The year marked both a transition in leadership and also a renewed commitment to reach the society at large through our scientific and industrial research efforts. In our collective will to put ideas into practice we have been interacting with the industry, deliberating with the academia, and organizing business meets with potential clients. These have certainly influenced our thought process and we are beginning to chart a new course in research orientation. We entered into CSIR's prioritized research environment with a plan to invigorate our research endeavors as well as inculcate a sense of team spirit. Our scientists committed themselves to seventeen CSIR network projects. The idea of network project is beginning to bear fruit. In the network mode we strengthened our leadership in biomineral processing area. Our participation in the project related to quality enhancement of coal, which brought some of the landmark achievements this year. We have been persisting with our efforts for the development of processes viz. (i) improving the quality of iron and nickel ores, (ii) recovery of valuables from overburdens of several ores such as bauxite, manganese, copper, and nickel, (iii) rocessing of beach sands and, (iv) recycling of coal washery water. Cost effectiveness through conservation of energy and ecocompatibility of technologies remained the key factors of RRL's technology development programs.

Research on particulate materials got impetus from a novel process for preparation of plasma spray grade free flowing alumina powder. Optimization of process parameters for plasma processing of industrially important high temperature materials has been pursued. Processes for the manufacture of sintered lightweight aggregates from fly ash, pond ash, and utilization of solid wastes to produce commercial grade products show greater promises of marketability in near future. RRL extended its services to East Coast Railways in analyzing surface disconti-nuities of various components through nondestructive tests. Over one hundred clients availed of materials testing and analytical services, especially for mineral resource identification, water quality assessment, as well as for testing of soil, fly ash, slag, and other industrial wastes. In every step we followed ISO 9001:2000 standard to gain the confidence of the clients and sponsors of various research programs. Impact of our research findings on socioeconomic front realized through a number of research grants and sponsorships in the fields of environment monitoring and energy conservation. We collaborated with Stockholm Environmental Institute, ISRO and Paradip Port Trust to monitor air and water pollution utilizing its state of the art pollution measuring devices. Interest has grown both in the government as well as private sectors to adopt our societal technologies this year. Market awareness has been created for our rural and agrotechnologies by way of participation in nationwide exhibitions.

Plant extracts have been exploited as ecofriendly sources of coloring material for dying fabrics, especially silk. The affordability of these natural dyes have been demonstrated on commercial scale with weavers' participation. We took steps to motivate the farming sector in this region to take up the cultivation of bio-diesel plant Jatropha through a number of training programs at various places of Orissa. Technology for extraction of natural rubber has been also popularized. Extensive surveys conducted to catalogue new sources of bioactives from marine flora and fauna, mangrove, and other plantations have provided leads that can be converted to technologies in the coming years. Explorations of the Eastern Ghat ranges and eastern marine environment have helped us to enrich the data banks on several aspects of minerals and other natural resources. Pharmaceutical standards have been developed for several laboratory scale ayurvedic formulations. Participation with industry is expected to bring about SOPs for manufacture of compound ASU drugs. In the process some marker compounds have been isolated to aid in quality evaluation of formulations. Herbal formulations to control mites in coconut fruit bearing plants are being developed using coir pith and have been effectively demonstrated in an integrated approach.

Ability of our scientists in taking up additional responsibility has been demonstrated by way of our securing 100 new externally funded research projects this year in addition to pursuing R&D on existing in-house and network projects. The desired deliverables have been met well within the time limit. In this transitional year, we generated about Rs 246 lakh as external cash flow (ECF) during 2005-06 financial year over and above the CSIR grant of Rs 2046 lakh . During the current financial year our scientists published 80 research papers in various journals in India and abroad. An equal number of papers have been submitted for peer reviewing and publication. 54 Full papers were published as symposia/seminars/ conferences proceeding and 75 presentations were made in various other events. We filed 19 patents in India and 5 patents have been sealed this year. A patent on making cold briquetting and pelletization of ferrous and non-ferrous ores fines has been granted in the USA . We submitted 19 patent proposals to CSIR this year for processing. Four of our colleagues received awards from reputed organizations and societies. Also four of our papers presented in conferences received awards. We organized several conference ICME 2005, PMN 2005, and Interactive meets on Coal, Ferrochrome and Titanium. The Research Council of RRL took special interest in shaping and spearheading various activities of the laboratory. Our participation in a number of network and grant-in-aid research programs helped us to upgrade some of our infrastructure facilities to world-class standards. Noteworthy among them are NMR, ICP-MS, Raman Spectroscope and transmission electron microscope (TEM), and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). India as well as the state of Orissa is making fast progress. In the coming year's technology alone will drive the engine of change even faster. Undoubtedly engineers and technologist will have a lead role to play in this change. In our laboratory we believe that we too can be a part of this change by reorienting our approach so that we can transfer our knowledge to the industry. This would warrant a strong Engineering Cell to interface with the industry so as to arrive at cost-effective models for several products whose science component is already known.

I am indebted to the past Directors, who contributed thus far towards the overall growth of RRL Bhubaneswar. I congratulate all our scientists and their associates for making RRL Bhubaneswar a progressive laboratory of CSIR. I am sure that in the coming years, we will work to realign and bolster our research structure – something that will have a positive impact on the laboratory for many years to come.