Knowledge-Driven Economy Essential For Growth – Chidambaram:Inaugurates PGI New Academic Session

By 121 News Reporter

Chandigarh 07^th January: ---- Dr. R.Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. Of India & Chairman, Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi inaugurated the New Academic Session of the Institute today and delivered his enlightening address "Medicine and the Knowledge Economy".

 "Science and Technology driven growth is needed to become a 'developed' country. But for this development to be sustainable, a Knowledge-driven Economy is essential" said Dr Chidambaram while delivering the inaugural address. To integrate the fragmented knowledge in the country is the need of the day, he said.  In the present era of third industrial revolution, connectivity is the key word which can lead to generation of newer knowledge and development. "High speed connectivity makes distances disappear" opined Dr Chidambaram.  He emphasized on the indigenisation of technology and appropriateness of research for better health security of the people in a country.  He complimented PGIMER for its emphasis on research and for acquiring latest technology.  Dr Chidambaram informed the new entrants about National Knowledge Network which was in the final phase. Massive online open courses, network enabled medical diagnosis, access to medical information, exchange of clinical data etc. were some of the benefits of forming this network.

 Earlier Prof.Yogesh Chawla, Director PGI introduced Dr R.Chidambaram to the audience and welcomed the new entrants.  While informing  about the latest achievements of the Institute he said that superspeciality courses for the first time had been started from PGI especially in Pulmonology, Hepatology, Paediatric Critical Care, Pediatric Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry and Histopathology and a Fellowship Programme in Neuro-radiology, Renal Transplantation, Pediatric Radiology, Head and Neck Oncosurgery, and Musculoskeletal Radiology.

While talking about the postgraduate training in PGI Prof.Chawla said, "PGI imparts training in 16 M.D., 4 M.S., 16 D.M. and 6 M.Ch. Courses and the Institute till date has produced almost 4450 and 1550 super-specialists besides a large number of postgraduates in allied and basic sciences."  While complimenting the faculty of PGI he informed that this year, "The faculty has been able to get around 24 international experts in different specialties to visit the Institute resulting in developing collaboration with some of the foreign Institutes. The PGI faculty has also attracted around 19 crores as extra mural grants for various research projects and has published more than 1186 research articles during the last year".