National Conference in Chemistry 2008

National Conference in Chemistry: Structure, Reaction Dynamics and Spectroscopy

The Chemistry Department of St. Stephen’s College organized a National Conference on Chemistry focused on Structure, Reaction Dynamics and Spectroscopy. The conference commenced on 21st of August and continued till 23rd. During this event scores of eminent speakers marked their presence by delivering talks on various topics of Chemistry and allied fields. This conference was held as a part of “Sashtiabdapoorti” celebrations for Dr S V Esvaran, also the head of the Department of Chemistry who has completed 40 years of teaching in the college. Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) established by the very legendary scientist of India Prof C N R Rao awarded Dr. Esvaran as the Best Teacher in 2007 who is known both nationally and internationally and has had about 50 research papers and patents to his name. Moreover, highly acclaimed as a teacher, he is very accessible to both his students and colleagues despite his extremely busy schedule and that's what makes him an extremely famous teacher and loved one amongst his students.

Coming back to the conference, it begun with a scope of highlighting ‘academic and industrial uses of fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, polymers, microelectronics, nanotechnology and emerging areas of material science.’ The objective of the conference as was officially listed was to emphasize both on the basic and applied aspects of the subject and to promote chemical education. The main themes of the conference i.e. the areas of fundamental or applied chemistry on which papers could be presented in the conference were the following:
   -Natural products in chemistry
   -Structural chemistry
   -Reactive intermediates
   -Modern spectroscopic techniques
   -Material science
   -Nanotechnology
   -Medicinal chemistry
   -Chemical education

Few of the proposed speakers who spoke in the conference were Prof. V S Parmar, Prof. Amitabh Sarkar, Kolkata, Prof. P Raghunathan, Delhi, Prof. Gurmeet Singh, Delhi, Prof. Rita Kakkar, Delhi, Prof. Rajendra Prasad, Delhi, Prof. Charusita Chakraboraty, Delhi, Dr. Ashok Prasad , Delhi, Dr. R Nagarajan, Delhi, Dr. Balaji Jagirdar, Delhi, Dr. E N Prabhakaran, Bangalore. This event was sponsored by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, Department of Scinece and Technology (DPT), New Delhi and UGC - University Grants Commission.

The organization committee included Prof. C N R Rao, Prof Deepak Pental , Vice Chancellor, Delhi University , Rt. Rev. Sunil Kumar Singh, Chairman, Governing Body, St. Stephen’s College, Prof P Balaram, IISc , Bangalore and Prof. Samir Bramhachari, DG, CSIR, New Delhi.

Apart from this there were paper presentations and poster making competitions also held. All members inclusive of every age attended this one rare event which promised to delve into the vast horizons of knowledge. Keep looking for more ahead…