Monday, January 14, 2008

• Two-day national symposium inaugurated
• "It can rival 'IT guys' in terms of salary too"

MADURAI: Director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, P. Balaram, on Thursday urged science students to show interest towards analytical chemistry because it had immense potential and could rival “IT guys” in terms of salary also.

“I want to tell the students that prospects for employment are good for analytical chemistry but, unfortunately, academia and industry do not recognise its potential,” he said.


Prof. Balaram was speaking at the inauguration of a two-day national symposium on ‘Frontier areas in chemistry’ organised by American College here as part of the golden jubilee of its Post Graduate and Research Department of Chemistry. He expressed concern that chemistry was a victim of its own success and even in I.I.Sc., Bangalore, it was dominated by subjects such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology.

Making a slide presentation on chemistry/biology related issues, Prof. Balaram said students should know there was a little difference between biology and chemistry and what was enough was to know the details of chemical biology.

In his inaugural address, P. Maruthamuthu, Vice-Chancellor, Madurai Kamaraj University, lauded the pivotal role of the PG chemistry department of American College.