PM inaugurates congregation of 5,000 scientists amidst confusion and food poisoning
PM inaugurates congregation of 5,000 scientists amidst confusion and food poisoning
CHENNAI: Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was inaugurating the 94th ISC in Chidambaram, about 200 km south of Chennai, about 20 delegates were recuperating from food poisoning after having their Tuesday dinner at the venue. Several of the scientists and security people were taken ill after taking food from the food court set up on the Annamalai University campus.
About 5,000 scientists from all over the country have descended on this temple town. Hundreds of them, who have come with the families, could not find accommodation as promised by the organisers. "I was promised a family accommodation, but got nothing. After hours of arguing with the organisers, I managed to get a dingy room late in the night," said a scientist from Karnataka.
Journalists were not any luckier. Not only that many of them failed to get the promised accommodation, some could not find rooms even outside, as all the hotels and lodges were full. Some traveled to neighbouring towns such as Cuddalore and Mayiladuthurai for accommodation, but to no avail.
"We have the infrastructure, but the planning has gone terribly wrong. We should have known better since we have no prior experience in hosting such a massive event," a professor at the university told DNA. A syndicate member of the university complained that even she got to know of the entire schedule and details of the scientific sessions only by Wednesday evening, well after the inauguration.
Inaugurating the event - this time with the theme 'Planet Earth' - the Prime Minister called for ecologically sustaining ways of development without aping the West's "environmentally wasteful" lifestyle.
India has to exploit the reverse brain drain of scientists, make research an attractive proposition and get back students to the basic sciences, he said.
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