GUWAHATI, July 21 - A three-day national conference on �Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Bio Sciences for Scientists from North East Indian States� got under way at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM) on the outskirts of Guwahati on Tuesday.
Organised by Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with USTM, the conference is sponsored by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). About 100 scientists, research scholars, teachers and students are taking part in the conference.
Delivering the inaugural address, Dr Abha Agnihotri, head of the Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology, said that while taking part in national seminars and meetings on matters relating to IPR, it was noticed that the participation of scientists and stakeholders from Northeast India in all such events was very minimal. To address this issue, this national conference has been organised in the Northeast itself so that a large number of participants can benefit from it.
In his welcome address, Dr PG Rao, Vice Chancellor of USTM, dwelt upon the need for creating more awareness about IPR among students and faculty members of Indian universities and institutions of higher and technical education.
Eminent scholars who addressed the plenary sessions on the first day of the conference were Prof NC Talukdar, Director, IASST, Guwahati; Dr Sadhna Srivastava, scientist, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India; and Dr Pronobesh Chattopadhyay, Scientist, Defence Research Laboratory, DRDO, Tezpur, said a statement.
Many more eminent scientists and experts in the field of research and IPR will address the conference during the coming two days touching upon issues such as plant diversity conservation and IPR, GI and potentials in the Northeast, and relevance of PPV and FR Act under agricultural scenario of NE States, etc.
