Days after curtains came down on the 95th session of the Indian Science Congress at Visakhapatnam; questions are being raised on the usefulness of this annual jamboree. The quality of scientific output was so abysmal as to compel the Union ministry of science and technology — the event’s chief promoter — to take a serious view about the event itself.

But what lies behind the degeneration of such an important event that is traditionally every year’s first official assignment for the Prime Minister since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru?

Undoubtedly there were historical reasons like C V Raman shifting his base to Bangalore and Kolkata losing its charm as a research destination. But emergence of multiple sub-groups within the scientific community in the last 30 years and the government’s casual attitude in organising the summit was responsible in lowering its standards.

The downfall was evident at the Visakhapatnam congress. Almost the entire atomic energy and space establishment gave it a go by, while only a handful from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) attended. Representation from the seven Indian Institute of Technologies was bare minimum and despite the congress’s theme on sustainable development, nobody from the institutions under the Union ministry of environment and forest attended the meet.

“Without scientists, I am not sure if you can describe the event as a science congress,” says Pushpa N Bhargava, founder director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Among the eight scientific secretaries of the Central government, only the DST secretary T Ramasami — incidentally the general president for the next year’s congress — and ISRO’s G Madhavan Nair — general president for 2010 congress — were present for the first two days.

The scientific advisor to the Prime Minister, C N R Rao, and scientists believed to be close to him did not come citing its poor scientific content.

However, the doyen of agriculture science M S Swaminathan was present in the congress with a large contingent from his own M S Swaminathan Research Foundation. And for the first time, some of the top scientists from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) shared some of the DRDO works with the audience.

Even though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly expressed his concerns about the state of science teaching and research in India, including a serious shortage of qualified teachers, there were less than 20 participants at a session to discuss science education.

The organisers had invited a handful of top researchers from reputed institutions like the Indian Institute of Science and National Centre for Biological Sciences, both in Bangalore, and the National Brain Research Centre in Manesar. But the attendance was certainly not up to the mark.

The Indian science congress was loosely conceptualised on the annual meeting of the American Academy of Advancement of Sciences. A comparison on the quality of research being presented at the two summits shows why the AAAS meeting is the best in the world and Indian Science Congress falls way behind.

At least in the two past congresses — Pune in 2000 and Chandigarh in 2004 — the respective general presidents R A Mashelkar and Asish Dutta allowed a bunch of active researchers, who were in their 40s, to talk about their own research in the plenary session. On both occasions, the scientists were able to attract huge audience, including veterans, because of the originality of their presentations. But in Visakhapatnam, plenary sessions were held in small rooms (which in any case can not accommodate more than 75 students), where scientists ruminated on mundane topics.

In the past, every Congress used to come out with a set of recommendations on which the ministry took action and placed an action taken report in the next congress. Many scientific establishments and programmes originated from those recommendations. But for the last couple of years the practice has been discontinued ostensibly due to the poor quality of recommendations.

The 95th sessions produces a set of non-binding recommendations similar to the recommendations made by the National Commission on Farmers headed by Swaminathan. But he had no answers as to why one more set of expert suggestions as the NCF recommendations are still pending.

At the end, Swaminathan and the general president Ralapalli Ramamurthi admitted that things would have been better if more scientists attended the science congress! Upset with the poor show, Union Science Minister Kapil Sibal is reviewing the objective, structure and function of the Indian Science Congress and one may expect a better show in the next session.