The year was 1989. The day, the second Saturday of the rain-soaked month of July. The Council members of the Indian Academy of Sciences were assembled in the Council Room of the Raman Research Institute. Prof. C N R Rao, as the president of the Academy, was chairing the meeting. The members of the Council felt that one Annual Meeting was not sufficient to accommodate all the newly elected Fellows of the Academy to present their work to the Fellowship and the general community. The necessity for a second meeting was deliberated. The following year, on Friday, the 27th of July, the Indian Academy of Sciences hosted its first Mid-Year Meeting at the Indian Institute of Science.
Known for its diversity in scientific content – via talks delivered by highly acclaimed researchers– the Mid-Year meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences is an eventful celebration of scientific accomplishments from across India. The Mid-Year Meetings – shorter and more intense than the Annual Meetings, but of the same ‘status’– continue to serve as a platform for the newly elected Fellows and Associates to present their inaugural talks, covering the most recent of their scientific achievements.
The 29th Mid-Year meeting will be held on 29–30 June 2018 at the Infosys Leadership Institute, Mysore Development Centre, Mysuru. Fellows of the Academy, as well as Associates, invited teachers and students, will come together for two days, participating in an exchange of knowledge and ideas.
The Meeting is expected to cover lectures on subjects ranging from protein polyphenol interactions to gravitational wave sources and Raman spectrometry to India plate motions. The highlights of the meeting include special lectures, symposia and a public lecture. G Nageswara Rao will speak on Research, relevance and public good, highlighting the technological advances in treating blindness. Raman Sukumar, in his talk on Thinking long-term in ecology: Insights from 3-decades of monitoring a tropical forest in Mudumalai, will speak on practical and theoretical issues in ecology. The public lecture by Upinder Singh, to be held in the evening of 29th June, will focus on Politics and violence: Ancient debates on a perennial problem. Two symposia are organized to be held during the meeting– the first on Remembering Francis Crick: A multifaceted visionary scientist and the second on Blockchains and Cryptocurrency.