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News of Jan
2 2007
2007, A Threshold Year for Science in India
by Papri Sri Raman
Chennai, Jan 2
As the temple town of Chidambaram gets ready to welcome Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to the Annamalai University where the 94th
Science Congress begins Wednesday, questions are being asked:
whither Indian science?
India has not been able to manage even simple natural calamities
like floods and droughts, which continue to spell disaster for
thousands across the country, year after year, season after season,
and there is enough reason to discuss climate change and monsoon
forecast.
There will be 21 core sessions at the congress to discuss these
issues.
The theme of the congress will be Planet Earth. It is being held at
a time when India is planning to step on the moon and the common man
on this coast wants to know why a tsunami warning system is taking
more than two years to set up and has been promised only by
September 2007.
The Department of Science and Technology website, vintage 2003, does
not tell us what the nation's major scientific achievements have
been in the last two years, except on the space and nuclear sector.
If one was to believe the information on the site, India spends less
than Rs.300 billion (about Rs.216.40 billion in 2005) for research
and development while the US spends nearly $300 billion. China
spends $20 billion. For 2006-7, the country will spend just $4.5
billion.
This is less than one percent of the GNP and less than one percent
of India's GDP, when a small country like Israel spends more than 5
percent. India grants about 1,000-odd patents to Indians, nearly as
many to foreign companies.
The state governments spend less than 10 percent of their budget on
research and development, the Indian public sector about 5 percent.
As for the Indian industry, lauded for giving India its shine, it
spends less than 1 percent of its sales turnover on R&D.
"In terms of scientific publications, India trails China. For
example, in 2002-3, Indian researchers published 19,500 papers in
scientific journals listed by the Science Citation Index compared to
50,000 by Chinese researchers," says analyst Seema Singh.
India has about 17,000-odd colleges offering science courses and 13
national institutions of excellence but only about 7,000 science
doctorates are awarded every year. Science teachers, scientists and
researchers in pure science are becoming difficult to find as a
postdoctoral fellow's monthly salary is about Rs.25,000.
India has about eight scientists per 1,000 people, when Canada has
180 and the Russian Federation has 140 per 1,000.
As for women scientists, 97 percent of the time the prestigious S.S.
Bhatnagar award goes to men, says analyst Vineeta Bal.
Only 17 of the 236 fellows of the National Science Academy are women
and only 8 percent representatives of advisory councils of research
institutions across the country are women.
In the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, only 46 of the 193
faculty members are women, in the Indian Council of Medical Research
(ICMR)'s institute of communicable diseases there are just seven
women in a faculty of 33.
The Bose Institute, Kolkata, has just 14 women teachers. In Delhi
University's science faculties, there are only six women doctoral
level teachers, in the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University there
are about a dozen women teachers in the science departments as
against nearly 70 male teachers.
India's defence budget is Rs.890 billion, but most of it goes in
upgrading, upkeep and overseas procurement. There is little money
for new research and innovation even at utility factories like the
Avadi Heavy Vehicles Factory, near Chennai, which is now more a
workshop for assembling 200 Russian T-90 tanks than making the Arjun
tank or new innovations.
India's refinery development gets about Rs.220 billion but research
in the sector is at a nascent stage.
The budget in the road transport sector is Rs.100 billion, rural
infrastructure has a budget of Rs.100 billion but roads are flooded
every monsoon in Mumbai and Chennai.
To get to villages from a highway still takes hours and in Bihar and
Uttar Pradesh, and many villages share just one telephone, despite
the telecom revolution India is boasting of.
The national rural health mission has a budget of more than Rs.80
billion but still malaria and encephalitis, even polio, continue to
be problems. Research in the health sector is low key.
Foreign-funded AIDS vaccine research has the highest profile.
IANS News of Jan
2 2007
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