Stimulating science research & innovation

Expectations that india will become a major economic power in the next two or three decades are not entirely fanciful. Certainly there is hope within the countrys scientific community and general public, that India can become a global leader in science. But for this dream to be realised, it is imperative that India becomes a knowledge power, particularly in science, within the next few years. Only if this pre-condition is satisfied, and this nation becomes a centre of technological innovation, will this ambition be fulfilled.But even though our goals are ambitious and sights are set high, the education scenario in the country is discour-aging. We dont have any universities — decayed due to years of neglect — ranked among the top 50 or 100 in the world. Even our leading research institutions dont compare well with the best elsewhere, and in most areas of science and technology, Indian academia boasts few real experts. There is a severe leadership crisis in academia and the prospect of producing young science leaders is dim. At the same time, competition from other countries, especially our Asian neighbours, is intensifying. South Korea and China have made enormous investments in science in the past few years, not only in terms of funding but also by way of creating large pools of science and technology manpower. Conv-ersely, the performance of Indian academia and resear-chers in terms of the number of Ph Ds and scientific research papers published, is way below par and suffers in comparison with leading Asian countries. In this connection its pertinent to note that India contributes only 2.5 percent of the worlds science and technology content, and only 0.5 percent of cutting edge research. In the next 10-15 years, we should try to reach a level where the top 10 percent of the best science and technology research is contributed by Indian academia and research institutions. To attain this goal over the next two decades or so, its crucial to improve the quality of our higher education institutions in all respects, particularly colleges and universities focused on science education and research. As recommended by the Kothari Commission way back in 1966, the annual outlay for education (Centre plus states) has to be increased to 6 percent of GDP to ensure that we have a large number of high-quality schools and colleges, and our universities become fountains of knowledge producing high-quality science graduates. Through offering better pay, perquisites and improved working conditions, attracting the best graduates into teaching should become a national priority of the next decade. In this transformation of the nations education landscape, universities and Indian academics have a large role to play. They should take direct action to improve the quality of education dispensed by schools and colleges in their neighbourhoods. An important change required in the national mindset is awareness that real progress in science is driven by small projects and research conducted by lone scientists or small groups of scientists working in modest laboratories. Because of the national preoccupation with…