Tenali: The prestigious Nayudamma Award has been presented jointly to two women scientists - Tessy Thomas, Director of DRDO's Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad and Geeta Varadan from ISRO here on Sunday at a function organised by the Nayudamma Memorial Trust.
Magsaysay Award recipient Shanta Sinha and former head of National Child Rights Protection Commission attended the function as a chief guest and presented the awards to the two noted scientists.
After receiving the award, Tessy Thomas spoke on the 23rd Y Nayudamma Memorial Lecture on the theme, 'Make in India Defence Needs and Initiatives'.
In her lecture, she expressed confidence by saying, "The Defence Research and Development Organisation is aiming for a technology leadership by 2020 with its self-reliant capabilities and manufacturing hubs".
She emphasised that "self-reliance and indigenisation are vital to achieve the goal of 'Make in India'.
In this connection, she cited DRDO's successful efforts, with its strong knowledge base and technology development sinews, in initiating missile programmes like Agni, Prithvi, Dhanush, Nag, Aakash, BrahMos, Astra and Nirbhay, besides aircraft programmes like LCA (Tejas, Nishant, Lakshya) and combat vehicles like MBT (Arjun, avionics and tracking systems).
Listing cost, technology development, manufacturing capability, quality and infrastructure as the key factors in hitting the target Tessy Thomas wanted that these concerns needed to be addressed immediately by both the DRDO and private industry.
Other recipient of the award, Geeta Varadan, who is Director of the Advanced Data Processing Research Institute of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in her lecture on the theme, 'Remote Sensing Technology for National Needs', said these technologies were increasingly becoming relevant to society at large, since they offered an "end to end" solution for a variety of national needs.
With more potential users handling smartphones as part of their routine, thanks to the paradigm shift that had taken place by making geospatial engine available to them, "It is going to be a continuous effort by our scientists and engineers to fulfill the needs of end-users", she said.
She said, "Space, by virtue of its inherent characteristics, has revolutionised the application of high technology for societal benefits contributing significantly to every aspect of human endeavour like national resources management, education, water, health, environment, energy and defence".
