GUWAHATI, March 29 � The tenth Dr Biraj Mohan Das Memorial Science Award in the group of physical science was today conferred on Dr Amarendra Kumar Sarma, Associate Professor at the IIT-Guwahati.
The award that carries a citation, a plaque and Rs 10,000 was presented to him by the Mentor Director of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Professor Gautam Barua.
The award has been instituted in the memory of Dr Biraj Mohan Das, an eminent mathematician and computer scientist, who was a very active research worker at Mathematics at the University of Gottingen, West Germany. The award is given in every three years in the field of physical and life sciences to the young researchers below the age of 35, for their research work carried out in Assam. None of the applicants, however, qualified this time in the life science section of the award.
In his acceptance speech, Dr Amarendra Sarma elaborated about his research works. Dr Sarma, who studied in Dibrugarh and IIT Delhi has to his credit a number of research papers published in reputed journals. He has also received the Indo-US Fellowship. �I am very proud to be associated with Science, which was my dream since my school days,� he said.
Professor Gautam Barua while speaking on the occasion stressed the need to promote research work in higher educational institutions. �No recipient in the other category of this award is another indication of the crisis we are facing today. We definitely do not have lack of talent in such a vast population but the society is somewhere lacking in nurturing the talents,� he said.
�Only ten per cent of the HSLC passed students choose Science stream. This is not a phenomenon to be ignored,� he said.
Also speaking about the necessity to take up research activities in the State-funded higher educational institutions, he said that the State Government has taken up projects to improve the local educational institutions, but there is a need to do more in this field.
NK Choudhury, former Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University also spoke on the occasion. Professor Anil Goswami presided over the function.
