SICI's E-Newsletter 'Engage'

ENGAGE

FEBRUARY 2021

President's Message

Greetings Everyone!

Wishing a very happy and safe New Year 2021.

The year 2020 was unprecedented and it created some problems for SICI, as most of our programmes involve international travel. However, 2020 taught us the important lesson of being resilient. Most of our scholars could do research work and collaborative activities in online mode and the output has been commendable. SICI also moved the orientation programmes and other activities online and I congratulate the SICI office and the scholars for achieving this. We moved all our meetings online, including the Indian and Canadian Member Council meetings, the AGM and Executive Committee meetings. The highlight of the year was the successful webinars we organized, including one with Dr Michael Houghton, Nobel Laureate which was attended by Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, Dr S K Sarin, Director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences New Delhi, SICI's Dissemination & Orientation Session with His Excellency Ajay Bisaria, High Commissioner for India to Canada and Mr. Francis Paradis, Consul & Director, Québec Government Office in India and many other eminent personalities and scholars.

SICI is also trying to diversify the funding options from industries and foundations in India and Canada and the State Governments in India and the Provinces of Canada. We have been receiving positive responses from all these prospective partners, reinforcing the strength of SICI programmes.

We could announce the results of many of programmes recently and my congratulations to all awardees.

We look forward to your continued support to SICI.

Be well, be safe.

Dr Mini Shaji Thomas

President, SICI

What's On?

On December 17, 2020, SICI hosted a webinar with Dr Michael Houghton, Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, and Director, Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute (LKSAVI), University of Alberta, Canada, to commemorate and honour his recent achievement of receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Joining the panel were Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr S K Sarin, Director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Mr. Bill Flanagan, President & Vice-Chancellor, University of Alberta, Canada, Dr Mini Shaji Thomas, President, SICI and Dr Prachi Kaul, Director, SICI. The webinar saw participation from Ms. Deirdre Kent, Deputy High Commissioner of Canada to India and a good turnout from intellectuals, researchers, academicians, scholars, government officials and heads of the institutions from Canada and India. Dr Houghton chose to speak on the topic of "Towards the Control of HCV Infection, Covid-19 & Whatever Next..." and talked about his research and findings in the webinar and shared his views on dealing with the global pandemic and combating diseases.

Watch recording here

With the support from SICI under Shastri Programme Development Grant (SPDG) programme, the Resilience programme for Students was organized virtually by the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad from January 11 to 13, 2021. Prof. Michael Ungar, Dalhousie University, and Founder and Director of the Resilience Research Centre was the keynote speaker at the event. He was joined by Prof. Colette Jourdan-Ionescu, Professor, Department of Psychology and Member of the Center for Research and Intervention on School Success, University of Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Canada. This project was another opportunity to exchange ideas between Canadian and Indian researchers and promote findings in the area of resilience research and practice among students in higher education in India. Dr Prachi Kaul congratulated the team for organizing the event and encouraged scholars to participate more in the upcoming new programmes of SICI.

From January 20 to 22, 2021, SICI organized Dissemination and Orientation (D&O) event for its past and recent awardees via virtual mode. During this event, SICI’s fellows for the year 2019-20 and 2018-19 shared the work done by them during their fellowship tenure in Canada/India. In his morale boosting keynote address, His Excellency Ajay Bisaria, High Commissioner for India to Canada congratulated awardees and hailed the role of SICI in fostering partnerships in India-Canada bilateral higher education and research agenda with a focus on tech, innovation and start-ups. The event was also graced by Mr. Francis Paradis, Consul & Director, Québec Government Office who shared his views about Québec's disapora and its educational system. The new awardees for the year 2020-21 received first-hand information about SICI, its policies, fund disbursement, utilization of funds and other vital aspects. SICI’s distinguished connoisseurs discussed multiculturalism, diversity, native history, geographical aspects, higher education, environmental divergence, etc. to make awardees conversant with these aspects of the partner country.

SICI’s Shastri Membership Development Grant awardee, Dr Ankita Omer of Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology (SLIET), organized a workshop entitled “Additive Manufacturing” from January 30-31, 2021 for B.E/B.Tech students. The workshop was aimed at helping participants to understand the difference between additive manufacturing and conventional manufacturing along with designing and printing a 3D object.

Dr Ashutosh Sharma, a recipient of the 2018 Shastri Research Student Fellowship (SRSF) - Doctoral Category, has now been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hydrology at IIT Roorkee. Dr Sharma said "I want to thank Shastri Institute for giving me the opportunity to visit McGill University, Canada, under SRSF. The Fellowship experience not only improved my research work but also helped me during my selection at IIT Roorkee."

We wish Dr Sharma all the best in his new role!

2021... And. The Big Picture!

I hope that everyone reading this blog, their loved ones, friends, are well and safe!

Since our last newsletter we have got new, interesting stories and activities to share with all of us. It’s heartening to see Engage serving as a conversation starter, opening new dialogues with our intellectual community at-large. The nuts and bolts of SICI’s work continues in a professional manner, despite global challenges. This is an important year for us in India and Canada. We are at a crucial time with potential enterprises in higher education and research on the horizon and a new beginning for all of us.

We opened the year with India celebrating 72nd Republic Day and remembering fondly Bapu ji (Mahatma Gandhi) and Babu ji (Sh. Lal Bahadur Shastri) on their death anniversaries. Our determined, great leaders and thinkers paved way for the Indian Constitution coming into effect on January 26, 1950 declaring India’s emergence as an independent republic. Carrying its core values forward, as expressed in the Constitution, India’s most effective response to the pandemic came in the form of implementation of covid-19 vaccine by driving the world's largest vaccine programme and the fastest in terms of reaching out to the people being vaccinated. I believe the exceptional planning and strategic handling of dispensing the vaccine by the Indian government, led to country’s ‘Vaccine Diplomacy’ responding very well to a global challenge of a huge magnitude. Plus, all other factors, India is rebounding and marching towards becoming a USD five trillion, world’s fastest-growing economy, as projected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), also predicting its growth at 11.5% in 2021 and 6.8% in 2022, despite the Covid challenge.

Promoting excellence in higher education and research in India-Canada bilateral corridor is at the heart of all we do at SICI, and I still cannot help but recognize International Education Day (January 24) an important day for reflection and future planning. We all witnessed disruptions, interruptions of unprecedented scale with institutions of learning closing all across the globe, affecting lives of 1.6 billion students in over 190 countries! The pandemic has further made me believe firmly to share SICI’s goal of harnessing the full potential of every scholar, learner, no matter what their circumstances. And this sentiment finds its voice in the recent Union Budget of India announcing an outlay of INR 50,000 crores, spread over five years, for National Research Foundation. Its indeed a big leap towards strengthening the overall research ecosystem of the country with a focus on national-priority thrust areas to boost innovation, research and development. Meaning more opportunities for growth for our member institutions, scholars, students, and faculty. Related to this news comes another announcement, based on the recommendation of new National Education Policy 2020, which is setting up of the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). This umbrella body will be responsible to ensure the unique and distinct functions of regulation, accreditation, funding, and academic standard setting be governed by independent and empowered bodies. All of these reforms point towards one goal - preparing our youth to become well-rounded learners equipped with the 21st century skills.

While many administrative details have been covered by Dr Thomas, President, SICI, in her message, I too wish to congratulate the winners and recipients of Golden Jubilee Golden Jubilee Conference & Lecture Series Grant (GJCLSG). With this we have closed our golden jubilee celebration now.

How does a day in SICI looks like? Well. We are off to a busy start ever since the new year dawned upon us. Our first stop was supporting and participating in academic events funded by SICI such as a three-day programme convened by Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad with support from SICI’s Shastri Programme Development Grant and a two-day workshop conducted by Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology (SLIET), again funded under Shastri Membership Development Grant of SICI. The next stop turned out to be a dynamic one too. In a first step towards forging ties with our Indian states and their Higher Education Departments, I had the honour of hosting the Honourable Dr Audimulapu Suresh, Minister of Education, Andhra Pradesh over a virtual meeting to discuss engagement between our two entities. Closer on the heels of this marathon, I had another great opportunity to host Ms. Anita George, Executive Vice-President & Deputy Head, CDPQ Global. I would like to say that both of these interactions, alongside all other conversations and meetings that we had with a couple of companies towards end of last year, are SICI’s humble yet bold steps towards expanding goals, intended to align with the priorities of each of our states, provinces and companies. If you ask the purpose, this will help us in empowering key areas of operation, setting up the research clusters and facilitating partnerships amongst the major stakeholders.

Finally, before I sign off, I would like to extend best wishes to the Honourable Marc Garneau, the new incoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Government of Canada. We had the honour of interacting with him a couple of times earlier. Our Institute aspires to engage closely with his office and Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, to nurture, advance and maintain people-to-people ties between our two great democracies while keeping with the demands and needs of 2021 and many more years to come.

Thank you.

Dr Prachi Kaul

Director, SICI

Coming up next...

Krishnamurti and the Contemporary World Crises; A Free Online Conference by Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; from February 19-21 and February 26-28, 2021

(With the support from SICI under Shastri Programme Development Grant (SPDG) programme)

Free Registration | Agenda and other details

Conversation on Life Enhancing Values—No More Hate, No More Fear: Promoting Harmony & Compassion; A two-day International Conference; February 20-21 2021

(With the support from SICI under Shastri Programme Development Grant (SPDG) programme)

India-Canada Bilateral Virtual Conference on "Waste to Wealth"; from February 24-26, 2021