Mangaluru: “It is time for all of us to introspect on problems leading to farmer suicides. If scientific development cannot contribute to improve their life, these innovations have no value for us. If technological advancement cannot help our citizens to lead better lives, it has no value for us,” opined Basavaraj Rayareddi, Minister for Higher Education.
He addressed the gathering after inaugurating International Conference ERCICA ((Emerging Research in Computing Information, Communication and Applications) at Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, here on July 29.
Further he added, “Technology has become the most important driver for economic development, and Information technology is immensely influencing all walks of our life. It is hard to imagine any moment without the aid of technology. But to put technology for productive use and prosperity of our society, we need to continuously explore how it can be applied in core areas of agriculture, health care, ecology, education, governance, and so on. Technological development, when it does not benefit the common man, it becomes irrelevant for him and hence for economic activity as well. In this scenario, applied research assumes its importance and engineering colleges play an important role in developing and transferring technology to the common man. India being agrarian economy, application of technology in agriculture assumes its importance. He expressed his pleasure that Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology has under taken this Research and Development in a massive manner.”
Prof. V.B. Coutinho, Former Vice-chancellor, Gulbarga University, in his speech, gave call to Scientists / Technocrats to understand the Intellectual Property Rights properly so as to protect their research findings.
Prof. Kalidasa Shetty and Prof. Rajesh Kavasseri of North Dokota State University, USA also spoke on the occasion. Prof. N.R. Shetty, Chairman, Karnataka State Universities’ Review Commission Presided over the function. In this presidential address he opined that Government will sure make it mandatory to all engineering colleges to involve in Research and Development activities compulsorily. Dr. H.C. Nagaraj, Principal, NMIT welcomed the gathering in the beginning.
