Centres for Excellence to be Set Up at IIT-Kharagpur and IISc Bengaluru
The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) will be setting up two centres for excellence (CEC) at IIT Kharagpur and IISc Bangalore to train young researchers in software and algorithms for monitoring weather events.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is planning to have two Centres for Excellence (CEC) for training young researchers in the development of software and algorithms for monitoring some specific weather events.
The first CEC will soon be set up on IIT Kharagpur’s campus, and a similar one will also follow at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bengaluru. This announcement was made by the secretary MoES, M Rajeevan, who also said they have received a proposal from IIT Kharagpur, and the team will visit the institute this month to finalise CEC’s setting. He expected a proposal soon from IISc as well.
Rajeevan mentioned the dust storm and the severe thunderstorm that affected Haryana, Delhi, and other nearby regions last year, killing more than 200 people. He said that the event was ‘eye-opener’ and it showed the need to have software and algorithms for tracking such events.
The CECs will train the students and researchers on how to develop software, hardware, and algorithms, and this will help in tracking lightning, thunder, wind speed, and other specific phenomena to improve operational forecasts.
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Having a Centre for Excellence is the latest development by the MoES to develop human resources in atmospheric sciences for research and operational purposes. The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology will start offering short-term courses and scholarships from the next academic year and also conduct workshops through its dedicated Development of Skilled Manpower in Earth System Sciences (DESK). The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services will also conduct oceanic studies. Since India’s radar network will double in the next two years, the need for researchers to interpret data is also high.
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The director general of the India Meteorological Department, KJ Ramesh said that with the amount of data being generated, there is a need to engage more researchers and students and there is a need to have new types of scanning methods. Research campaigns on radar meteorology are also being planned this year, and this data is available for students and researchers.