LAHORE: Participants in a three-day international conference on pure and applied sciences called for a strategy to deal with global warming, pollution, climate change, ozone layer depletion, acid rains and oxygen dwindling.

The International Conference on Pure and Applied Sciences was held at the University of Management and Technology on Thursday. A number of national and international researchers and students of six universities attended the conference. The international scholars, included Texas Tech University US Department of Physics Dr Muhammad Arfin Khan Lodhi and Prof Dr Luis, Eastern Michigan University’s Prof Dr Ellene Tratras Contis Shenyang Liaoning, University of China’s Prof ZhiGaang Xiao, Shenyang and Liaoning, Texas Tech University’s Dr Mahdi Sanati, Saga University of Japan’s Toru Nakahara, Swiunburne University of Technology Melbourne’s Dr John Mark Webb and University of Hail Saudi Arabia’s Sadia Anjum.

Punjab Minister for Higher Education Syed Raza Ali Gilani said the country was suffering from energy shortage and only scientific developments could fulfill the needs.

He said the government had taken number of steps but the private sector should join its hands to overcome the problems.

He said the private sector universities were performing well in educational and scientific research and organising of conferences on different themes to raise awareness. “We need to realise our talent and make efforts to promote scientific research among our students.”

The minister said the higher education department had launched different project to support the universities in developing their infrastructure.

UMT Rector Dr Muhammad Aslam said that organising the conference on pure and applied sciences with their international counterparts would benefit the varsities for promoting research.

He said that pure and applied sciences were essential in social and economic development of any country therefore educational institutions should work to engage the government to take advantage of their research.

UMT Director General Abid HK Shirwani said that the effort would allow the scholars and students to gather at one platform for sharing their latest research to work out new ideas.

He said the UMT is developing the culture of scientific research and already had good number of the faculty members who received grants for scientific experiments.

The speakers of the conference concluded that science is rapidly developing the world and also working for its sustainability. They also paid tribute to the people devoting themselves to science for a better world.

They said that the world has entered into nuclear technology era and all countries were trying to mitigate the nuclear race in order to keep it peaceful.

They said that all governments should focus and provide funding to researchers and modern scientists for devising long-term strategies to deal different challenges, including global warming, pollution, climate change, ozone layer depletion, acid rains, and oxygen dwindling.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2017