Source: PIB & International Union of Geological Sciences
India is gearing up to host the 36th International Geological Congress (IGC) in the capital during the first week of March 2020.
The theme of the conference: Geosciences: The Basic Science for a Sustainable Development’.
About International Geological Congress (IGC)
- Popularly described as the Olympics of Geosciences, the IGCs are prestigious global geoscientific events held once in four years and participated by around 5000-6000 geoscientists from all across the world.
- International Geological Congress (IGC) is the prestigious global platform for the advancement of Earth Science.
- The first session of IGC assembled in 1878 in France with an aim to provide the global geological community with an opportunity to create an organizational framework for meeting at regular intervals.
- It envisaged a spirit of fraternal cooperation that transcends boundaries, languages and has the ability to bring together the geoscientific community across the continents and oceans.
- Founded as a non-profit scientific and educational organization in 1878, IGC came under the aegis of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) in 1961.
- Since then the meetings of IGC are held in collaboration and under scientific sponsorship of IUGS
- The 36th event(in India) is being funded by the Ministry of Mines (MoM) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) with the support of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and the National Science Academies of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Geological Survey of India is the nodal agency for organizing the event
- It may be noted that India is the only Asian country to host the event twice. In 1964, India had hosted it for the first time, which was the 22nd IGC
