Nobel Laureate and NASA Scientist, Prof John. C Mather would interact with select Group of 300 11^th class meritorious students at Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh Auditorium at the PU Campus on March 27. He would interact on the topic of Big Bang Theory via Video-Conferencing from NASA.

The activity is part of five days long 1st DST INSPIRE Internship Camp being organised from March 23 to 27 at Law Auditorium, PU. The Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Internship camp is fully sponsored by Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

The camp will be attended by 300 top students from tri-city and adjacent states. The list of the selected students has been displayed at the PU website at http://uips.puchd.ac.in/show-noticeboard.php?id=1463. The students were selected on the basis of their merit list in 10^th standard. The students having more than ‘A’ one CGPA in CBSE, 81.3 percent in Punjab Board, 88.8 percent in Haryana Board and 95 percent in ICSE have been selected for the camp.  

Program Coordinator-DST INSPIRE Internship, Dr. Anurag Kuhad informed that the basic purpose of the DST-Inspire Internship camps is to nurture the young and bright minds of 11^th standard students and expose them to the excitement and innovative methods of science and technology. These DST inspire internship camps support and encourage these young minds, who are at crucial stage of making their career decisions in 11^th and 12^th standard by making them divulge into the beautiful and innovative realms of science and technology, he added.

PU, Chandigarh had taken a move to establish DST INSPIRE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM CENTER for a period of 5 years as a result of an initiative taken by Dr. Anurag Kuhad, Program Coordinator-DST INSPIRE Internship.

The 1^st DST-Inspire Internship Camp would commence on March 23. Director, Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST), Mohali, Prof Ashok Kumar Ganguli, who is an expert in the area of Nano Sciences, will inaugurate the event as the first mentor of this scientific event. PU Vice Chancellor, Prof Arun Kumar Grover would preside over the inaugural function.  

Eminent scientists like Prof Vijay Kumar Sharma (JNSAR), Prof Amitva Datta (INSA Senior Scientist), Prof Santosh Kumar (Kumaun University, Nainital), Prof Promod Yadav (JNU, New Delhi) as well as Prof Pushan Ayyub (TIFR, Mumbai) would enhance the knowledge of the school students with their valuable scientific deliberations.

The major highlight of this DST- Inspire Camp is the lecture and training in Mathematics Olympiad by the Regional Coordinator of Mathematics Olympiad PU, Department of Mathematics, Prof V. K. Grover, along with parallel hands-on laboratory sessions of Physics, Chemistry and Zoology at the respective labs of the PU in the afternoon session on March 23.

The students would be able to showcase their scientific and innovative caliber as well as out of the box thinking at the Science Exhibition on March 26 during this camp where all schools would display their innovative science projects. The Best Innovative Idea Award Winners would be announced at the valedictory function on March 27, which would also include lectures by Prof Arunachalam Ramanan (IIT-Delhi) and Prof Deepak Sharma from JNU, Delhi.