Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi
Minister of Human Resource Development and Science & Technology

 

Address Delivered at the Presentation Ceremony of the 1997 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes

 

May 25, 1998
NPL Auditorium, New Delhi

 

India's Future Its Scientists & Technologists

 

Respected and beloved Prime Minister Shri Vajpayeeji, Dr. Mashelkar, FRS, Director General of CSIR, Dr. Raychaudhury and doyens of Indian Science, distinguished scientists who are sitting here, winners of the award and fellow scientists.

 

At the outset I would like to thank the Honourable Prime Minister for agreeing to grace the function, His gracious gesture re-establishes the earlier tradition wherein the Prime Minister publicly affirmed the government's support and commitment to science and technology by honouring our worthy scientists and technologists, Our Government not only reaffirms the faith that the founding fathers of the nation have reposed in Science and Technology but we would like to accord a position of prestige and honour to our scientists and technologists. The developments of the past few weeks have once again brought India at the centre stage of global polity.

 

Eleventh of May 1998 was a very special day for Indian technology. We had three great events on that day. The first event of the day (12.50 p.m.) was of the successful test flight for final certification of Hansa - 3, the first all composite indigenous aircraft, built by CSIR. The second was (followed a few minutes later) by the successful test firing of the Trishul missile. The third and the most momentous was the three successful nuclear tests. I would thus like to request the Honourable Prime Minister that Eleventh May be declared as the Technology Day, just as Twenty-eighth February is celebrated as Science Day in recognition of discovery of Raman Effect.

 

A further recognition of India's standing in the scientific world came on Sixteenth May with the election of four Indian Scientists as Fellows of the prestigious and oldest of the science societies, the Royal Society, London. I am told that in the 330 year history of the Royal Society there have been only 35 Indians elected as Fellows. I believe that election of four Indian Scientists this year is a tribute to and a fitting recognition of Indian science. Two of the Indian scientists Dr. H.K.D.H. Bhadeshia (Cambridge Univ.) and Dr. Srinivas Vardhan (New York Univ.) are presently working abroad, the other two Dr. Ashoke Sen who is at Mehta Research Institute at Allahabad and Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, DG CSIR, are working in India, Our heartfelt Congratulations to all four of them for doing India proud.
 
The vision to build the new India of our dreams cannot merely be a derivative of the past. It has to be, of course, based on the reality of the present, but it has to have a boldness, ambition and hope, which is commensurate with the aspiration of this great nation. In recognition of the heightened aspirations that the people have from science & technology I had instructed CSIR to assemble together the Directors of all the laboratories so that we could brainstorm about how CSIR could serve the nation still better. I thus took a two-day meeting of CSIR Directors (on 11th & 12th May 1998) at Bangalore wherein we considered 10 strategy papers dealing with:

• S&T for the common man
• Competitiveness of Indian Industry
• Value addition to endogenous resources
• Attaining global leadership in science
  

We are now giving finishing touches to these strategy papers which I would then like to submit to the Prime Minister for his consideration and decision. I have set therein very specific and stringent time and task targets for CSIR, and I am confident that CSIR will be able to meet these.

 

Talking of our achievements, I would like to applaud the young scientists and technologists, assembled here today for their magnificent work that has secured for them the prestigious Bhatnagar Prize. The award brings with it recognition, honour and prestige - as the Bhatnagar awards have come to enjoy the highest reputation nationally and internationally. At the same time, I feel that, the award also reposes a heavy responsibility on the awardees: you are now a role model for your budding colleagues and have to set for them by example to pursue excellence in S&T, high level of ethics and also charting out newer paths that are truly endogenous.

 

I believe that for too long now Indian Science and Technology has sought to pursue the trodden path set for us by others. In the past Indian philosophers and scientists had given the world original and new paths in diverse scientific areas such as medicine and metallurgy. The use of Mercury and other metal Bhasmas as therapeutics is still considered to be a new area in medicine. My appeal to you, the Bhatnagar awardees, is to break out from the trodden and established path and pioneer new thinking and areas. It is only then that the world will once again look up to India as a provider of new S&T The quality of the Indian basic research in the new millennium will need to undergo a sea-change. We should aim for world leadership in science again. The new Indian science should be one that leads and not follows. It will need to be based on daring and creativity. Promoting curiosity based research with new sense of adventure would be the Indian endeavour in the next millennium.

 

Indian S&T can play a crucial role in catalysing and accelerating the economic and social development. This becomes clear when we recognise that the comparative advantage in the globally integrated knowledge-based world economy today is shifting to those with brain power to absorb, assimilate and adopt the spectacular developments in science and technology and harness them for national growth. Whereas investments into physical infrastructure on energy, transport and communications are crucial, it is the intellectual infrastructure derived through powerful S&T that will give India a comparative advantage. Judicious investments will have to be made in building this infrastructure by investing more than hitherto in higher education and S&T.

 

Partnership with nature and also with our past; our traditional knowledge base and community knowledge needs to be harnessed and uniquely enhanced by using cutting-edge science. Our vast biodiversity needs to be conserved and our long coastal zones and unexploited oceans, provide us vast opportunities, be they for drugs or alternative sources of energy (gas hydrates) or minerals. We again need to recreate the spirit of adventure by exploring nature and our abundant knowledge resources using the tools of new science.

 

One of the hallmarks of the Indian civilization from the very ancient times was to develop harmony with life and nature and to establish the infinite potential of human development. As a long term vision, India should lead the world in establishing and demonstrating the harmony between science and spirituality, in the development and application of science with ethics as the backbone. Scientific temper and true joy of science will be unfolded when the harmony between the science and the mankind's highest quest is achieved.