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The new year brought a good news to India's
scientists and technologists. In the ongoing 90th Indian Science
Congress in Bangalore, jointly hosted by Bangalore University
and ISRO from 3rd January to 7th January, the Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee made some candid remarks. He had a dig at the
way out Science and Technology system in our country got bureaucratized
over the years. He lamented that this bureaucratization cost the
nation heavily due to the exodus of talented scientists either
to non-scientific careers within the country or to pursue science
outside the country.
Prime Minister should be congratulated rather thanked for bringing
the pressing issue of the S&T system in India to the fore in the
most importance forum. He has hit the nail on the board and made
a clarion call to reform the system. It is up to the policy makers
now to heed to the fervent appeal of the Prime Minister and the
carry out the reforms without wasting anytime anymore. Prime Minister
unveiled a new National S&T Policy in an attempt to infuse vitality
to our Science and Technology system. Only recently the planning
for our 10th five-year plan was carried out and in that the target
for the growth was fixed at an ambitious 8% growth rate. This
cannot be achieved just by tingling with our economic policies.
We need to be self-reliant in cutting edge technologies and make
our products attractive with high quality in the International
market. We need to give impetus to those technology developments
that would help in import substitution. This should not be done
just by tweaking the imported technologies but we must develop
our own technologies from the first principles. If we can successfully
rent our technology and satellite launch vehicle to western countries
to put their satellites in geo-orbit, it is very much within the
talents of our country in other areas of R&D also. This is what
our Scientist President has been advocating for in his vision
for India's development to become a strong country by 2020. .
The S&T policy should clearly articulate few things with clear-cut
targets.
(1) It is earnestly hoped that apart from making the announcements
and calling for soul-search, Prime Minister would have instructed
the ministries concerned to come together and arrive at key areas
where R&D efforts have to be increased multi-fold. Unless a mission
is articulated with a target in mind such as to deliver 8% growth
rate in the 10th Five Year Plan, we would only be talking and
nothing concrete would happen. .
(2) We have opened up our economy more out of compulsion than
design. This had put strains on many local industries. In the
closed conservative economic regime, most of the technologies
were imported ones and they were used mostly on a turnkey basis.
With the liberalization, the industry players from developed countries
directly started operating in our country with their cutting edge
technologies and hence the technologies that our industries are
using are slowly getting outdated. This poses a grave danger.
Especially with the GATT agreements (with IPR protections), the
domestic industry would come under the mercy of the developed
nations if we do not rise up to the occasion. The S&T sector has
to address the needs of the nation with more speed than ever before
on a priority basis so that India could squarely face the challenges
of globalization. Here the challenges specifically refer to the
increasing restrictions on the sharing of knowledge among countries,
with newer norms of intellectual property rights and technology
and trade control regimes. As the Prime Minister advised, the
scientific community should openly debate the reasons for the
not-so-striking performance of our S&T when we have the second
largest scientific manpower in the world. Mr. Vajpayee identified
"bureaucratization'' of the research and development establishments
as one of the ills afflicting our S&T system. Research talents
are proportional to experience or the age of the scientist. It
has a very little relevance to the experience. For instance, a
person who has spent 10 years in Scientist C position in a CSIR
lab without updating himself with the pace of the research progress
in a field would surely be less talented, less qualified, and
less effective to discover and innovate than a person who would
have spent far less number of years in that position who keeps
pace with the developments in the area and who is creative enough
to build on the progress made by the global scientific community
in a given field. From this perspective, the research and development
job is quite different from a marketing, software, teaching, accounting,
and administrative jobs where the experience is the major mechanism
by which a person can add value to himself and to the job that
he pursues. Seniority has less relevance to an R&D job. As the
Prime Minister emphasized seniority should not displace merit.
In order to achieve a greater vision for the country, it is important
that our Indian scientists should learn to cut across labs and
areas and work as a team. It is also heartening to know that the
Prime Minister has asked the policy-makers to ask a question "why
a career in science (in India) is not considered worthwhile by
so many of our talented younger scientists". He has given the
mandate also by saying that "whatever be the reasons, we must
face this issue squarely, by taking visible, concrete steps to
give promising scientists and technologists the necessary opportunities,
recognition, standing and adequate material compensation". Not
that we were not aware of this issue of brain drain but the forum
in which the Prime Minister has talked about it adds significance
to this.
The institution of a new annual award called "India Science Award"
that carried Rs. 25 lakhs, the highest in the field of science
and technology for a breakthrough invention by an Indian scientist
in India is a right step in the right direction. The awardees
would be selected by a jury that includes top scientists from
abroad. In view of the fact that the current top recognition the
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award carries a cash component of Rs.
2 lakhs suggests the seriousness and earnestness of this announcement.
It is also announced that the modalities of India Science Award
would be worked out soon by the Indian Science Congress Association.
When we say India Science Award is a significant step in the right
direction, this is one discreet action. We need to draw a comprehensive
plan to attract many talented scientists pursuing science outside
the country. The reason for their refusal to come back to India
is not merely driven by the attraction to dollars. If we say that
we are trying to turn a blind eye to the core issue and trying
to reduce the seriousness of the issue. In the list of concrete
steps, our Prime minister has rightly mentioned about material
compensation as the last need for talented NRI scientists. The
expectations of NRI scientists are towards attractive opportunities
and facilities to pursue a high quality science in India. If we
want to attract a talented NRI, we cannot ask him/her to join
the bandwagon of Indian scientific community. They must be given
due recognition.
In 1970s when the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi exhorted
the NRI scientists to come back to India, she went out of way
ignoring the bureaucracy and succeeded in bringing back many young
scientists in those yesteryears who are eminent scientists today
in the country. Dr. Mashelkar who is the current CSIR Direct General
was brought back to India by Mrs. Gandhi when she tried to infuse
vitality to Indian science in 1970s. Similarly our scientist President
was recognized well in time in early 1980 itself by Mrs. Gandhi
and today everyone would agree that this recognition of Dr. Kalam
proved effective to push our aerospace research. The recognition
of talented scientists at the right time and providing them good
opportunities, facilities and sometime even the authority would
ensure disproportionate progress for the nation. The Human Resource
Development Ministry should work out a policy to attract talented
NRI scientists back to the country. After identifying the mission
areas to achieve the set growth rate of tenth five year plan,
HRD ministry should be assigned the task of formulating right
polices to recognize talented people from within and outside the
country and they be given right atmosphere and facilities to deliver
the goods to the nation. It is high time that we act pragmatic
and combat the ills of the bureaucratization of the S&T system
with concrete steps. A mere lip service would not do any good.
The mission areas should be identified based on what can give
impetus to agricultural and industrial (service and manufacturing
sectors) growth. It is also important that we exploit our traditional
knowledge to gain competitive edge over other developed countries
especially in the area of health and medicine. It is also important
that while we reform at the top end, we need to give a serious
thought to reform our education system both primary and secondary
education in such a way that science career is pursued by an individual
out of interest and not out of accidence. A survey may be conducted
amongst the working scientists in the country to find out how
many wanted to pursue science as the career before enrolling for
Ph.D. or post-graduation and how many ended up with science profession
even after graduation because of lack of opportunities elsewhere.
This should be an eye-opener for framing our HRD Science policies.
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