The second day event of WOSC 2024 started with speech from Dr. Pattabhi Rama Rao, Scientist G, INCOIS and Vice President, Ocean Society of India. 

During his speech, he mentioned that the OSI was established in the year 2006, a professional body comprising of vibrant society of senior scientists, Technologist, Women Scientists, academic institutions, research laboratories, Industries and Young Researchers. It provides a forum for sharing the knowledge and experience thereby empowering the community to conserve and sustainably use the ocean and its resources. He added that it promotes knowledge dissemination through educational programmes, awareness campaigns, ocean conservation, success stories and good practices. He further said that the 8^th OSICON conference was organized at INCOIS and the next will be organized at CSIR – NIO, Goa. He also stated the OSI provides fellowship for life members, Endowment Award, and involved in societal activities like beach cleaning, conducting conferences by collaborating with other organisations. Finally he welcomed the Ocean community to join OSI and contribute towards sustainable use of oceans and its resources.

The second talk was by Dr. TVS Udayabaskar, Scientist G, INCOIS representing the United Nations Ocean Decade Collaborative Centre for Indian Ocean Region (DCC-IOR). There are ten challenges identified by UNESCO under this decade and INCOIS is working on majority of the issues. He mentioned that various activities have been planned and many countries are coming forward and endorsed to be a Thematic or Regional centres.   He also mentioned that WOSC 2024 has been endorsed by DCC-IOR as one of the outreach programme. He also detailed about the structure of DCC-IOR and various activities performed by it.

The first plenary talk was given by Prof. T G Sitharam, Chairman AICTE on the topic “Coastal Reservoirs and sustainable utilization of coastal area in blue economy.  He touched upon many important topics and shared an engineer’s thought process into the ocean development. He talked about importance of coastal reservoirs and how the coastal resevoirs can be an overarching activity of the blue economy. 

The second plenary talk was given by Dr. Vasant Shinde, DG, National Maritime Heritage Complex, Gandhi Nagar. He spoke about National Maritime Heritage complex project of national and international importance that is coming up in Lothal, Gujrat which is a brain child of honourable Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi Ji and second largest in the world. It is first of its kind in India and being established by Ministry of shipping. He touched upon rich Harappan Culture and their trading capabilities. He also mentioned that the heritage complex will have huge attraction and will have many state pavilions, galleries including amusement park and underwater galleries. The complex is expected to be unveiled to public soon.   

As part of the conference, an Ocean Summit chaired by Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary-MoES, and Government of India was conducted.  He started his speech by welcoming the national and international delegates and mentioned that the next decade is the decade of oceans. He said that a collective approach is required to maintain the health of the oceans.  He also set the focus of the summit to discuss on the challenges and opportunities in the ocean domain.  He also emphasised on the Health of oceans, collective approach is required.  He also mentioned that Blue economy policy is expected soon. It will cover Tourism, Transport. The participants raised many questions and concerns for which he mentioned that the queries will be consolidated and suitable recommendations will be put forward. 

List of Participants who attended the Ocean Summit.

 A fishermen interaction meet has been conducted in the afternoon session. About 90 fishermen from coastal states of India viz Tamilnadu, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka have participated.  They showed special interest on open sea cage culture activities and its benefits. They thanked INCOIS and M.S. Swamynathan Research Foundation for the fishermen friendly mobile app that helps to find the potential fishing zone in the open sea and for providing weather and safety informations. Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary-MoES, Government of India and Director NIOT participated in the meeting and appreciated the fisher folk’s feedback to improve the present application.  They also mentioned that a study is initiated to find the impacts of global warning on the fishing sector. Scientist from FSI, CMFRI, INCOIS, KUFOS & MSSRF have also participated the meet and shared their knowledge to the fishermen.  Finally the fishing community who attended the meeting thanked NIOT and other partners for organising this meet. 

Today there were 12 Technical sessions, 72 oral presentation and 52 poster & Flash Presentation and 30 Poster Presentations. Apart from that there was an Ocean Summit Chaired by Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary-MoES, Government of India. Fishermen meet and a large gathering attended and witnessed the events.

 

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