Flooding in Punjab is a recurring disaster, driven by heavy monsoon rains, river overflows, and poor drainage systems. These floods cause extensive damage to agriculture, infrastructure, and homes, displacing thousands of people. The economic impact is severe, disrupting livelihoods and trade. Socially, communities face health crises, education disruptions, and long-term displacement. Environmentally, floods lead to soil erosion and water contamination. Challenges include inadequate policies, deficient infrastructure, and limited community preparedness. Building resilience involves improving infrastructure, implementing early warning systems, adopting sustainable practices, and engaging communities in disaster preparedness and response. Collaborative efforts are essential for effective flood management. Keeping this in mind the flood disturbs the human life as well as natural resources, RMP is organizes a national conference on “The Floods in Punjab: Impacts, Challenges and pathways to Resilience”. The conference aims to have a brain storming sessions so that it can benefited the state and the central government to grass-root level policy making. This conference will give an opportunity to scholars and social leaders across the nation to share their view and find a sustainable solution.

We invite research scholars, students, faculty members, scientists, and social workers to present their research and field experiences on the causes, effects, and mitigation strategies of the Punjab floods in this conference. Participants can share their findings through oral presentations or poster sessions.

Registered as a society in 1982, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) was initiated as a unique leadership development academy with an aim to nurture, impart training and capacity building of elected representatives, social workers, as well as people running institutions, organizations, and start-ups. RMP has been active in conceiving and executing research projects concerning socially pertinent issues including those of the backward classes and rural communities. Additionally, RMP also focuses on undertaking public awakening activities. RMP is one of the unique institutions in the entire Indian subcontinent having a special consultative status provided by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. RMP initiated the idea of Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership (IIDL) in 2017 to broaden the scope of leadership – science from the limited area of management science and provide an interdisciplinary institutional framework to train leadership from socio-political perspective. Post Graduate Diploma (PGP) in Leadership, Politics, and Governance (LPG) is a unique interdisciplinary course designed to bridge the gap between young talent and India’s democratic political entity and governance. The programme is targeted at students and young professionals who wish to make a career in the field of politics, governance, public affairs and leadership. The course is designed to produce trained, ethical and responsible leaders, in short – “New Leaders for a New India”. The one-year residential programme is designed to bridge the gap between India’s young talent and India’s democratic policy and governance. One notable use case of this program is its support for the environmental protection initiative ‘A Date with the Beach,’ led by students of IIDL. The students passionately engage in beach cleanups, actively contributing to preserving coastal ecosystems and raising awareness about the importance of environmental stewardship. This proactive involvement not only enhances the local environment but also inspires others to take responsibility for protecting natural habitats.

In realization of the need for training better quality technicians to meet the large scale industrialization of the country, the Ministry of Education, Government of India established four Regional Technical Teachers’ Training Institutes (now National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research (NITTTR) at Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai and Kolkata in 1967. The Institute at Chandigarh is one of these four NITTTRs, started in collaboration with Royal Netherlands Government (upto 1974). It was designed to meet the requirements of developing polytechnic education in the northern region covering the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh. The Institute is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and is managed by a Board of Governors. The institute started with long term teachers’ training programmes for polytechnic teachers in 1967 and was also entrusted with the responsibility of promoting curriculum development work for the states in the region. To improve the competence of teachers for implementing new curricula designed by this institute, short term courses have been offered since 1967. The institute established a Media Centre in 1981 for preparing print & non-print instructional materials.
The institute also set up the department of Rural Development and the department of Entrepreneurship Development to assist polytechnics in directing their efforts towards training manpower and disseminating information in these areas. The Educational Television and Computer Science departments were established in the year 1981and 1982 respectively. Since 1983, the institute has been guiding and assisting the states in the areas of Educational Planning and Management. Since 1992, the institute started offering Regular Master of Engineering Programmes in (i) Engineering Education and (ii) Manufacturing Technology. In the year 1994, two more courses namely Master of Engineering in Construction Technology and Management and Computer Science and Engineering were added. In the year 1998, two more Master of Engineering Programmes in Instrumentation and Control and Electronics and Communication Engineering were added, and, since 2005, the institute started offering Modular Master of Engineering Programmes in all the above disciplines. All these programmes, being offered for teachers of technical institutions and their administrators, professionals from industry and general candidates, are duly approved by AICTE and affiliated to Panjab University, Chandigarh.