Solan: Two days National Conference on Entomology, organized by High Altitude Regional Centre of Zoological Survey of India, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, was concluded at the venue Pine Wood Hotel, Barog, Solan. The event was graced by the presence of the Director of Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, Dr. Dhriti Banerjee, as the chief guest of the event. Among the distinguished guests were Dr. G. P. Mandal, Head of Office , ZSI, Kolkata, Dr. Sauvik Sen, O/C, Technical and Scientist E, ZSI, Kolkata.
The successful holding of such a great conference would surely count on the research and development activities of Zoological Survey of India. The coordinator of the conference and the officer in charge of HARC ZSI. Solan, Dr. Avtar Kaur Sidhu told that the conference attracted a large number of researchers across the nation. A total of 119 abstracts were received under the various themes like Insect diversity and taxonomy, climate change, medically important insects, pests, ecology and molecular studies of insects. However, in order to provide opportunity to the budding researchers and to accommodate only the relevant topics, 60 accepted abstracts were selected for oral presentation and short talks.
The co-coordinator of the conference, Dr. Navneet Singh, Scientist E informed that the two days conference was conducted in 6 sessions that included a special Hindi session. In Hindi session, the researchers have presented their research findings in Hindi Rajbhasa. Among the 8 invited talks, a special talk on Mission LiFE was delivered by Dr. Debashree Dam, Scientist B, ZSI, Kolkata.
The esteemed invited speakers were Dr. B. K. Tyagi, Dr. H. C. Gera, Dr. Devender Kaur Krocher, Dr. Indu Sharma, Dr. Pramod Thakur, Dr. Neelam Thakur, Dr. Rahul Joshi, Dr. Atanu Naskar. The conference provided a platform for the researchers to share the ideas and discuss their research findings in front of the forum of stalwarts of Entomology. Three best presentation awards were given in each of the two categories of oral fulltime presentation and short talks.
Director, ZSI, reiterated the need of organizing such a national and international conference at a bigger level, and congratulated the contributors of the abstracts.