#Shillong: North Eastern Region has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of scientific infrastructure during the last decade, correcting decades of neglect despite the region's strategic importance and unique geographical challenges. For example, before 2014, the entire North East had only two weather radars, including just one in Meghalaya, despite its Cherrapunji town recording the world's highest rainfall. Today, the region has 13 weather radars. Likewise, the number of seismological observatories has increased from 84 before 2014 to 171 at present, while specialised lightning detection stations, which did not exist earlier in the region, have now been established in Meghalaya and Tripura. Not only this, adequate care has been taken for mainstreaming of the North-Eastern Region by exposing the youth and students to the avenues of #StartUp available elsewhere in the country. For instance, "North East Centre for Technology Application & Research" NECTAR's STEM Education initiative promotes experiential learning through robotics, coding, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and innovation-based activities among school students and has, so far, set up STEM laboratories across five North Eastern States in collaboration with IIT Kanpur, benefiting over 25,000 students, particularly in remote and interior areas.

Walked through the "Mobile Food Processing Unit" and interacted with beneficiary farmers at the ‘North East Centre for Technology Application & Reach” #NECTAR #Shillong, #Meghalaya, along with Director General, NECTAR, Dr. Arun Kumar Sarma and others. The innovative initiative is empowering farmers through value addition, improved processing, and technology-driven interventions for a variety of organic fruit and vegetable based food recipes, with market potential.

आदरणीय प्रधानमंत्री श्री @narendramodi जी द्वारा आरंभ किए गए #एक_पेड़_माँ_के_नाम अभियान के अंतर्गत आज #NECTOR #Shillong में अपनी माताजी के नाम से पौधारोपण करने का सौभाग्य प्राप्त हुआ एवं सभी से इस अभियान में शामिल होने की अपील की।