“Women have led in developing the green firecracker technology in India. Nearly three-fourths of the population working in these industries are women and theyhave saved the jobs of over three lakh people,” said Sadhana S Rayalu, chief scientist, CSIR-NEERI during her presentation on the topic, ‘Role of Science and Technology for Women Empowerment – A Case Study’.
She was speaking during the sessions organised under Women Science Congress on Thursday. She also said that two kinds of empowerment of women is very important, one being political empowerment and other economic empowerment.
She also informed that women are taking the lead working in the sector of solar appliances, biodegradable sanitary pads, cloth based masks and sanitisers etc.
Dr Shalini Mohan from GMC Kanpur spoke on the topic, ‘The Empowered Women: Navigating the challenges and overcoming them’. She highlighted the ten cardinal rules for women towards becoming empowered.
Dr Renu Agarwal ex CS, CSIR-Central Food TechnologyResearch Institute, Mysore spoke on the ‘opportunities in food science and technology for the empowerment of women. She opined that food science deals with agriculture and nutrition science.
Dr Minakshi De, former professor, department of Microbiology, Surendranath College, Kolkata spoke on ‘Science Communication: Career for women’. She spoke about the need for science communicators for the public to know about the developments that the scientists are already working on.
Dr Vishakha Jain from the department of internal medicine, AIIMS spoke about the ‘women in medicine: perspective in 2023’. She highlighted the challenges for women in the field of medicine.
Later, a panel discussion was conducted, which was chaired by Dr Nisha Mendiratta, DST, New Delhi. The panel discussion saw the participation of Dr Indu Puri, Sc-F DST, New Delhi,Dr Suphia Khan, Banasthali University, Dr Sangeeta Nagar, Sc-F, TIFAC, New Delhi, Dr MukulikaHitkari, prof and head, department of economics, DGPG, Lucknow.
Dr Zareena, Principal, JNV, Nagpur discussed career opportunities in the science field where age is just a number and requested women to participate.
On the second day of Women Science Congress, a total of 47 presentations were given. Women from all the states across the country put forth their views. Dr C A Vasuki, from ISCA Coimbatore chapter, Dr Manju Tembhre from Bhopla, Dr Inderjeet Kaur, Prof Payal Lodha, presented their papers. Other delegates too from various parts of the country participated in Women Science Congress. There were over 5000 registrations for Women Science Congress alone, said event Convenor, Dr. Kalpana Pande.
