3-Day Samudramanthan Ends In Cuttack; Vision Document To Be Prepared On India’s Maritime Future

Cuttack: The three-day ‘Samudramanthan’ programme, organised by Indian Knowledge System Division of the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with Ministry of Culture and SOA, concluded on Thursday following fruitful discussions on India’s maritime traditions, its present situation and future possibilities.

The outcome of the Dhara event, which coincided with the historic Bali Yatra festival, will be used to prepare a vision document on the country’s maritime future by the year 2047.

The programme, which was inaugurated at SOA University campus in Bhubaneswar on Thursday, was followed by panel discussions and roundtable conclaves over the next two days at Odisha State Maritime Museum in Cuttack.

Resource persons who addressed the panel discussions focused on several areas while emphasizing that the future of Indian maritime capabilities will be linked to advances in the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) while new skills for learning, unlearning and relearning should be cultivated.

It was also stressed that promotion of increased research on maritime traditions and related eco-systems will help the larger goal of creating awareness about maritime traditions.

The subjects discussed included ‘Maritime History: Locations, Ship Building and Navigation’, ‘Reconnecting with Maritime Traditions through Museums’, ‘Trade and Cultural Exchange’ and ‘Maritime Security and International Law’.

Those who took part in the panel discussions were Prof. Kishore K Basa, Vice-Admiral Raman Puri (Retd), Vice-Admiral Shekhar Sinha (Retd), Dr Amit Kumar, Dr Lalitendu Mohapatra, Cmde. Odakkal Johnson (Retd), Cmde. Srikanth K. Kesnur (Retd), Shreyanka Basu, Prof. Suresh Chandra Mishra, Swarup Bhattacharya, Cdr Ninad Patherphekar (Retd), Rajesh Mohanty, Prof. Patita Paban Mishra, Prof. Pankaj Jha, Cmde. Somen Banerjee, Dr Sunil Patnaik, Prof. Rajaram Panda, Radhika Daga, Sanatan Jena, DIG, Dr Monica Verma and Anand Narasimhan.

It was the sixth edition of Dhara series on Indian Knowledge System, and part of Central government-sponsored ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, held alongside ‘Bali Yatra’ in Cuttack city which has Odisha’s ancient maritime traditions as its backdrop.