Rijiju inaugurates centre for disaster research at JNU

New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju today inaugurated the Special Centre for Disaster Research (SCDR) at JNU and said the country should equip itself to face "severe" disasters.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) had signed an MoU in 2015 with the National Institute of Disaster Management to set up the SCDR.

"We are going to face severe disasters in future and if we are unable to handle it effectively we are going to neutralise our growth," Rijiju said, adding that there was a need to reach out to different communities at the grass root and sensitise them.

"We are now talking about disaster risk management and how to prevent them or mitigate the effect," he said.

The centre aims at taking a trans-disciplinary approach for its research without confining it to just social sciences or natural sciences.

It plans to also include scientific findings and social sciences to decipher and direct the findings to communities, and institutions for decision making.

Rijiju also inaugurated the centre's website.

Speaking on the occasion, the UGC's acting chairman, V S Chauhan, said he was excited about the centre's aim of taking the social sciences approach to disaster management.

The centre will conduct a two-day workshop, starting today, on various topics.