Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM presents Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards

"I am very happy to be here today amongst a galaxy of scientists and each one of you are a nation-builder. I congratulate each of the awardees gathered here, and the staff and employees of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on the 64th Foundation Day of CSIR. As the President of CSIR Society, I am proud of the achievements of CSIR.

India can attain its rightful place in the comity of Nations and become a major pole of the evolving global economy only on the basis of a firm commitment to reason and rationality and the inculcation of what Jawaharlal Nehru used to describe as the scientific temper. Science and technology, therefore, have to be pace setters in our Nation's quest for a life of dignity and self respect for all our people and for us to attain our rightful place in the comity of Nations. I congratulate the winners of our most coveted science prize, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award. Since 1961, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave away the first of these prizes, these awards have acquired great prestige within the community of scientific researchers in our country.

I am heartened to learn that of the four hundred plus Bhatnagar prize winners, hardly any one have left the shores of our country and seeking employment abroad. This is indeed really commendable. I hope this year's awardees will also dedicate themselves to the service of India through their commitment to the promotion of science and technology in our country.

I also take this opportunity to congratulate Tejas Networks and the Central Leather Research Institute. I understand that CLRI's work has influenced the livelihoods of about 1.4 million people in the Indian leather sector. May your example prove a pace setter in using science and technology to serve our Nation's goals and objectives.

What are the big challenges that Indian science & technology face today? On the supply side, we have to enhance the supply of skilled scientists and technologists. This needs to be done through a judicious balancing of 'expansion', 'inclusion' and 'excellence'. On the demand side, we have to promote 'technology-led accelerated inclusive growth'. Let me elaborate on these challenges.

Numbers is the first issue. I understand that we have only 157 scientists and engineers per million people involved in Research & Development. Korea has 50 times more and United States and Japan have over 30 times more! Quality and output is yet another issue. In ten years, I have been told China has overtaken India in the number of scientific research papers published in the internationally peer reviewed journals. In fact they publish three times our numbers.

Our Government is determined to ensure an expansion of supply, demand and productivity in the area of Science & Technology. After a gap of a hundred years, we are now setting up three new Indian Institutes of Science, Education and Research (IISERs). Each of these institutes will be unique in terms of integration of science education and research.

Our best minds are not turning to science, and those who do, do not remain in science. This is a common refrain whenever I meet with the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister. We must therefore find ways and means of making these disciplines more attractive to our children and to our young. We have to redesign school and college education to build on the natural curiosity of our children.

We must also maintain the excellence of current institutes of higher learning, who have already been recognized globally. This can be achieved only through the recruitment of the very best faculty. We must create an environment conducive to the pursuit of excellence. It might appear that expansion, inclusion and excellence are mutually contradictory objectives. I do not think so. With determination and with some innovation, I am sure we can harmonize these objectives and this we must do.

The process of expansion must also be inclusive and relevant. Our real challenge seems to be to get the best minds in India to engage in providing practical pragmatic solutions to our many fold social and economic problems. Can you imagine the impact if we had a good vaccine for malaria? Can we imagine what impact a breakthrough in low cost fuel cells and photovoltaics for decentralized power supply can have on the life of our people? We must therefore find ways and means by which the best scientific minds in India could be ignited to tackle these basic societal challenges. Science & Technology have an enormous potential to enable us to meet the basic human needs of our people. We have therefore to make determined efforts to harness the vast latent potential in full measure.

It's often said that we live today in an increasingly interdependent world in which science and technological knowledge is growing at an unprecedented pace. International cooperation in science and technology development therefore offers exciting opportunities in this globalised world that we live in. We need therefore coordinated international efforts to address common technological issues. Countries could cooperate in meeting the energy needs of the world; in tackling disease; in using technology for better education; and in meeting the food requirements of the growing population of the world. These are only illustrative examples. There could be many more. We need to explore mechanisms for making cooperative global efforts possible and relevant.

We ought to take note also of the growing privatization of science and technology in the advanced developed countries. Multinational corporations are playing today an increasing role in the generation of new knowledge in areas such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, information technology and energy. The challenge before the world community therefore is to find more pathways to sustain adequate incentives for the generation of new knowledge and simultaneously to make the fruits of this knowledge available at affordable prices to the poorer countries in the world. We need global action to harmonize these twin requirements.

In this context, the international system for the protection of intellectual property rights needs to be adequately sensitive to both these concerns. Advances in science and technology have made a powerful contribution to globalization of the world economy. The challenge ahead is to ensure that the evolving global economy is so managed that it promotes the interests of all countries, rich and poor. Time is ripe to evolve concerted strategies to make globalization and the knowledge revolution that is propelling it a win win situation for the entire humankind. India ought to be in the forefront of intellectual efforts to find meaningful and purposeful solutions to these global concerns.

I wish to congratulate once again all the award winners who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields. I hope they will continue to be inspired to scale new peaks of excellence.

To Dr. Mashelkar, I have to say you have served our country and the cause of science and technology with the greatest distinction. On behalf of our people and our Government, I wish to convey to you our grateful regards. We all are proud of your achievements but I conclude by expressing the hope and prayer that perhaps we have not seen the best of you still - the best is yet to come. May your life and work continue to inspire generations of scientists and technologists in our country."