Former Prime Minister of India - Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Prime Minister's Inaugural Speech at the 89th Session of Indian Science Congress

The following is the inaugural speech of the Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the 89th session of the Indian Science Congress, at Lucknow today. The following is the text of the speech:

~As always, I am very happy to be with all of you on yet another January 3.

One of the very first duties that any Prime Minister has to perform in a new year is to inaugurate the annual session of the Indian Science Congress. It is said that science is no respecter of tradition. But what a fine tradition — an unbroken tradition right since Independence — that you scientists have set.

But science wants us to question everything, including tradition. Although I am not a scientist, I know why this tradition has been set. The answer lies in the greetings and felicitations that people exchange at the dawn of every New Year.

They say, ~May the New Year bring peace and prosperity to all of us on earth.~ It seems to me that without science andtechnology, this is an empty wish.

For, if we want prosperity, we need science and technology. If we want peace and security, we also need science and technology — a theme that I shall briefly touch upon in my address today.

So, distinguished scientists from India and abroad, I begin by extending to all of you hearty greetings for the New Year. And may I add my own word of welcome to all of you in Lucknow? This happens to be my parliamentary constituency. May you all have a pleasant and fruitful stay here.

It is said that everyone stands on the shoulders of those who went before. In that spirit, I am also conscious that I am speaking to you today in the tradition of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and all the other Prime Ministers. All of them contributed to the building up of strong scientific and technological capabilities in our country.

They also made S&T an entirely national issue, an issue, which is not partisan in any manner-political, economic, social, or cultural. My government has done its best to continue with this approach, which has now become deeply institutionalized in our country.

Science and technology are undoubtedly a critical input for India’s all-round development. Many of the most visible triumphs of post-independence India have been based on the fruits of science and technology. But the development of India’s S&T capabilities also brings an important intangible benefit to our nation. They give all of us a high degree of self-confidence. And self-confidence, as all of us know, is itself a crucial input for the success of any endeavor in any field of nation building.

Another intangible benefit of S&T is the adoption of scientific methods and analysis and problem solving across diverse fields. The contributions of scientists and technologists to the development of management and economic disciplines are well known. It is essential that the spirit and methods of scientific inquiry now permeates more deeply into governance and policy making, especially at the grassroots.

While a greater role for scientists and technologists in policy making is essential, we need to learn how to integrate scientific knowledge with insights from other disciplines. For this to happen, it is essential to eschew a ~two culture~ approach — that science and the humanities are irreconciliable, and for each to be aware of the value and validity of disciplines other than one’s own.

Distinguished scientists, this session of the Science Congress is taking place at a time when our national security, as also global security, are facing an extraordinary challenge from terrorism. The horrendous incidents of September 11 in the United States and the outrageous terrorist attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir legislature on October 1 and our Parliament on December 13 are barbaric manifestations of the same challenge. The entire peace-loving humanity is today thinking of how to secure the world from this menace.

In our national and global battle against terrorism, we look to scientists and technologists for help. We know that terrorist networks have been trying to master advances in science and technology to pose new threats to the civilized world. The only way we can stop them in their tracks is by building even more powerful collaborative networks among all those governments, agencies and non-governmental institutions committed to defending peace and human values.

Today, after participating in this function, I proceed to Kathmandu to take part in the SAARC summit. It is unfortunate that our neighbourhood in South Asia has emerged, in recent years, as the principal source of international terrorism and religious extremism. Since India has been its principal victim for many years, we have resolved to fight terrorism to the finish. We shall succeed in this fight. I have no doubt about it. Let no one have any doubt about it.

However, from this eminent platform, I would like to appeal to all the scientists, technologists, and academics in the countries of South Asia: Join hands to fight terrorism and extremism. Affirm loudly, for one and all to hear, that the function of science is to help, and not to hurt, humanity; that the purpose of technology is creation, not destruction. Close your ranks to help the larger struggle to rid our region of tension and hostilities.

We have an opportunity — indeed, we have a duty — to make South Asia a land of peace, prosperity, and progress. To begin with, let the scientists and engineers of SAARC countries collaborate in helping war-ravaged Afghanistan in its reconstruction efforts. I assure you that the Indian Government will fully facilitate this initiative.

My friends in the scientific community, I shall now briefly share with you some thoughts on the other challenges and tasks before us in two broad areas: higher education and R&D.

Investment in R&D, like the investment in education, is an investment in India’s future. At the Pune Science Congress two years ago I had announced that the Government would try to increase the ratio of total national R&D investments to GDP to around one percent by the end of the 9th Plan. I had also indicated we would go further and seek to increase the above ratio to two percent in the last year of the 10th Plan. I assure you that, in spite of constraints, we shall steadily move ahead to meet this target.

I think that the bulk of the incremental R&D investment should go to important and promising sectors, which have not received enough attention so far. I have in mind areas like meteorology, oceanography, ecological recovery and environmental protection, disaster prevention and management, renewable energy and energy efficiency, new and more effective medicines for both the prevention and treatment of communicable diseases endemic in many parts of our country particularly in rural areas, and conservation and sustainable utilization of our rich biodiversity.

While I am on this subject of priorities, the Finance Minister has already indicated that the Government would give higher importance to agriculture in the Budget for the coming year. It is a matter of concern that, over much of the last decade, public investment in agriculture and agriculture-related infrastructure has declined.

Unfortunately, this is also true of investments in agricultural research — the very engine of our agricultural development and the foundation of the Green Revolution, which provided food security to our country for the last 25 years and more. We need to step up our R&D efforts in achieving higher yields both on arid and irrigated lands, pest resistance, water and soil conservation, saving in use of fertilizers and prevention of loss and wastage. I would like special attention to be paid to our objective of making our Eastern and North-Eastern States the new food basket of India.

I have asked the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission and the Finance Minister to ensure that the Plan outlays for Agricultural Research in the 10th Plan are large enough to ensure that, when combined with measures and policies on other fronts — from costing and pricing, to storage and distribution — would enable our agricultural production systems to return to their earlier high growth path.

The strategic integration of biotechnology and information technology into Indian agriculture systems can revolutionize Indian farming and usher in a new era. Genetic engineering may help in minimizing crop damage through disease and pest-resistant varieties, reducing the use of chemicals, enhance moisture stress tolerance in crops, and thus enable productive farming on currently marginal lands.

However, what we need is ~responsible biotechnology~, which does not expose our ecology and society to major risks. We also need a ~responsive~ regulatory and enforcement mechanism, which brings together researchers, policy makers, NGOs, progressive farmers, and the government to help ensure that the benefits of biotechnology reaches all our people quickly.

The new ~responsible biotechnology~ must also take care to see that we avoid the ~genetic divide~. Today, a few corporate players are dominating modern biotechnology. Just five companies in the West control more than 95 percent of gene transfer patents. However, these patents do not usually pertain to crops of the poor. Who will do research on using new biotechnological tools for dryland crops such as millets? It is we in India who need to take up this challenge.

It is obvious that India cannot reach, in the near future, the absolute levels of industrialized countries in R&D spending. Therefore, it is all the more imperative that we make every R&D rupee yield more. There is a view that there is insufficient inter-agency and inter-laboratory communication coordination and collaboration. This shortcoming should be removed. We should make optimal use of our available research facilities and equipment, as also our human resources, through a culture of sharing and cooperation.

I am aware that there are a number of organizational and administrative hurdles in the Government, which prevent optimal use of public R&D resources. Bureaucratism is an enemy of a result-oriented approach, and must be shunned, for it demotivates our scientific talent and compels our best professionals to spend their time and energy on unproductive matters. The nation is the loser when this happens to a profession where motivation, determination, and concentrated pursuit of excellence are the key to success.

I would accordingly like the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government Dr. Chidambaram and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet to undertake a comprehensive study of such problems and come up with changes in policies, practices, and procedures which will create a liberal, flexible, and motivating environment for R&D, not only in our government agencies but also in our academic institutions. I assure you that the Government would consider their recommendations with utmost seriousness.

Here, I have a word for our friends in the private sector. I am sad to say that the latest figures of R&D investments by industry continue to be dismal. I understand that the average R&D expenditure by a significant part of large-scale industry is currently running at no more than 0.7 percent of sales. The pharmaceutical industry alone has shown significant improvement in this regard over the 90s with their R&D to sales ratio currently running at around 2 percent.

I have been speaking about the need for raising the levels of our S & T spending. However, this cannot just come only by raising the budgets of the Ministry of Science and Technology. Indian industry, which is a beneficiary of liberalization, must, in its own interest, start to contribute its due share. In advanced nations, such as the USA, 80 percent of the scientists are employed in private industry. Our proportion is just the reverse.

Over the years, while India’s Government R & D establishment has developed impressive human and institutional capacities over a wide range of scientific disciplines, there has been insufficient focus on the needs of industry. There is, accordingly, need to build public-private partnerships, by which the resources of Government R&D establishments, including where necessary, our universities, are directly and profitably harnessed for industrial R&D. This would involve sharing of both costs, and benefits, in the form of resulting intellectual property rights, between the R&D institutions, their personnel, and private industry.

Given the enormous pool of scientific talent in the country, policies need to be developed for attracting Indian private, as well as foreign direct investment in the R&D sector, so that R&D services comprise a growing proportion of India’s expanding and globalizing service sector. I ask all of you, the organizations that you represent, industry associations to work together with the government, in particular the Ministry of External Affairs to increase awareness in the rest of the world about the availability of India’s scientific capacity.

There is a perception — and there is some truth in this perception — that R&D in our university system is not receiving as much attention as in specialized agencies and laboratories. Creative universities are the bedrock of every developed nation’s S&T strategy. It is a matter of concern that science departments in India’s vast university system have suffered greatly due to lack of investments, both material and in terms of faculty. One way of reversing this is to encourage collaboration between a university and local private industry. If necessary, this can be supported by seed money from the government.

Further, in recent years, there has been an alarming decline in the number of talented young students opting for science as a career. The inflow of young researchers into our R&D institutions is also thinning. We should lose no time in addressing the many complex issues of higher education in India, so that these trends can be reversed.

Finally, I cannot over-emphasize one of the most important, but also the most neglected, areas of our S&T strategy. It is the challenge of increasing and enriching the inputs of scientific and technological knowledge in the vast informal and unorganized sector of our economy. There is no doubt an enormous reservoir of traditional knowledge at work in this sector. This must be recognized and further developed and disseminated. I commend the work of the National Innovation Foundation in this context.

However, there is a big need and an equally big scope to appropriately take the fruits of the formal S&T establishment to our carpenters and vegetable vendors, to our electricians and construction workers. When this happens, India will see a dramatic surge in quality, productivity, and efficiency in every area of our economy.

In other words, we must take science to the people. All of us are fond of quoting Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous words paying tribute to your community — namely, that ~Scientists are a minority in league with the future~. This is true. But let us also remember that, that bright future can be realized only when science is in league with the majority of our society.

I am sure that the thoughts and concerns that I have just expressed will be spelt out in sharper detail in the new National Science & Technology Policy, which Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi tells me is in the final stages of preparation. I congratulate all those who have contributed to the making of this important policy document.

With these words, I inaugurate the 89th Session of the Indian Science Congress and wish it success. Thank you.~