Science took me to Tianjin, a city, southeast of Beijing in
Mainland China during the second half of
September.
The occasion was the 23rd General Meeting of the TWAS.
The acronym, TWAS, originally stood for the Third World Academy
of Sciences, with headquarters in Trieste Italy. Formed in 1983, this started of as an excellent platform for the practising scientists and science & technology
policy makers of the developing world to meet annually. Perhaps, members felt, the qualifier Third
World had an archaic ring to it, so in 2004, the name was changed to Academy of Sciences of the Developing
World, though the acronym didn’t match.
But now in a move to
expand the boundaries ( or rather remove it altogether) TWAS takes on a new avatar, The World Academy of Sciences, and
well the acronym suits and hence stays.). Anyway there are several associate fellows from the developed world.
This year’s theme was science,
technology and innovation for economic growth. Chinese President Hu Jintao gave
the keynote address. He mentioned that China drew a 15 year roadmap in 2004, identifying
activities and projects that would propel China to the frontiers in that time
frame. He promised 1.5 million US$ to the Academy to boost scientific
cooperation and collaboration among the member countries. The Ministerial
session that followed had either the
S&T minister himself or a top representative from S & T Ministry of several
of the developing countries addressing the audience. Mr Vylar Ravi,
Minister for Science and Technology, India
also spoke. Particularly heartening was to listen to efforts of Rwanda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe to
alleviate poverty and improve quality of life through innovations in S&T.
Scientific sessions were quite exciting and informative. TB or not TB by Prof Richard N. Zare of the Dept. of Chemistry, Stanford University covered his attempts to diagnose one of most infectious diseases as early as possible. Interested in the Life and Times of Dinosaurs? Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan of the Department of
Zoology, University of Cape Town South Africa, analyses the microstructure of
fossil bones to unravel the mysterious world of dinosaurs.
Tailpiece
What did a Bengali and a Keralite do when they got some free time in Tianjin?
While the rest went
for shopping/site seeing, they visited the Zhou Enlai Memorial Museum. Here are some rare photographs from the museum
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| Zhou Enlai & wife Den |
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| May 4th Movement : A painting |
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| Zhou Enlai's Appointment letter signed by Mao |
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| A Copy of Red China |
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| Zhou's letter to Chiang Kaishek |
