Celebrations Galore at Pilani Rajasthan Shridhar University

Online, September 17, 2011 (Newswire.com) - According to the World Health Organization - WHO Fact sheet about 284 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 245 have low vision and about 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries. There are over 4.5 million visually challenged persons in India today and doctors feel that at least three million can gain their sight through cornea transplant. Eye donation can help restore vision among the corneally-blind. On September 8 which is observed as National Eye Donation Day in India, Prof BR Natarajan Pro Vice Chancellor addressed the faculty and students of Shridhar University and urged them to spread awareness about eye donation as well as make eye donation a family tradition.

It was on 14 September 1949, the Constitution-makers of India decided to accord the status of Official Language of the Union to Hindi written in Devanagari script and to commemorate this historic occasion, Hindi Diwas is observed every year on the same date. The importance of Hindi in the global arena can be judged by the fact that the hugely popular and highly acclaimed social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc have included Hindi versions. Prof Bir Singh in his inimitable style addressing the faculty and students of Shridhar University gave details about the genesis of this day. Faculty Ajay Kumar recited the famous Agneepath lines penned by noted Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Prof BR Natarajan giving the quote of Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests" said that Hindi Ghazals can be equally charming and soul searching like the ones written in Urdu.

Sep 15 is observed as Engineers Day in India as a mark of respect to Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who was born this day in 1860 and died on April 14, 1962. The theme for this year celebration is "Engineering Preparedness for Disaster Mitigation". Shridhar University celebrated the 44th Engineers Day by organizing a talk to the students and faculty in the lecture theatre of the university. Pro Vice Chancellor Prof BR Natarajan welcomed the invited expert for the occasion Prof Rajiv Gupta who is presently Dean of Engineering Services Division at Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani to trigger the celebrations with a novel e lamp lighting. Prof Natarajan spoke on the life history of Sir Visvesvaraya and gave an overview of the theme for this year celebrations. Prof Rajiv Gupta in his address laid particular emphasis on application of technology including GIS, GPS etc for facing the challenges. Using various maps, Prof Rajiv highlighted the various disaster prone zones in India based on earthquake, flood, drought and cyclone occurrences.

On 19 December 1994, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proclaimed 16 September every year to be observed as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer to commemorate the same date in 1987, on which the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances - ODS was signed. ODS are widely used in refrigerators, air-conditioners, fire extinguishers, in dry cleaning, as solvents for cleaning, electronic equipment and as agricultural fumigants. HydroChloroFluoroCarbons - HCFCs are both ozone-depleting substances and powerful greenhouse gases: the most commonly used HCFC is nearly 2,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in adding to global warming. For the 17th International Ozone Day that was observed on September 16, 2011 the theme was "HCFC Phase-out: a unique opportunity".

Addressing the students at Shridhar University, Prof BR Natarajan urged them to take up the challenges of developing cutting-edge technologies that not only eliminate ozone-depleting compounds but do so in a way that lowers energy costs and maximizes climate benefits. Considering that Hydrofluorocarbons HFCs which do not deplete the ozone layer are fast replacing HCFCs, Prof Natarajan cautioned that one should not forget that HFCs are indeed highly potent greenhouse gases.

Students enthusiastically participated in the proceedings of various celebrations and shared their opinions and resolved to do their best in the respective contexts.