The fourteenth annual technical festival of IIT Roorkee listed as the largest technological festival of Northern India-kick-started by the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday witnessed the PM’s Make In India concept truly come alive with new technological inventions on display and discussions with the techno-entrepreneurs.
The three- day fest would see guest lecture from techno experts, exhibitions of what the world has achieved and tech-tainment nights with comedians like David Blatter during late evenings. A ‘Tinkering laboratory’ was inaugurated by the minister in the university campus. The theme of the fest is to be frontiers of emerging innovations in tune to ‘Make in India’.
In a jovial mood, dressed in striped half sleeved shirt and trousers, the defense Minister Manohar Parrikar said that he wished he could spend the whole day with the students, but had to fly to Pokharan for a live exercise by Air Force. He said he was “taking the josh of students back with him.” In a question asked by a media person, he said every Indian should raise the slogan of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ be it a university campus or any other place.
Chairman Board of Directors Prof Ashok Mishra highlighted the role of IIT in various developmental programmes in the fields of irrigation, architecture, dam building and others undertaken 168 years old institution.
The minister said that sustainable commercial ecosystem was the fourth pillar of engineering innovation. “Besides theoretical, practical and technological know-how exhibitions, if ecosystem is considered, there is no obstacle in the path of innovation,” he said, adding that innovation was the most difficult in defence sector, Manohar said the process of simplifying the defence procurement procedures had begun during his tenure of since November 2014. A deadline needed to be set beyond which no imports would be made for certain ordinance equipments, said the minister.