The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Scientists skip workshop due to unrest

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Scientists skip workshop due to unrest

Special Correspondent

Sixty Indian and some top US scientists stay away from the Indo-US meet

U.S. State Department on December 9 issued travel alert to its citizens
Advises them to defer “all non-essential travel” to the Telangana region

HYDERABAD: The on-going unrest in different parts of the State has cast its shadow on the three-day Indo-US workshop which began here on Tuesday with about 60 Indian and a few top US scientists staying away from it.

The American scientists apparently did not attend the event in the wake of a travel alert issued by the U.S. State Department on December 9 advising its citizens to defer “all non-essential travel” to the Telangana region and certain parts of Hyderabad.

According to Utpal Bhadra of Centre of Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), convenor of the workshop, a few of the US scientists cited the travel alert issued by their country’s State Department as one of the reasons for skipping the event, which was inaugurated by Director-General Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Samir Brahmachari.

Collaborative projects

Prof. Brahmachari urged foreign scientists to come and work on collaborative projects in India. The trend of Indian scientists going abroad would see a decline in future. CSIR labs had adequate funds for collaborative ventures and were attracting a lot of young scientists.

Dr. Bhadra said that epigenetics was a new and emerging branch which refers to gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.

Around 190 delegates and scientists, including some from US, are attending the workshop.

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