National Academy in India Takes an Important Step Forward

The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India recently organised a special technical session in the Seventh National Agricultural Sciences Congress (16-18 Feb; Poona; India) on "Science and Tsunami". That was quite a move forward for the Academy! A number of top scientits of India connected with oceanography, geology, remote sensing and plantation crops as well as fisheries made very good presentations. The origin/cause of Tsunami was well explained. The damage assessment was rigorous. A lot of progress in infusing science in disaster management, I must say. The Academy council did a very good job putting this together.
The preparedness part was however treated as a component of the prediction system, which I thought was a bit of a let down. Academics are yet to realise that expesnive systems for prediction have not proved useful if not linked with community-managed/owned channels of communication. There is a good move forward, and there is scope for moving further on.