The third Northern Region Social Science Congress, organised by the Doon University and the Northern Regional Centre of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR ), New Delhi, opened at the Doon University here on Thursday. This is the first time that the congress is being hosted by a university.
Welcoming the delegates to the three-day meet, Prof V K Jain, Vice-Chancellor of Doon University, said that it was an honour that the event was being held at the university. He said Doon University was a young university and was making "slow but steady" progress, adding more and more courses. He said that the School of life Sciences would be added soon to the schools of the university. "Computer Science and Mathematics are also on the cards," he said.
Professor Dhruv Raina of JNU, honorary secretary of ICSSR, thanked the Doon University for hosting the congress. He said the visibility of the congress was growing every year. He said the congress was conceived as a forum for inter-disciplinary interaction among scholars and students as it had themes from economics, sociology and anthropology, besides other fields.
He said the congress demanded a deep engagement from students and researchers. Prof Raina said that climate change and natural disasters, media politics, citizen activism and social movements were the new themes which would be taken up at this congress.
Dr Upendra Choudhari said social science subjects must be made relevant. He said besides the Government, students and teachers could play an important role in doing this. "This congress will be a step forward in this direction," he said.
Prof Gurpreet Mahajan from JNU delivered the key note address on the topic, 'The Distinctiveness of Indian Multiculturalism'. She said that secularism and multiculturalism were very special for India and were a peculiarity which was appreciated the world over.
"It is this open secularism of India which has made it a vibrant democracy," she said, adding that the founding fathers had felt and believed that this secularism and multiculturalism was valuable. She said, "We should ensure that this diversity in India survives and flourishes.
The vote of thanks was delivered by Prof Kusum Arunanchalam, in-charge, department of economics, School of Social Sciences at Doon University. She said it was a great honour for the university as it was for the first time that the congress was being hosted by a university.
The themes of the congress are caste, social structure and village communities, gender & hierarchy, environment, climate change and natural disasters, political parties and electoral politics, citizen activism and social movements, social rights and public policy, education and health, understanding regional inequalities, law, justice and social conflict, media, politics and pop-culture, employability, mobility and markets, political economy of natural resource management and local self governance.
Scholars from Northern Region, National Capital Territory Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan are participating in the congress. Seventy-five selected papers from a total of 330 papers submitted will be presented in parallel sessions of the congress.
Prof BK Joshi, Dr Dinesh Pratap and Prof Anita Dighe were present at the inaugural session, besides several other well-known scholars from Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand Governor Dr K K Paul will be the chief guest at the valedictory session of the congress on February 28 in the afternoon.
The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) was set up by the Government of India in 1969 as an autonomous organisation in order to review, promote, encourage, assist and coordinate social science research in the country.
From its inception it was considered as one of the biggest achievements of Indian democracy and it was conceived as a premier national agency for expanding social science research, improving its quality and attempting to increase its utilisation in policy formulation.