Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) celebrated its 37^th Foundation Day on Wednesday, 19^th February 2020. Prof. R.B. Grover, Emeritus Professor, HBNI and Member, Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Atomic Energy was the chief guest on the occasion. He delivered a scintillating and captivating talk on “The Science - Technology Relationship”.

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Prof. Grover appreciated and congratulated the scientists and engineers of RRCAT for their accomplishments over the years. In his talk, he started elucidating how the relationship between science and technology evolved over the years, and spoke about the methods of knowledge production. He presented paradigms tracing the evolution of science, technology, and their inter-relationship, starting from ancient to medieval to modern ages. He elaborated that multifaceted relationship between science and technology, and the squeeze on funding of research as well as scrutiny by the society have now led to new methods of knowledge production. He discussed about the mission of the university system which started since the beginning of the 20th century. The first mission was to teach, the second was research, and the third mission, which evolved over the last few decades, is focused on service to the industry. The Homi Bhabha National Institute aims to combine all these three missions in a single organization. Finally, he concluded that the researchers should prioritize working on problems facing their employing organizations, their country and also work for deployment of the results. On the other hand, the organizations and the country should create an ecosystem to facilitate such deployment.

Shri Debashis Das, Director, RRCAT presented a report on the major accomplishments of the Centre during the last one year. All the staff member of the centre were in attendance in the Homi Bhabha Auditorium, Convention Centre of RRCAT.

Shri Das in his talk emphasized that the national facility of Synchrotron Radiation Source Indus-1 and Indus-2 is working in three shifts and is being extensively used by researchers and students from institutes, universities and industries from all over the country. The number of experiments conducted using this facility has increased substantially. Two more beamlines started operations in Indus-2 during the year, taking the total number of operational beamlines in Indus-2 to 16. Shri Das informed about the development of various lasers and their use. He also informed about societal uses of accelerator and lasers being developed at Centre. Many technologies developed at RRCAT, including technologies for laser based health care instruments such as OncoDiagnoScope and TuberculoScope have been transferred to the industry.

Prof. Grover also visited laboratories in RRCAT and was apprised about various activities of the Centre.

Dr. Anil Rawat, Director, Technology Development and Support Group delivered the welcome address and Shri Mahendra Lad, Associate Director, Proton Accelerator Group introduced the Chief Guest to the audience. Shri S.V. Nakhe, Director, Laser Group and Material Science Group proposed vote of thanks. The program was conducted by Dr. Alpana Rajan, Head, Computer Division.