BENGALURU: Nearly 250 people marched from Bannappa Park to Central College in the city as part of the third edition of India March For Science (IMFS) on Saturday. The march was held in 60 other cities, including Tumakuru, Ballari, Kalaburagi and Raichur on Friday. However, it was cancelled in Belagavi, Haveri and Hubballi due to flood.
At the event, Prajval Sastry, an astrophysicist from Indian Institute of Astrophysics spoke about the lack of promotion of scientific work. A manifesto will be submitted to the central and state governments, demanding 10 per cent allocation of central budget and 30 per cent of the state budget to education, along with 3 per cent of GDP for science and technological research.
Experts T V Ramachandra from IISc and S Vishwanath from Azim Premji University spoke on the ongoing water crisis.
“Flood plains prevent floods but due to deforestation, there is nowhere for the water to sink in. Hence floods are caused when there is excess rainfall in a short period of time. Usually the rain is spread over a period of time, unlike what is happening now,” Ramachandra said.