Address by
Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi
Hon’ble Minister for Human Resource
Development, Science & Technology and Ocean Development
In the life of a nation there are occasions which capture the essence and spirit of the times in a way that their significance can be continuously reinterpreted. The national Technology Day is one such event. Five years ago it began as a celebration of our technological prowess and sophistication in the realm of national security. With the passage of time and a rapidly changing global context it is much more than that. It is a celebration of possibly the longest known civilizational quest for scientific inquiry and technological creativity as a way of life - a continuing societal search for harmony and balance between human beings and nature, between human beings and human beings.
At a time when large sections of humanity are profoundly disturbed about the destructive potential of technology, its inability to address fundamental issues of poverty, hunger, disease and ecological degradation, its role in weakening social and ethical value-systems - the world looks to India to provide a corrective, a way out. As the notion of sustainability gains ascendance, few other societies can claim with the same pride and confidence that for millennia the paradigm of sustainable production and consumption combined with knowledge resources of incredible sophistication, has been deeply embedded in our 'genetic software' as Paul Davies calls it. The divorce of technology from social accountability: the equation of growth of private profit, (fuelled by technology), with public good; the acceptance of exploitation of man and nature as an evil necessary for attainment of economic growth - these are all alien imports, civilizationally abhorrent to us. By plumbing the depths of our civilizational knowledge resources, combined with our unmatched scientific and technological brainware we now have the opportunity and the privilege of taking a leadership role in charting a new agenda and framework for science & technology wedded to the ideals of sustainability. Today we celebrate this privilege of taking on a challenge to set new trends. India leads, it does not follow.
It is no co-incidence that the Technology Day award this year for successful commercialization of indigenous technology has gone to a company which has shown how technological and commercial ends can be fused with a strong social purpose. In the development of an affordable, cost -effective life saving drug - Interferon Alpha 2b - through their own in-house recombinant DNA technology – M/s. Shanta Biotechnic have once again proved many things. Firstly that technology development is best driven by a powerful social commitment. Secondly that social objectives need not involve any compromises on standards of technological excellence and that, in fact, there is a natural correspondence between the two. The poor deserve the best. Thirdly that private commercial and business ends need not conflict with public good. Making world class life saving drugs affordable to the poor is good business. Lastly that technological creativity, innovation and excellence is not the preserve of large multi-nationals alone and that in the info - bio - nano era of knowledge based technologies, Indian entrepreneurship will set global trends. This is the second time in less than five years that Shanta Biotechnic has won the same award and it shows that instead of resting on their laurels - which are many - they have incorporated the rapid pace of socially relevant technology development as a core value. May I once again congratulate you and hope that you will now strive to score a hat-trick in winning the Technology Day Award.
In the nurturing of technology based industry leaders the role played by the Technology Development Board deserves a full throated cheer. Shanta Biotechnic is one of the 114 projects supported by the Board. In the short span of its existence it has already leveraged an investment in technology based enterprise of over RS.1600 crores with as many as fifty innovative products already in the market. The Technology Development Board is the first mechanism within the Government for bridging the gap between the laboratory and the factory, for encouraging industry to inculcate a culture driven by R&D and technological innovation, for taking technological risks, for facilitating linkages and interactions between R&D institutions and industry, for developing a technological knowledge base and for ensuring that there is no compromise on quality, environmental safety, competitiveness and social good. The TDB is a venture capitalist with a difference. Its primary concern has been to see that a striving for technological innovation drives the process of industrial development across all sectors of industry and across a multiplicity of enterprise types - from self made entrepreneurs to established industrial concerns, to professionals undertaking start-up ventures. It has not been confined to supporting high-risk, high-profit ventures alone, and as long as an idea, a process or a product, is backed by technological excellence and innovativeness, the TDB is mandated to support it. The success that TDB has achieved in the very short span of time since it came into existence is enviable and the executive leadership of both the Department of Science & Technology and the Technology Development Board deserves fulsome praise and approbation.
I am happy to announce on Technology Day that the Technology Development Board has taken a few far reaching steps to further facilitate support for technology based entrepreneurship. The interest rate on TDB loans has been brought down to five per cent making it one of the most attractive windows for technology funding. It has also been decided not to levy any royalty from the beneficiaries in respect of all new loan agreements. Further it has been decided to evenly distribute the interest accumulated during the project implementation phase, over a period of three years, after completion of the project. This was in response to suggestions made by industry. To encourage entrepreneurs to file patents abroad, which is expensive and often deters small entrepreneurs from protecting Intellectual Property Rights, it has been decided to include the cost of filing patents as an element of project cost in projects funded by the Technology Development Board.
In our efforts to fuse technology development with societal ends, biotechnology can and will play a major role. While the Government continues to support research and development in modern biology and biotechnology covering various facets of this inter-disciplinary frontier of science, it is new industry which has to come forward pro-actively to make full use of the efforts of our scientists. It is encouraging to know that the number of companies investing in biotechnology has gone up from about 200 in 1999-2000 to 450 by 2002-2003. There has been an overwhelming impact on the pharma and health care sector. As an example of Government industry collaboration, I am particularly happy about the commercial launch of Liposomal Amphotericin-B, known as "Wonder Drug", for treatment of Systemic Mycosis and Kala-Azar. Systemic Mycosis is a life threatening fungal infection. Research programmes started by DBT have today given rise to a product, which will go to benefit millions of people in the country.
Two years ago on Technology Day I had suggested to Secretary, DST Professor V.S. Ramamurthy that in view of the enormous socioeconomic implications, especially for the tribal poor to launch a Bamboo Product Mission for scientific and technological intervention along the value chain. I am extremely happy to report that the Mission taken up by TIFAC is now fully operational and in the few months since obtaining administrative and financial approvals, it has introduced technologies for a range of wood substitutes such as boards and laminates, structurals, especially for earthquake resistant buildings, activated carbon, canned edible bamboo shoots for the export market and bamboo waste for energy production. This is yet another example of harnessing technology to benefit the poor and I would like to congratulate the team of Professor V.S. Ramamurthy, Shri Y.S. Rajan and Shri Vinaysheel Oberoi who have been masterminding and piloting this important initiative.
I would now like to dwell at some length on the single most important initiative taken by our Government since the last Technology Day and that is the Science & Technology Policy, 2003 which was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the 90th Indian Science Congress in Bangalore on 3rd January this year. I believe that this is a development of historic significance and at the risk of repetition I propose to highlight the factors which influenced the making of the policy and the profound impact that the policy can possibly have in shaping our future.
We know that the increased role of the Government in promoting, funding and incentivising scientific and technological development is a relatively recent phenomenon. The relationship between Government and Science, in the west, was largely transformed by the Second World War and the influence of Vannevar Bush in the US and of Haldane in UK. The conscious thrust given by the Government to science research was premised on the following principles - that basic science is performed without thought of practical ends - its defining characteristic being to expand the frontiers of fundamental understanding; and that basic research is the pacemaker of technological improvement.
Our own Science Policy Resolution of 1958 was to a considerable extent inspired by the Vannevar Bush model. The notions of science implicit in these models were still firmly anchored in Newtonian and Cartesian paradigms. Inherent to these paradigms was the dichotomy between science and society, between scientific knowledge and other kinds of knowledge, especially the social sciences, between matter and consciousness. Whereas science did achieve spectacular success by being treated as an autonomous domain, it also rationalized many harmful and socially destructive developments in the interests of furthering domain knowledge. It valorized splintering specialization and by distancing itself from social and ethical concerns it was unable to make any meaningful impact on problems of mass poverty, hunger, malnutrition, health conditions of the underprivileged and widespread environmental degradation and destruction. In fact science and technology often perpetuated and exacerbated some of these problems.
On of the most dangerous consequences of the dichotomous science that we have practiced since the industrial revolution has been the disturbance of the delicate relationship between human / beings and nature. Global warming, water scarcity, deforestation, arable land degradation, desertification, unprecedented concentration of Green House Gases are just some of the consequences of the uncritical acceptance of the myth of the social, political and ethical neutrality of science and technology.
In contemporary times, the problem has been further compounded by the narrow techno-economic vision within which globalization is perceived. Globalization was thought to be a panacea for all the ills be plaguing the economies of the developing countries. However, this has not been the case with a large number of poorer nations. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics in 2001 and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, in his celebrated work "Globalization And Its Discontents" says, “I have written this book because while I was at the World Bank I saw first hand the devastating effect that globalization can have on developing countries and especially the poor within those countries. I believe that globalization can be a force for good and it has the potential to enrich every one in the world, particularly the poor. But I also believe if this is to be the case, the way globalization has been managed, including the international trade agreements that have played such a large role in removing those barriers and the policies that have been imposed on developing countries in the process of globalization, need to be radically rethought."
It was our concern with the values of sustainability and the need for science and technology to be directly linked to societal needs that we needed to re-visit our S&T policy. While our commitment to science and technology had not changed, we recognized that global change has necessitated a closer- more direct link between science and technology and societal needs. Our new policy, therefore, is anchored in our abiding belief that for science and technology to grow, it must be green, it must be ethical, it must have a human face, it must be gender sensitive, it must be region and context-specific reflect our enormous diversity and plurality, and it must empower the community as a whole and not merely a section of it.
Contrary to the linearity of the earlier paradigms, we now see S&T policy in more holistic terms. Our belief is that science must touch every facet of national life. The thrust of the policy is to use science and technology as the key problem-solving instrument in all endeavours, including in agriculture, industry, business, trade, services as well as in governance. Providing creative and innovative solutions in health services, population management, mitigating the damage to vast sections of our people from natural hazards like earthquakes and cyclones, technologies for conservation of land, water and energy resources and their integrated management for sustainable development and consumption leading to their ecologically balanced management are the cornerstones of our new policy.
A very significant aspect of the new policy which needs to be underscored is that instead of treating 'science' as distinct from ‘technology’ with each having separate sets of policies, we now treat both as being inter-related, inter-dependent and harmonized. The progression from science to technology is not linear Technological development often leads to new science and vice-versa. Science itself cannot grow independent of technology. The conventional dividing lines have blurred and therefore the new policy speaks of both in the same breath. Further science and technology themselves form a part of a holistic tapestry of interdependent influences-social, economic, cultural, ecological and political. In this the new policy conforms to the trend within science itself to search for a unifying theory of everything and establish the unbroken wholeness between man and the eco-system, the eco-system and our planet earth, the planet earth and the universe.
The thrust of the new policy towards integration of science and technology with societal concerns offers leadership opportunities in other ways as well. In a brilliant graphic exposition, Dr. Mashelkar had once demonstrated to me that if one were to draw a quadrant and arrange the countries of the world in different squares in terms of science and technology capacity on the one hand and levels of economic development on the other it would lead to some very interesting conclusions. The poorest are unable to use S &T for their betterment because they do not have S&T capacities. The rich who do not have S&T capacity cannot help even if they are interested. The rich who also have high S &T capacity have no intention of or interest in employing their capacity for the benefit of the poor. The only ones who have the interest, the need and the capacity are countries like India, China and Brazil. Who will develop a low cost 'simputer' for the poor, if not India? Who will develop natural drugs and remedies like Asmon for the poor, if not us? Who will use biotechnology for providing supplements to the undernourished mother if not us? Who will lead the world in cutting edge technologies for sustainable consumption, for climate change mitigation? Who other than us should show the way forward in solar energy, in hydrogen energy, in nano-technologies?
In our approach to the development of cutting edge technologies there are some questions which we need to constantly ask. Do our technologies benefit the poor and the deprived? Do they contribute to the regeneration of our natural environment? Do they empower civil society? Do they minimize waste and energy consumption? Only if the answer is positive to all these, must we put all our resources to developing them and acquiring a leadership position. In Information Technology we should therefore focus on bridging the digital divide, in decentralizing governance and in enhancing the capacity of the poor to take control over their lives. In Bio-technology it should be to conserve our bio-diversity, to improve nutrition levels especially of women and children, to increase the productivity of small and marginal farmers and to develop drugs and remedies which are affordable and efficacious. In Nano-technologies it should be to increase the efficiency of converting energy to light, to reduce the costs and improve quality of medical diagnostics, to develop nano-tags and imaging systems which will enable early detection of disease and reduce the costs of health care. In other words the societal dimension has to be paramount and it is this which will provide our science and technology development initiatives uniqueness of character and confer on us a leadership status.
Allow me to reflect a little further on how we approach the issue of taking a leadership role in the development of cutting edge technologies. It is important in my view not to be entrapped in the consumerist techno-economic dream offered by the west. I have already spoken of the criticality of rooting Science and Technology development processes in a societal context. Among other things this requires remodeling our technology development and technology application processes so as to be similar to natural processes. A natural eco-system functions as a closed loop involving slow changes, which occur at a pace which allows time for adaptation to the natural environment. In contrast, technology has so far used a linear approach in which resources are extracted as though they are inexhaustible, processed to make synthetic products which have no natural counterparts, involve lengthy transportation both of raw materials and manufactured products and each step impacts on the environment and generates waste, further, technology design is insufficiently evaluated in terms of its impact on nature. We need technologies which completely eliminate the concept of waste, we need to design every process so that the products themselves, as well as leftover chemicals, materials and effluents can be reused in other processes. We need quantum leaps in energy efficiency and a shift from non-renewable to renewable sources, by applying the principle of de-carbonisation.
The task at hand now, is to convert the vision and the ideas embedded in the new policy into action and practice. The Hegelian and Marxist notion of ' praxis' which conceptually does not accept theory and practice as distinct compartments but as a fused, organic whole, needs a contemporary renaissance. How do we achieve that? I would like to suggest a few steps which may help.
For long I have stressed the need for an active dialogue between scientists and social scientists and indeed in the formulation of the policy document many eminent social scientists were actively engaged. However, the dialogue has not only to continue but made a part and parcel of each of our scientific institutions. The dialogue has to be institutionalized. This can be done in many ways. Eminent social scientists and social activists need to be inducted at the highest levels of decision making in our science and technology institutions with appropriate changes made in the relevant rules by laws and regulations to allow for such an induction. Social scientists need to be involved in programme and project formulation and design, in the prioritization of science and technology initiatives and the evaluation of ideas. Concurrent social audit of our science and technology programs needs to be introduced so that societal objectives and concerns are never lost sight of. I am confident the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Cabinet headed by Dr. Chidambaram will deliberate on the issue and come up with specific recommendations.
In March 2002 an extraordinary event had taken place at Columbia University in New York called 'Living with the Genie towards meaningful governance of science and technology'. The event was set amid artistic and philosophical interpretations of the technology society interface and led to a set of six conversations on the nature of past scientific and technological transformation of society, the world we are now making through science and technology, the effects of globalization on science and technology especially the societal impact of new IPR regimes and the governance of scientific and technological progress in the modern world. The participants were scientists and technologists, administrators, corporate executives, social scientists, philosophers and theologians, artists and social activists. Interestingly, one of the realizations during this extraordinary meeting was that India was seen as having been much closer to the values identified as critical for the governance of science and technology. It was also felt that developing countries like India were likely to be the most receptive to futuristic designs and plans because, devoid of vested interests, they were fearless to· experiment. I hope that as a follow up to our Science and Technology Policy we should urgently host a similar event to give concrete shape to our policy and plans. Professor V S. Ramamurthy will certainly take a lead in this direction.
A word on our mission-mode initiatives, most of the missions taken up so far are technology or discipline specific. If we wish to use technology as a problem solving instrument we need to plan missions which cut across technologies, institutions, departments and sectors. In fact missions need to be identified and prioritized in terms of societal concerns - health and nutrition, gender, conservation of natural resources, climate change, etc. Having identified the priorities we need to integrate all possible technologies which have a bearing on the issue. For example, a mission on nutrition for women could involve the use of smart card technologies for maintaining health and nutrition profiles of the target population and for all transactions, the use of GIS technologies for identifying the geographic concentrations of the malnourished and for planning the optimal deployment of welfare initiatives, the use of bio-technology for developing nutrition rich foods, the use of e-commerce for efficient delivery of nutrition products, etc. The point is that at all times we must keep the societal objectives of the mission paramount and bring to bear multiple technologies which can help in the realization of the objectives. This requires that the design and architecture of our missions must be carefully and imaginatively done and that mission governance must integrate technologies to have the maximum impact. I believe that it will be possible for the Department of science and Technology to initiate at least two to three such missions by the next Technology Day.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express a major concern I have about our technology development processes. Very often we accept as given, that new technologies of global significance will emerge from the affluent west and that we only need equitable means of technology transfer, absorption and adaptation. As a consequence truly original developments in technology have been few and far between. While keeping windows open for the winds of technological change to blow in from everywhere can we not at the same time develop truly original contributions? I urge you as individual scientists and technologists and as institutions to be bold and creative and venture into realms where angels fear to tread. I believe that by the next Technology Day we will have commenced work on a few original ideas and that all our combined efforts will be directed to make the slogan of 'India leads' a powerful driver of our efforts.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for listening to me with patience.
