New Delhi: The ‘Visitor’s Awards’ for the year 2016 will be presented by the President of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee at a function to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on March 14, 2016, as part of the ‘Festival of Innovations’.
Earlier the President had announced the institution of ‘Visitors Awards’ at the Vice Chancellors’ Conference, 2014 with the aim of promoting healthy competition amongst central universities and motivating them to adopt best practices from across the world.
This year’s Visitor’s Award for ‘Innovation’ will be given to Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar of Jawaharlal Nehru University for development of a genetically engineered vaccine and a therapeutic antibody against anthrax.
Again the Visitor’s Award for ‘Research’ will be presented to the Molecular Parasitology Group of Jawaharlal Nehru University of pioneering work in the area of molecular parasitology, especially anti-malaria, leishmaniasis and amoebiasis.
The winners of Visitor’s Award for both the catagories will receive a Citation and cash award of Rs one lakh.
For selecting the winners, online applications were invited from all Central Universities for each category. A Selection Committee headed by Mrs Omita Paul, Secretary to the President and with Secretaries of Department of Higher Education and Department of Science and Technology as well as Chairman, UGC; Director General, CSIR etc as members chose the winners of the Awards.
A week-long ‘Festival of Innovations’ is being held in Rashtrapati Bhavan from March 12-19, 2016. It will commence with the inauguration of an exhibition of grassroot innovations on March 12th by the President. The Festival will witness a number of exhibitions; roundtable discussions on different topics related to innovations; group discussions; an award for Gandhian Young Technological Innovation; a meeting of Innovation Clubs set up in institutions of higher education; a workshop for children and a hackathon as well.
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