Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's address at the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Distribution Ceremony

"I am very happy to be here today at the prize distribution ceremony to honour some of the brightest young scientists in our country. I congratulate all the winners of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for the years 2009 and 2010. These awards are a tribute not only to the individual brilliance of these scientists, but also a tribute to the institutions that have created the right environment to nurture their exceptional talents.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes are awarded to scientists who are below the age of 45. The awards recognise not just the excellence of the work already done by the scientists but the promise they hold for greater achievement in years to come. So to the award winners I wish to say - our nation is proud of your achievements but expects much more from you in the coming years.

Yesterday, in Hyderabad I said at the opening ceremony of the new Campus of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, that we cannot afford to rest on past glories. If we aspire to straddle the heights of the scientific world; if we wish to sustain a high growth rate of 9-10% per annum and if we aspire to vanish poverty, ignorance, disease and hunger through innovation and creativity in science and technology, then our systems and methods will have to change fundamentally.

I sincerely believe that we need to make a break with the past. We need to create new systems, new structures and new ways of doing things that not just encourage individual excellence but also harness it effectively into socially productive multiplier outputs.

This is a major challenge before our government but more particularly before our scientific community. We need to think boldly about how to go forward. If the leaders of the scientific community can build a consensus on what needs to be done and what the new rules of the game should be, it will be a powerful impetus for the government to act.

It is time therefore that the new generation of Indian scientists takes on the responsibility of thinking about the future of Indian science and take the mantle of leadership in their own hands.

The Government of India has declared the present decade to be the 'Decade of Innovation'. Our government has set up a National Innovation Council to help evolve a road map for the future. The Council will develop an Indian model of innovations that will go beyond formal R&D based systems. It will focus on creating an appropriate ecosystem conducive to fostering innovation across diverse sectors of our economy. It will use enabling technologies to develop not only new products, new processes and new services but also improve existing production and delivery systems.

The Council will identify policy changes that may be required to spur and promote the cause of innovation. While encouraging all important sectors of our economy to innovate, it will make special efforts to facilitate innovation in the micro, small and medium enterprises sector and in the delivery of public services.

In this context, I do it with pleasure the emphasis on research in problems facing our rural sector and that they have received recognition from the CSIR. I commend this initiative of the CSIR wholeheartedly. Innovation is a key to solving the critical challenges our nation faces in providing food, water and energy security for our people. In India we have lived with the idea of being a resource rich land, taking for granted the limitless bounty of mother nature. In fact, the reality is that as a nation we are not well endowed with natural resources when measured on a per capita basis. We should therefore inculcate the traditional values of thrift embedded in our culture and our civilization and saving in the use of our scarce natural resources.

Scientific innovation should be harnessed to the needs for conservation. We have to extract "more from less". We have to be able to develop technologies that create "wealth from waste", thereby tackling the depletion and degradation of our environment while conserving our rich biodiversity and finite resources.

I believe that Institutions like the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research have to play a catalytic role in this area. Our government is establishing an Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, which will use the infrastructure of the CSIR to impart cutting edge research training in frontier areas of science and engineering that are not ordinarily taught elsewhere. If we are to give meaning to our search for new frontiers in Indian Science, then a much larger participation of the private sector is also essential. We have to leverage the private sector's strengths by creating high impact collaborations. Let private enterprise partner public S&T institutions in their translation and transformational efforts. Let them join hands with our public institutions in creating new manufacturing strategies for both strategic and non-strategic applications. Let there be publicly owned and privately operated world class R&D facilities.

In this context, I congratulate the Indian Oil Corporation's R&D Centre at Faridabad for developing anenvironment friendly, non-toxic, biodegradable "aggrospray oil" to control pests and plant diseases. The Centre therefore richly deserves the "CSIR Award for S&T Innovations for Rural Development" for the year 2009.

In conclusion, I wish to say that we are in a period of transition in Indian science. There is a huge expansion in our higher education infrastructure. It is in these new institutions that we have to sow seeds of a new work ethics, a new work culture, a new orientation and a bold new vision of where Indian science can be and should be in the next few decades. We have to build infrastructural assets but also knowledge bases. We need to generate knowledge but also know how to put to good use. We need to encourage individual excellence but also solid team work. I am very optimistic about the future of our country and the future of science in our country. I am confident that the spark I see in many of the young faces in front of me will power the engine of Indian science powerfully in this 21st century." With these words, I once again congratulate all the distinguished awardees and I wish them still greater success in the service of the people of our great country."