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Third India-Japan Science Symposium held

October 29, 2012

On September 20 and 21, the third India-Japan Symposium on “Frontiers in Science & Technology: Successes & Emerging Challenges” was held at the Indian Embassy Auditorium in Tokyo.

The symposium was organized by the Indian Scientists Association in Japan (ISAJ) and strongly supported by the Embassy of India, aiming to provide a platform for Indian researchers and their Japanese collaborators to share knowledge about some of the latest advances in their fields of research.

The symposium covered five themes: life sciences, earth sciences, accelerator-related sciences, material sciences, and space technology. Masaharu Nomura, trustee of KEK, chaired the accelerator-related science session where three talks were delivered on research activities carried out at KEK.

Srihari Velaga, a visiting fellow at the Indian beamline, gave a presentation on the Indian beamline at the KEK Photon Factory (PF). Department of Science and Technology, Government of India had set up the beamline at PF for Indian scientists, and it had started operations in 2011. Velaga presented some of the recent results of diffraction experiments from the beamline.

Yoshihide Sakai, a professor at KEK, explained the Belle experiment in his talk entitled “The Particle Physics at B Factory Experiment.” The Belle experiment is a particle physics experiment being conducted at KEK. About 400 physicists from 60 institutes in 15 countries, including 5 from India, are working on the experiment.

Arpit Rawankar gave a presentation on the research and development being done on pulsed laser wires used in beam profile monitors to measure very small beam sizes as small as 5 micrometer in vertical direction. Rawanker is a PhD student at Sokendai. Sokendai is a unique graduate school in that it has its campus in real laboratories, libraries, and museums. KEK runs one of its schools, School of High Energy Accelerator Science in Tsukuba campus.


The science symposium was well attended, with more than 60 presenters giving 4 keynote addresses, 12 plenary lectures, 6 invited lectures, 4 oral presentations, and 35 poster presentations. KEK had 3 poster presentations at the poster session, namely: Particle and Nuclear Physics Research at J-PARC, Pulsed Neutron Scattering Facility at J-PARC, and Development for Compact X-ray Source. Scientists shared their knowledge about the most recent research in their fields.

ISAJ, established in 2009, is registered as a Japanese non-profit organization (NPO) with its headquarters in Tsukuba. The main aim of ISAJ is networking among Indian scientists in Japan. With the progress that they have made in India and Japan, particularly with regard to bilateral cooperation in Science and Technology, there have been opportunities lately for Indian researchers to work in scientific and technological research organizations and universities in Japan.

The year 2012 marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and India, which were established in 1952. Since then, India and Japan have developed close partnership in a variety of fields and strengthened mutual trust and friendship. This symposium will facilitate scientific collaborative activities not only in the fields of accelerator-related science but also in emerging research arenas in science and technology.