Govt pulls plug on Indian Science Congress: RSS 'Swadeshi' science eclipses 109-year-old conference
GS Mudur | 07 January 2024 | The Telegraph
The cancellation of the annual session of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) this year hasn’t surprised sections of scientists who view it as a fallout of the Centre’s efforts to promote an alternative science festival linked to Vijnana Bharati, the science wing of the RSS.
The ISCA had planned to organise the 109th Indian Science Congress (ISC) at the Lovely Professional University (LPU), Jalandhar, from January 3 to 5. But a decision by the Union science and technology ministry in September 2023 to “dissociate” itself from the ISC and to deny any government funds to the event made it impossible to continue with the conference, an organiser at the LPU said.
The department of science and technology (DST) had accused the ISCA of changing the venue from Lucknow to Jalandhar “unilaterally” without government approval. The DST, explaining its decision, had said ISCA’s annual event had “already lost its relevance in the scientific community and lacks a professional approach on the conduct of the event on many fronts”.
Several thousand scientists, research scholars and faculty members from universities and scientific institutions and schoolchildren typically attend the annual sessions of the ISC.