2019.

Timeline
  • January: Symposium announced and proposals called for
  • 20 March: deadline for abstracts and review
  • 15 April: people notified if their abstract has been accepted
  • 20 July: papers submitted
  • 11-13 September: Symposium
  • December: revised papers submitted to journal for peer review

Adrian Smith Mariano Fressoli
SPRU          Fundación Cenit

Monday, January 28, 2019

UNESCO launch of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements

UNESCO Media Advisory No.2019-06

 

UNESCO launch of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements

 

Paris, 28 January—The International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements will be launched on 29 January at UNESCO's Headquarters (Room I). Events and activities will be held throughout the year to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the organization of the periodic table by Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev, one of the fathers of modern chemistry.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, will open the event with Mikhail Kotyukov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Pierre Corvol, President of France's Académie des Sciences, and Andrey Guryev, CEO of PhosAgro. The event will bring together scientists, representatives of the private sector. It will feature a lecture on the "Periodic Table for Society and the Future" by the Professor Ben Feringa, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

At the launch, UNESCO will present its educational initiative, 1001 Inventions: Journeys from Alchemy to Chemistry. Consisting of educational material and science experiments to help young people improve their understanding of chemistry and its numerous uses, the initiative will be brought to schools around the world during 2019.

Other notable activities organized in the framework of the International Year include a periodic table challenge:

  • An online competition to test the knowledge and stimulate the curiosity of secondary education students on the subject
  • Women and the Periodic Table of Elements, an international symposium in Murcia (Spain), 11 and 12 February
  • The periodic table at 150, symposium at the 47th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress, (Paris, France, 5 to 12 July)
  • Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry, in Saint Petersburg (Russian Federation), 9 to 13 September

The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT 2019) on 20 December 2017.  

****

Journalist wishing to cover the event are invited to request accreditation from Djibril Kébé, UNESCO Media Section, +33(0)145681741, d.kebe@unesco.org

More information on the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements

Media Contact: Agnès Bardon, UNESCO Media Section, +33(0)145681764, a.bardon@unesco.org



If you would rather not receive future communications from UNESCO, let us know by clicking here.
UNESCO, 7, place de Fontenoy, PARIS, NA FRANCE France

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Job Announcement: Vacancies at Vigyan Prasar, Noida

Call for Review Articles "Science Policy for Sustainable Health, Water and Agriculture"

Call for Review Articles
Science Policy for Sustainable Health, Water and Agriculture | in Sustainable Agriculture Reviews Series 
Editors: Venkatesh Dutta, Shivendu Ranjan, Nandita Dasgupta and Eric Lichtfouse

About Sustainable Agriculture Reviews: Sustainable Agriculture Reviews is a series published by Springer Nature since 2009. Metrics of chapter downloads are available on volume websites; for instance volume 1 chapters have been downloaded more than 28,000 times. Springer Nature is one of the world's leading global research, educational and professional publishers, created in May 2015 through the combination of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media.
Submission: The submission deadline is July 1st, 2019. Articles should be submitted in pdf to Dr. Shivendu Ranjan at shivenduranjan[@]gmail.com. The manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter containing a list of six suggested, international reviewers including title, name, postal address and e-mail address. Samples of published chapters are available upon request. 
Selection: The Editors and external peer-reviewers will evaluate manuscripts. The actual rejection rate is 30%. Only manuscripts of very high quality will be accepted.
Publication: The book will be published in 2019.
Aims and topics: For this special issue we invite scientists and policy researchers to write high quality papers focussed on the recent developments, research trends, methods and issues related to the science, technology and innovation policies. Economic prosperity and innovation of a nation depend on a healthy research and development enterprise that enables scientific thought to prosper. We have a great challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society – innovative and forward-looking, which is not just the consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilization of the future. Improvement of research and technological capacity and capability is leading to faster commercialisation of research outputs as well as strengthening of human resource capacity in the area of agriculture, health and water. There is a big policy gap between creating a culture of S&T development and techno-entrepreneurship. There is also a need of creating a more efficient institutional framework with management of S&T and monitoring of S&T policy implementation. There are successful examples of better diffusion and application of technology with stronger market-driven R&D activity. Currently deep institutional changes are required that respect, support and value research projects that have led to game-changing discoveries and innovations. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
  • S&T Policy making: institutional perspective
  • Policy for science, science for policy – Indian and International Experience
  • Technology-led innovation policies
  • R&D ecosystem for innovation led economic development
  • Circular economy policies for industries
  • Technology forecasting
  • Science policy and networking - engaging scientists with policy makers
  • The current and future political environments for science
  • 10 Big ideas and the role of innovation
  • Strengthening linkages between knowledge institutions and industry
  • Regulatory framework for science policy
  • Science for diplomacy – EU, BRICS, ASEAN, US partnerships

Call for Book Chapters & Essay Competition | Productivity Research Book on "Circular Economy for Productivity & Sustainability"

National Productivity Council (under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India)

Notice No. PA/PW/Advt.-02/2018-19; Date: January 07, 2019

 

Productivity Research Book

National Productivity Council (NPC) is an apex organization to promote productivity consciousness across all sectors of the economy. Like in the previous years, the NPC will be organizing the observance of 12th February 2019 as Productivity Day and the seven-day period from 12th to 18th February, 2019 as National Productivity Week throughout the country. On the eve of Productivity Week celebration, NPC invites research articles for Productivity Research Book on the following selected theme: "Circular Economy for Productivity & Sustainability"


Last date to receive the article is 31st January 2019.


Who Can Apply?

  • A student/scholar who has undertaken meaningful research in the field related to the theme.
  • An academician/exert who can propose alternative/implementable solutions related to the theme.
  • A professional/practitioner who has demonstrated the use of effective tools and techniques related to the theme with the promise of scale up.

General Instructions to Applicants

All submissions have to be made in MS Word format with Font size 12- and 1.5-line space. Co-authorship is allowed to a maximum of 3 Authors. 3 separate certificates will be provided to each author. Papers must be written solely by the candidate, in English. All submissions must be the original and unpublished works of the author. The contributions shall be evaluated on the basis of originality, innovativeness, clarity and technical correctness. The articles are invited in the following four categories:

1. Long Article: shall be of 5000-8000 words and must engage in comprehensive analysis of the chosen issue.

2. Short Article/Essay: This category of papers must be concise (both in scope and conceptualization) and deal with more specific issue, making an easily discernible, concrete. It should be within 3500 to 5000 words.

3. Case Comment, Legislation Review or Treaty Appraisal: Papers in this category are expected to undertake an original and critical analysis of important judicial decisions (preferably recent), legislations or treaties falling within the broad theme. It should be within 2000 to 3500 words.

4. Commentary, Book Review or Short Notes on Contemporary Developments:

Brief Commentary, Book Review or Short Notes relevant to subject matter of journal are invited, preferably within 1500 to 2000 words (exclusive of footnotes). This category includes critical reviews of recent developments in law or policy, books, articles, or even movies.

5. All articles must be original ideas.

6. The articles received through this competition will become the property of NPC and it will be used for further propagation and dissemination of concept or idea presented to the masses.

Evaluation Criteria

 All articles shall be evaluated on factual conclusion, meaningful representation and novelty of the idea.

 The applicants of selected Articles/Research Papers shall be invited to the Paper Presentation Conference at Delhi.

 The best ten articles will be selected by a Committee of Experts/Jury from the total articles received.

Award of Selection

The best ten awardees shall be felicitated on Special Event organized by NPC.

Award Prize

The best ten awardees shall be awarded the cash prize as stated below:

  •  1st Prize : Rs. 20,000/- (one)
  •  2nd Prize : Rs. 20,000/- (one)
  •  3rd Prize : Rs. 20,000/- (one)
  •  Consolation Prizes : Rs. 10,000/- (Seven)

All participants including awardees whose articles are received and published shall be provided with a certificate of participation and copy of the published book.

How to Apply: The Individual/Group is requested to submit their Research Paper/Article in the above-mentioned prescribed format to the following address:

Dr. Nitin Aggrawal, Dy. Director – Productivity Awareness, National Productivity Council, 5-6, Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003, Email: nitin.a@npcindia.gov.in, Tel: 011-24607336/335

Article/Research Paper Submission Form


NPC Workshop on Circular Economy, a Force Multiplier for Productivity & Sustainability | 14 February 2019

 "Workshop during Productivity Week-2019"

 

NPC Workshop on "Circular Economy, a Force Multiplier for Productivity & Sustainability"

Date: 14th February, 2019 (10.00 am to 03.40 pm)

Venue: National Productivity Council, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

 

National Productivity Council (NPC) of India; an autonomous organization under Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India; was founded on 12th February, 1958 with mission to promote productivity for socio economic development of the country. NPC has been organizing observance of its Foundation Day (12 February) as "Productivity Day" and the ensuing week (12 – 18 February) as "Productivity Week" throughout the country. It has been decided to adopt "Circular Economy for Productivity and Sustainability" as the theme of the Productivity Week for year 2019. As part of Productivity Week celebrations, NPC plans to organize a Workshop on "Circular Economy, a Force Multiplier for Productivity and Sustainability" on 14th February, 2019 (10.00 am to 03.40 pm) at NPC Conference Hall, New Delhi. The Theme Paper and Tentative Schedule for workshop are available online. The eminent speakers are going to deliver lectures or make presentations during the workshop. NPC invites you as participant to attend the above mentioned workshop. There is NO participation fee but registration is ESSENTIAL. Please send a line of confirmation to any of following e-mail IDs along with your Name, Academic Qualification, Organization's Name, Years of Experience, E-mail ID and Mobile No.: o.samuel@npcindia.gov.insk.jain@npcindia.gov.inNPC will confirm your participation and it would be NPC's sole discretion to accept your participation. You may contact at 011-24607368/325 for any other related information.

 

Theme Paper 

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Call for Papers IFLA2019 A&O Open Session | 24-30 August 2019


Dear Colleagues,

 

The open session of the IFLA Regional Section for Asia and Oceania – RSCAO (organised by the Regional Standing Committee – RSCAO) plans to contribute to this year's WLIC theme of "Libraries: Dialogue for Change", by exploring how libraries have empowered their communities by way of creating trusted space and stimulating dialogue.

 

Important dates and other details:

1. The deadline for submitting a detailed abstract (500 words) and full author details is Friday 15 February 2019. Selection of papers is based on the abstract. Due to the large number of submissions received, only the successful presenters will be notified by 10th April 2019.

2. Full texts of papers are due on 15 June 2019. Abstracts should be submitted as a 'pdf' file.

3. The committee will evaluate the submitted abstracts against criteria which include: innovative content, topical relevance, regional interest, clarity of exposition, originality, and overall quality.

4. Papers must be original submissions not presented or published elsewhere – (IFLA rule).

5. Papers should not be more than 4,000 words, single spaced in Times New Roman 12 point.

6. Papers and abstracts should be in English.

7. The author(s) should include their full contact details and brief biographical notes.

 

https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6QHYwVwCpAaZmwwVnVhV2pyQVk&revid=0B6QHYwVwCpAacGNlOGd6b1lZVDNhQ3R0VFd6Rng1bm4wSWMwPQ

Takashi

Information Coordinator

IFLA  Resional Standing Committee Asia & Oceania (RSCAO)

https://www.ifla.org/standing-committee/26r

************************************

Dr. Takashi Nagatsuka

Professor Emeritus,

Tsurumi University

Email: nagatsuka-t[@]tsurumi-u.ac.jp

Homepage: http://ccs.tsurumi-u.ac.jp/nagatsuka_lab/e/

ICRIER-IHC Talk "Civil Society Challenges: The Road Ahead" | Dr. Reena Ramachandran | IHC, New Delhi | 21 January

ICRIER-IHC Conversations on Urbanization Series

 

Subject

:

Civil Society Challenges: The Road Ahead

Speaker

:

Dr. Reena Ramachandran, Member 'Foundation for Restoration of National Values' and 'IC Centre for Governance'. She is also former CMD, Hindustan Organic Chemicals and currently Independent Director in the Board of UPL Ltd. and Indian Additives Ltd.

Moderator

:

Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson, Board of Governors, ICRIER

Venue

 

:

Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi 110003 (Entry through Gate No. 3)

Date

:

Monday, January 21, 2019, 7:00 pm

 

https://mail.gov.in/iwc/svc/wmap/attach/image002.jpg?token=3AmkV1Vtis&mbox=INBOX&uid=9655&number=4&type=image&subtype=jpeg&process=html%2Cjs%2Clink%2Ctarget%2Cbinhex

Double doctorate in Chemistry from Allahabad University & France, Dr. Reena Ramachandran, Associated with  Resident Welfare Association as a president  in H- Block, SAKET;  Foundation for Restoration of National Values" being led by Former METRO Chief;  IC Centre for Governance"being led by Former Cabinet secy; former  CMD, Hindustan Organic Chemicals, currently  Independent Director in the Board of ' United Phosphorus Ltd." (Now UPL Ltd) and Indian additives Ltd. Served as  member ,Task Force, Performance management Division, Cabinet secretariat,  Member , Board of Governors, IIT  (Kanpur): Senior Scientific officer, Ministry of Science and Technology, Member- Governing Board, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR) : Expert Member, Technical Advisory Committee on HR, Reserve Bank of India,  Member of the expert committee of HRD Ministry for devising Policy perspective for Management Education: Member, Film Censor Board,. Has over 40 years of experience across : petroleum, Petrochemicals and cement industry ( GM,ONGC /Ex. Director PCRA/ GGM, Cement Research Institute, Ballabhgarh). She has over a decade of experience in Management education. Was  recently awarded - Life Time Achievement Award  (27 March,2015) by the ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for outstanding contribution to Oil and gas industry during 'Urja Sangam- 2015'. She was awarded as 'Mahila Shiromani' by Vice President of India,1989, 'Best Communicator' by Press Council,1989, 'Manager of the Year' by ONGC,1987, 'Energy Man of the year' by IBPL Urja Research Foundation,1997,  Elected Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) & All India Management Association( AIMA),  Dewang Mehta Life Time Achievement Award,2009.  "Exemplary Leader Award-2010" by CMO Asia, Singapore, Life Time Achievement Award in Higher Education by Higher Education Forum in 2011. Distinguished Alumni award by Allahabad University Alumni association in 2015. Founder President of the Forum of Women in Public Sector (WIPS). Associated with Women Leadership initiative in All India Management association (AIMA) for over 25 years and  earlier CII committee on gender issues.

 

 

With best regards,

 

Dr. Rajat Kathuria

Director & Chief Executive

ICRIER

Core-6A, 4th Floor, India Habitat Centre

Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110 003

Tel: 43112400; Fax: 24620180

W: www.icrier.org


Job Announcement: Vacancies at NRDC India & FITT New Delhi

Monday, January 14, 2019

Call for Abstracts: RC21 Urban Conference at Delhi | In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges and Hopeful Futures

RC21 Urban Conference at Delhi

September 18th- 21st , 2019

In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges and Hopeful Futures

Call for Abstracts Now Open!! Last Date- January 20, 2019! 

https://rc21delhi2019.com/

We are happy to have received a large number of applications for sessions. This list includes all the sessions including streams and panels that have been selected for participation at the RC21@Delhi 2019 conference. For those who do not find their submissions listed here, we will be in touch individually over the next week as regards their status.

The call for individual paper abstracts is now open and will end on January 20, 2019. The list of selected abstracts will be announced on the 20th of February. Panelists submitting to specific sessions will be informed about acceptance or rejection directly by the convenors of the sessions by February 20th.

Please note that streams may include panels. If you would like to submit an abstract for consideration, please contact the stream convener(s).

Please note that we have updated the fee structure for the conference. Click here for the same.

We have updated our email to rc21delhi@gmail.com w.e.f. 2/12/2018. Emails sent to the old email (contact@rc21delhi2019.com) have been received and accounted for. For further communication, please write to us at rc21delhi@gmail.com.

 

RC21 Urban Conference at Delhi

September 18th- 21st , 2019

In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges and Hopeful Futures

Across the globe, cities surpass their own contours. Urban cores expand and intensify in size and height, and we see connectivities, nodes and enclaves involving new technologies, information flows, migrations, time/space compressions and everyday rhythms and experiences that defy known cartographies and categories. Meanwhile, a city's decision makers, planners, politicians, representatives and all other agents who govern urban life face increasing challenges that exceed their tools of measurement and categorizations in unprecedented ways.

This surpassing of the gaze and grip of the city can also be seen as a reworking of everyday ontologies, or the properties and relations between concepts that we, as urban scholars, may long have assumed to be easily understood, like 'neighborhoods', 'social networks', 'place', 'urban politics', 'urban movements', 'rural-urban continuum' or more. While these contours impact how we live in and understand cities, most traditional urban concerns and vulnerabilities – social and spatial inequalities, racial and ethnic exclusions, injustices and exploitations in livelihoods, inadequacies of housing, infrastructure, health, security and environment – remain. Practices of technology, design and innovation develop simultaneously which adapt to scale and pressure, for example, sustainable, affordable and resilient building and infrastructure, or ways to manage urban waste. New urban experiences that produce new cultural formations, practices, urban art and aesthetics and modes of being political also emerge.

The conference's location in Delhi – a city that has long exceeded theoretical parameters, material forms, planned or unplanned practices both within and outside its limits – provides an ideal starting point to think through emerging and dominant concerns of addressing the city.

In this conference, our call is to search for perspectives that support these changing theoretical, practical and empirical terrains. We invite discussions that move beyond conventional understandings and encourage an inclusive framing that allow innovative planetary comparisons that are not confined to a North – South divide. We invite proposals on sessions that focus on ways in which city futures are imagined and addressed in scholarship. While we encourage a critical approach to agendas for the future in cities, we are eager to learn about hopeful futures that may be unfolding over urban terrains.Overall, the conference invites proposals that address conventional challenges as well those related to changing scales and technologies of the urban.

Under the three overall sub themes, Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges and Hopeful Futures, alongside our committed focus on urban injustices and dispossessions, we offer the following suggestions as possible topics for submission:

  1. State, city and governance: How does the logic of the state or practices of governance respond to the changing scales of the urban/the city that is mentioned in the main theme? In what ways is control displaced or redistributed? How do people engage with, modify, manipulate and negotiate the structures of urban control in their everyday life?How does governance and infrastructure regulations provoke practices of housing, water, electricity, transportation that do not follow typical planned developments.
     
  2. Networks, communities and capital: Stable durable networks are only part of the picture of sociabilities we know in the urban – how can everyday ways of knowledge transfer, circulation, care and connectivity in and beyond the city be thought of beyond simple forms of capital? How do mobility, residence, dis-locations and trans-local lives affect these?
     
  3. Place, belonging, and action: How are understandings of connections between concepts of place, belonging and communities affected by the expansion of urban cores, for example in the cases of extensive suburbia, large urban conglomerations and conurbations, community neighbourhoods and vertical living? How do these influence people's potentials for urban collective action?
     
  4. Rights, entitlements and citizenship: How do rights, entitlements and forms of citizenship change, empirically and conceptually, when their connection to other concepts like nation or state becomes challenged? This includes but is not limited to, for example, forms of voice and exit; political economies in urban health,housing regimes and education; global migration and the city;refugees, violence and security.Or, what futures are imagined through the lens of the urban as a focused venue for political expression and change, or as a venue for claims on justice and rights.
     
  5. Emerging technologies, exclusions and inclusions: How do we think about and include technology and its manifold applications in urban life, from security regimes to its potential for local connectivity and social action. How does technology enable urban networks, virtual or actual, which do not necessarily follow planned city forms and functions? How can we discuss futures like the "Smart City" idea through the lens of such newer formations, their advantages and their possible critical effects? How do technological changes affect patterns of exclusions, the formation of social categories, or new and persistent inequalities?
     
  6. Ecologies, Environments and Encroachments:How does an expanding urban show its impact on concerns of the environment? What kind of issues come to the forefront in city discourses – for example, waste management, air pollution, or environmental degradation. How do these processes produce zones of heightened vulnerability, destabilize existing fragile ecosystems -for example,increasing number of people live with threat of unprecedented floods in urban areas. At the same time, what kind of strategies and innovations are developed in order to respond to thee concerns.
     
  7. Persistent problems in a changing world: How do we continue to think about structural forms of exploitation and urban poverty and all those other themes mentioned in the concept note in a global perspective in a politically fragmented world? For instance, how are issues related to housing and segregation developing now? How do we include the everyday and the resilient without romanticizing the grassroots, losing sight of structural inequalities and reactionary movements on the ground?
     
  8. Architectures, Aesthetics and Art: How does architectural or artistic thinking at the scale of a neighborhood, a community or a city manifest, expand and negotiate with an aesthetic vision of the city? What is the imagination of the city that can be learned from the proliferation of public art? Or, how does the city become a location for new social movements and other collective expressions in urban art, visual and material cultures?Imaginations of the urban that shed light on nuances of artistic expressions, material cultures and architectural imaginations in and about the city, that think of social and political futures.
     
  9. Methodologies and Comparative Theorizations for new forms of urbanity: How can visual and digital methodologies help us improve our understanding of the urban? How do cinematic imaginations or visual methods help in understanding the expanding scales of the urban? What can sociology learn from other disciplines, and what new techniques and methods can we incorporate in urban sociology research in understanding the emerging ontologies? How do new scales of connections, networks outside the usual frameworks of globalities or localities inform comparative theorizations beyond conceptions of size, function, 'importance' or economic scale? What are the ways in which we can go beyond the divisions of North-South? What compels us to do so?

We invite proposals for sessions that focus on the themes outlined in the Concept Note. We encourage a variety of submissions for sessions that will cover a 90-minute slot, which can include Panels, Round Tables, Book Discussions, Author Meets Critics etc. We also invite stream conveners where one or more convener(s) can take on the responsibility of organizing two or three sessions, which can include different formats as above, under a single theme. 

Please send submissions by the deadline of 31st October, 2018, to contact@rc21delhi2019.com

For detailed concept notes and guidelines for submitting proposals, go to https://rc21delhi2019.com/index.php/concept-note/

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

IIC-JNU Workshop on IPR | 10 January at SLS

Institution's Innovation Council (IIC), JNU

in collaboration with MHRD-Innovation Council (MIC)

 

is organizing a workshop on IPR (Intellectual Property Rights)

 

The workshop will be conducted in two sessions; morning session will be conducted by a local expert (Dr. Malathi Lakshmikumaran, Director, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan) and afternoon live session by a central expert (Dr. Shwetasree Majumdar, Principal, Fidus Law Chamber). Both sessions are expected to cover different topics, including history of IP, filing patent/copyright/design application and entrepreneurship etc. important for students and faculty members of JNU.

 

All the faculty and students of JNU are cordially invited to attend the workshop.

 

Date: Thursday, January 10, 2018

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 03:30 p.m. 

Venue: SLS Auditorium JNU 

 

Please register at: https://goo.gl/forms/5X967VuczHVUuULh1

 

Certificate will be given to all the participants based on their attendance in all the lectures.