City to have Russia-aided biotechnology centre

allahabad: union hrd, space, science, technology and oceanology minister m m joshi said on wednesday that an international centre of biotechnology with russian assistance would be established in the city on the campus of the indian institute of information technology (iiit). joshi was inaugurating gyan vani fm educational network at the iiit in presence of the state governor v k shastri, jharkhand governor prabhat kumar and vice-chancellors from the north region universities and other dignitaries.he also inaugurated the vice-chancellors' conference at the same venue. he also informed that biotechnology parks were being set up in noida. biotechnological science, he said, had assumed great significance as a science of the past, present and future to work for the welfare of the humanity at large. joshi is the first indian to have been made a member of the russian academy of natural sciences. india and russia, he said, had entered an integrated longterm programme under which the international centre of biotechnology was being opened at allahabad. he was, however, unhappy at the progress of the smart city project which he had got sanctioned in 1988 together with the iiit. the latter was opened within a year, but the smart city programme had lagged behind. he asked the district administration to take active interest in it. joshi was also unhappy at the present state of most of the universities which lacked in many ways. he also lashed at the state governments which increased seats but did not pay attention to increasing the classes, modernising labs and strengthening infrastructural facilities. he remarked this without referring to the state government which had done just the same. as the responsibility of higher education rested on his shoulders as the country's higher education minister, joshi said that he had, with the help of scientists, devised 21st century method to take higher education to the doorsteps of students across the country through programmes, like gyan darshan through door darshan, gyan vani through air. he said the latest such programme would be gyan vahini, an interactive educational programme. students even in remote corners of the country would be benefited through these programmes. addressing the vice-chancellors, joshi appealed to revise the course contents every three years to keep them update with the latest knowledge. in some universities courses had not been revised for the past 15 to 20 years, while in developed countries this exercise was undertaken every three year to incorporate the latest knowledge, he pointed out. earlier, up governor vishnu kant shastri emphasised that the gyan v programme should include question-answer sessions. he was, however, happy at the idea of making available the best knowledge from the best teachers through this programme. others who spoke on the occasion included prof h p dixit, v-c of ignou and president of the association of indian universities, prof powar, prabhat kumar, jharkhand governor, m d tiwari, officer on special duty, iiit, prof a k gupta etc. it drizzled before the function and the subsequent downpour forced the organisers to shift the venue indoors.