The second SRMC meeting of "Monsoon Mission" was held on 12^th September, 2012 at the Aryabhatta Hall of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune under the Chairmanship of Prof. D. R. Sikka and in the presence of the Special Invitee Dr. Shailesh Nayak (Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India and Co-Chair, SSC, Monsoon Mission). This SRMC meeting was conducted as a part of the "Monsoon Mission International Consultancy Meeting" (MMICM), at the Aryabhatta Hall of IITM, Pune during 11-12 September, 2012.
The delegates (members of SRMC and special invitees) attended the SRMC meeting : Click Here...

Agenda :

The main agenda of the SRMC meeting was to review the National and Internationals proposals submitted to Monsoon Mission after May, 2012 (earlier SRMC meeting was held on 28th May, 2012) including the revised proposals and to discuss the future course of work and the roadmap of the Monsoon Mission.

At the outset, Prof. D. R. Sikka ( Chairman, SRMC) welcomed Dr. Shailesh Nayak (Special Invitee) and all the members of the meeting. Dr. Suryachandra A. Rao, Member - Convenor read the "Member- Convenor Report" of Monsoon Mission. He informed that Monsoon Mission got the Cabinet Approval on 26th April, 2012 and its Administrative Order came on 26th July, 2012. The Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) met on 12th June, 2012 (minutes on 27th June, 2012). SSC made the following recommendations :

• Commercial proposals should be invited through Open Tender (hence, all commercial proposals received in the earlier SRMC meeting, on 28 May, 2012 were rejected).
• For International research proposals, submitted to Monsoon Mission :
  
  • A grant of USD 1,00,000 per year per person recruited for the project, including benefits and overhead charges.
  • Travel support for visits to India
  • Must include Indian Co-PI(s), preferably from MoES organizations.
• 19 proposals received, 2 proposals approved, 11 proposals rejected, 5 proposals to be revised and 1 proposal (by Dr. Shailendra Rai) with revised budget to be taken up in the recent meeting.

Member-Secretary mentioned that, this time we have received 28 proposals, including 4 revised ones and the proposal by Dr. Shailendra Rai. One proposal (by Mrs. S. Rajalakshmy & Dr. Mrudula of NAL, Bangalore ) is yet to be revised. Dr. Rajeevan informed that some of the International proposals wanted money for their project staff (including PI) and there is need for reduction of budget in most of the proposals. So, budget needs to be revised (reduced) as per the suggestions of the Budget Committee of the SRMC.

Upon deliberations, the Committee recommended the following steps for implementation of monsoon mission proposals:

• Invite proposals throughout the year and hold meetings twice in a year, so that those can be reviewed during June and December.
• P.Is of the proposals may be requested to publish at least one paper in a reputed Indian journal (like JESS, Current Science etc.) with the results obtained under the monsoon mission project. The PI while publishing the papers should acknowledge the source of funding under the Monsoon Mission of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India, as a monsoon Mission contribution. In addition, for international publications, the publication charges will be taken care by the Indian Co-PI(s) or collaborating institutions.
• Out of total 28 proposals received by Monsoon Mission (as per the second announcement), 12 proposals were recommended for funding, 1 proposal (by Dr. V. Radhakrishnan) to be forwarded to MoES for Extramural funding, 3 proposals to be revised, 2 proposals were (not recommended for funding, 2 proposal are in principal recommended, one proposal was withdrawn by the PI, and the remaining 7 proposals were deferred till the next meeting. The detailed list of the proposals and SRMC recommendations are attached for more information

In respect of several proposals, modification were suggested by the Committee towards their objectives, methodologies etc. These have to be kept in view by the PIs while implementing the research and also for evaluation at the monitoring meeting of the projects. Hence the Committee feels that these proposals may be got revised from the PIs.

The meeting ended with vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Suryachandra Rao, thanking the special Invitee and all the SRMC members for their critical comments during this review process.