Link research with economic growth: PM to scientists in ISC

PM Modi charted out areas where he wanted scientists, young students and start-ups to focus on 'research-led development'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday sought to set out India's science agenda for the next 25 years by linking scientific research overwhelmingly to economic growth, but scientists attending the congress said that the Union government must have a long-term strategy and investment plan for the S&T sector rather than focusing only on the low-hanging fruit of "technology development."

Addressing the 108th session of the Indian Science Congress at the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, the Prime Minister charted out areas from green energy and quantum computing, to semiconductor and healthcare where he wanted scientists, young students and start-ups to focus on “research-led development”.

The emerging technology areas where the government intends to focus relate to quantum frontiers, advanced communication technologies, digital transformation, clean energy and one health mission.

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“The role of India's scientific power will be very important when India will be at its pinnacle in the next 25 years. We have two things in abundance in today's 21st-century India. First - data and second - technology. Both of them have the power to take India's science to new heights,” Modi said in a virtual address.

This is only the second time in two decades that the Prime Minister skipped the inauguration of the annual session of the Indian Science Congress.

“The real challenge for any scientist is to convert his knowledge into applications that can help the world. When a scientist goes through his experiments, he always has this question in his mind whether it will improve the lives of the people or will his discovery meet the requirements of the world?” Modi said.

“Scientific efforts can turn into great achievements only when they hit the ground from the lab, when their impact is from global to grassroots, when they expand from journals to reality and when the innovations from research reflect in real life.”

Senior scientists, however, said that the government should also strengthen blue sky research rather than putting all its efforts into the short-term goal of technology development, which is low-hanging fruit.

“The government should come out with strategies and investment plans for long-term, medium-term and short-term targets and find out resources to invest in each of these programmes,” a senior government scientist who did not wish to be identified told DH.

India’s science budget continues to stay at around 0.7 per cent of the GDP even though former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee promised to hike it to 2 per cent of the GDP two decades ago. Also, the number of PhD per million population is only 255 as against more than 4,000 in the USA and UK and over 1,200 in China.

"While India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for startups with over 77,000 start-up companies, there are only 3,000 plus start-ups dealing with deep tech and just about 400 of them deal with innovative technologies,” Ajay Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser said at a separate session, highlighting some of the gap areas impacting Indian science and technology landscape.