Botany Association of Xaviers (BAX)

Inauguration

The department organised two workshops and one national seminar this year. Botany Department and National Society of the Friends of the Trees under the aegis of RUSA organised a National seminar on 'Tree Ecology and Urban Forest Management' on 13 February 2020. During this seminar, the First Botany Department student's association called as 'Botany Association of Xaviers' (BAX) was formally inaugurated, although the formation of BAX was done previously during this year. The Committee members included General Secretary Mr Harsh Pant of Msc-I, Assistant General Secretary Ms Anushka Agarwal of SYBsc, Treasurer Ms Aditi Nimbalkar of Msc-I and Events Head Ms Shirin Khan, coordinator Ms Aqsa Majgaonkar. The mentors were Dr Vijaya Lobo and Ms Neha Gupte.

In this national seminar, under the guidance of Dr Vijaya Lobo around a theme of 'reuse, recycle and innovate', two MSc-I students, Ms Shirin Khan and Ms Saloni Kothari, under their start-up called 'Salrin' put up a small exhibition of fabric and cloth bags coloured with natural dyes. Along with this, they also displayed herbal products like a lip balm with different colours and flavours. Also, Ms Jidnyasa Tare assisted by Ms Aditi Nimbalkar exhibited 'Biojewellary' made from waste things aimed at keeping touch with nature, reuse and redecorate things.

Special Lecture

A special talk held under BAX was given by Ms Swapnaja Shinde (Founder and MD- Clinical Nutrition Pvt Ltd), to on 'Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Nutrition' on 27 January 2020. Ms Swapnaja nicely explained the different types of health problems and how proper nutrition can solve these problems. She also brought her health products; all the participants got the taste of the nutrition products.

Event

Under Botany Association of Xaviers (BAX), an activity was held in the woods on 9 December 2019 for FY, SY and TY students who were interested. The activity was called as 'Shove it in your coconut' which involved designing sustainable non-plastic pot for your sapling which could be taken home. The committee members of the BAX brought half-cut coconuts, and the participants were asked to add soil and saplings in it, decorate it and carve it like Halloween pumpkin.