The Indian Science Congress' 105th Annual Session, scheduled to be held during January 3-7, 2018 has been postponed at the host, Osmania University's request and has nothing to do with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit, official sources said on Saturday.

"Associating the postponement of the 105th Annual Session of the Indian Science Congress to the Prime Minister's visit as being done in some media reports is incorrect," an official source told IANS.

"The postponement has no relation to the Prime Minister's visit to the event, for which all preparations from Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) side and PMO were being made as had been planned," the source added.

Modi was scheduled to inaugurate the Conference on January 3 at the Osmania University in Hyderabad.

On Thursday, the ISCA, in a brief statement, had said: "The Vice Chancellor of Osmania University has informed that they are not in a position to host 105th Indian Science Congress scheduled January 3-7 due to certain issues in the campus." 

Over 2,000 scientists including 15 Noble laureates from different countries were expected to participate in the ISC.

The university officials did not specify the reason but the prevailing security situation due to recent protests apparently forced the authorities to postpone the prestigious event.

The campus witnessed violent protests by student groups over the suicide of a student earlier this month.

The Executive Committee of ISCA is scheduled to meet on December 27 to decide on the future course of action.

Speaking to TNM earlier, OU registrar, Ch Gopal Reddy had said, “We haven’t cancelled the event, we just deferred the dates. There’s going to be a meeting to be held in Kolkata by the Indian Science Congress Association on December 27. In that meeting, the fresh dates of the event will be decided.”

“I can’t disclose details of the reasons for the event being postponed, but we received intelligence reports, following which we had to postpone the event,” Reddy had said.  

IANS inputs