IIM Jammu along with the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai welcomed participants to Yuva Sangam Phase-V. The five-day event launch took place at the Mandapam Auditorium of IIM Jammu.

The IIM Jammu program is an initiative under the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ campaign by the education ministry and government of India that aims to exchange mutual understanding among youth from diverse regions of the country.

“The themes of the Yuva Sangam Phase-V program include tourism (Paryatan), people-to-people connect (Paraspar Sampark), traditions (Parampara), development (Pragati), and technology (Prodyogiki),” IIM Jammu statement said.

Other participants were Jabir Ali, the dean of academics, IIM Jammu; V Rajkumar, the chairperson of student affairs; Ashish Kumar, nodal officer at Yuva Sangam 2024; Apurva, the co-chairperson of Student Affairs, IIM Jammu; Sudarshan, faculty member at NITTTR Chennai and Jacqueline Divya Mary, faculty of NITTTR Chennai.

IIM Jammu, NITTTR Chennai: Yuva Sangam Phase-V

The inaugural session allowed for interactions across cultures, underlined by the institute’s infrastructure and active participation in national initiatives. The programs also include visits to all the iconic landmarks of such as Raghunath Temple, Amar Mahal Palace Museum, and Suchetgarh Border to give participants an idea about the rich heritage of Jammu, said the IIM Jammu statement.

As per the statement of IIM Jammu, cultural exchange will be promoted through interactive programs at institutions like Jammu University and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), people-to-people connections and other theme programs will be held.

On the last day, a plantation drive at IIM Jammu is also scheduled which will emphasize the importance of sustainability and environmental consciousness.

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BS Sahay the director of IIM Jammu highlighted that this IIM Jammu aimed to create unity, cultural understanding, and national integration through programs like Yuva Sangam. He acknowledged the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this very program.

Sudarshan Kumar faculty of NITTTR Chennai thanked the govt of India, the ministry of Education, and the director of IIM Jammu for his support since this is the first-ever initiative of participants to seek insight.

Conclusion

Yuva Sangam Phase-V at IIM Jammu, in collaboration with NITTTR Chennai, manifests the spirit of ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.’ Through its carefully designed programs and cultural exchange, it has successfully established an impactful platform for developing national unity, mutual understanding, and environmental consciousness. As this initiative grows, it keeps on highlighting the pivotal role of education in bridging cultures and building a stronger, united India.

This pioneering work from the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre of IIT Madras pushes the frontiers of Brain Mapping Technology and places India in the global league of brain mapping science as this is first-of-its-kind work anywhere in the world.

Brain sections

For the first time globally, 5,132 Brain sections have been captured digitally using cutting-edge Brain Mapping Technology developed by Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre in the Institute.

First time

This monumental work is the first time such advanced human neuroscience data has been produced from India. The project was done at less than 1/10th of the costs in Western Countries.

The research was undertaken by a multidisciplinary team at IIT Madras with researchers from India, Australia, U.S., Romania and South Africa, and medical collaborations with Chennai-based Mediscan Systems and Saveetha Medical College Hospital.

Crucial

This research, led by Prof. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, IIT Madras, is critical for India as the country accounts for nearly one-fifth of the world’s childbirths at 25 million each year (SOURCE – https://www.unicef.org/india/key-data#:~:text=With%20the%20birth%20of%2025,the%20world’s%20annual%20child%20births).

Vital

This makes it vital for the country to understand the brain development from the fetus to a child, to adolescence, and to a young adult, and developmental disorders like learning disabilities and autism.

Support

This work was supported by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus and Co-Founder, Infosys, Premji Invest, Fortis Healthcare and Agilus Diagnostics. NVIDIA, the leading AI company, partnered with the Centre to help process these petabytes of brain data.

Special journal issue

These findings of this Research has been accepted for publication as a Special issue by Journal of Comparative Neurology, a century-old peer-reviewed systems neuroscience journal, say sources from IIT Madras.

Importance

Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Comparative Neurology spoke about the importance of this research.

DHARANI is now the largest publicly accessible digital dataset of the human fetal brain, created with less than one-tenth of the initial funds that powered the Allen Brain Atlas, and with a technology platform that was entirely custom-made in India between 2020 and 2022, during the COVID pandemic, said Dr Suzana.

IIT Madras, thus, joins the Allen Brain Institute, and India joins the US, at the table of human brain cartography where large sums are invested to provide mankind with freely-available atlases of the available knowledge about the structures that compose the human brain, said Dr Suzana.

Praises

Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India congratulated the researchers on this cutting edge work.

I am delighted that India is at the forefront in generating human fetal brain maps for the first time through this cutting-edge technology developed by IIT Madras’s Brain Centre.

We are pleased that the support from our office has seeded this pioneering effort advancing scientific knowledge in this frontier area of brain sciences, and has generated a global resource for researchers worldwide, he said.

Accomplishment

Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus and Co-Founder, Infosys, said this accomplishment reconfirms that Indian R&D can create world-class science and technology.

It also demonstrates the success of a unique public-private-philanthropy-partnership (PPPP) model. We must dream big to create global impact. Ambitious research programs are multi-disciplinary and multi-year, and I hope this program inspires more such programs in India and will get private and public support, he said.

Key global research resource

The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre has created this comprehensive cell resolution atlas of the human fetal brain in the second trimester.

This detailed atlas, where the researchers have identified and marked over 500 brain regions, will serve as an important global reference for advancing human neuroscience research for decades to come, say sources from IIT Madras.

New discoveries

Further elaborating on the importance of this research, Prof. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, IIT Madras, said this study will pave way for new scientific discoveries, allowing quantification of neurodevelopmental disorders and advances in fetal medicine.

This is now the largest publicly accessible digital dataset of the human fetal brain, advancing current knowledge by 20X. This is the first time such advanced human neuroscience data has been produced from India and made freely available as a global resource, he said.

The Centre has developed a world-class high-throughput histology pipeline that processes whole human brains into high-resolution digital images at petabyte-scale. These unique first-in-class data sets of human brains of different types and ages provide an unprecedented high-resolution view of human brains that reveal cellular level details across the entire brain.

In just two years, the Centre has acquired over 200 brains of different types, ages (fetal, neonate, young adult, adult, old age) and diseases (stroke, dementia) from various medical institutions in the country, and processing them into cellular resolution digital volumes through the Centre’s high-throughput imaging platform.

The Centre is in a unique position to attain global leadership by generating the largest repository of human brain data in the world of various types that will serve as a global reference for decades to come.

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