Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM Inaugurates the annual meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World - 2010

"I am delighted to participate in this opening ceremony of the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. I am told that more than 60 countries are represented in this distinguished assembly of scientists representing the knowledge and wisdom of the developing world.

Hyderabad is a city that combines the treasures and values of traditional India with the vigour and vibrancy of new modern India. I extend a very warm welcome to the distinguished scientists present here and I wish them a very pleasant stay in this beautiful city of Hyderabad.

It was Sir Winston Churchill who once said in an address at Harvard University way back in 1943:

"The empires of the future are going to be the empires of the mind."

There was perhaps no one who believed more fervently in Churchill's prophesy than Prof. Abdus Salam, who was one of the most outstanding scientists of his generation. Professor Salam had great faith in the potential of scientists of the developing world and also in the essential unity of scientific purpose in advancing human civilization as a whole. It was this vision of Prof. Salam that led him to establish the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1983. I had a great privilege of knowing Professor Salam wayback from the 1950s when I was an under graduate in St. John's College, Cambridge and Professor Salam was a fellow of St. John's College. Subsequently, I and he worked very closely to write the report of the South Commission which was headed by Professor Julius Nyerere, the former President of Tanzania. In this context, I visited Professor Salam a number of times and his wisdowm, vast experience and knowledge were truly phenomenal. I pay my homage and humble tribute to this great leader of science and revered scientist who showed us the path to cooperation and collaboration that will and can benefit us all.

At that time, scientific and technological achievements were by and large the preserve of the first world. It may be that not much has changed since then. But the walls and barriers to the development and diffusion of science and knowledge are breaking down. Communication and globalization are enabling developing countries to aspire for cutting edge scientific achievement and progress like never before.

I believe that it is not beyond our collective imagination to create empires of knowledge in the developing world. For that to happen, we need many more men and women like Professor Salam who are visionaries - great scientists, inspiring leaders and great institution builders.

The challenges that developing countries face are similar, whether it is in combating tropical diseases, transforming traditional agriculture, or predicting and tackling natural disasters. These problems of under-development do not receive adequate attention in the advanced industrialized countries. Nor should we expect others to solve our problems for us. I believe that we can and should make a renewed and determined effort to quicken the pace of developing scientific knowledge and application that is relevant to our own needs and circumstances.

We have seen how the path of development followed by the industrialized countries has the potential to threaten our existence and way of life. I have therefore wondered whether there is an alternative and more sustainable way of developing our societies and economies without injuring and destroying the natural bounty of Mother Earth. If we can find such a path - that does not unduly constrain our ability to deal effectively and quickly with basic challenges of development - then we should follow it in our enlightened self-interest. I believe that it is only science that can provide us with these answers. And further, it is through the collective energies of the men and women gathered here today that these solutions can be found.

The developing world is constrained by the lack of well-organised systems and critical mass of expertise in its scientific establishments. There are shortages of skilled scientific manpower and research facilities. That is why collaboration among our scientific communities is so very important for each one of our countries. The problems we cannot solve individually, perhaps we can solve by working together and pool in our knowledge, wisdom and experience together.

But each of our countries needs to put science on a pedestal. We need to invest in science. We need to invest in scientific infrastructure - in our schools, in our laboratories. We need to promote an eco-system that rewards innovation, creativity and excellence. We need to inculcate what Jawaharlal Nehru often talked about a scientific bent of mind in our children. We need to nurture inquisitiveness and a questioning mind. We need to change our pedagogical methods that empashise memory rather than inquiry.

In our country, we have increased the expenditure on S&T as a proportion of our GDP. But we must do much more. We are putting a lot of resources in both basic and higher education. For the last fifty years, India had seven Indian Institutes of Technology and one Indian Institute of Science. In the last five years we have established eight more IITs and five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research.

An important issue that sometimes bedevils collaboration on research with relatively immediate commercial applications is the sharing of intellectual property rights. We need to address this problem head on.

One approach that is being tried now is an application of ideas from the open source movement in software. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in India has launched an Open Source Drug Discovery project that facilitates collaboration by providing a platform for the mutual sharing of research results, which may be used freely by any participant. The Government of India has committed around US$40 million towards this project. An equivalent amount of funding would be raised from international agencies and philanthropists. The project has already made available the complete sequencing of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome.

Science is increasingly a key driver that guides global policy discourse and action in areas such as climate change and management of biodiversity. The work done by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change or the International Union for Conservation of Nature is of critical interest to the future of humankind. The impact of climate change, for example, is most devastating in the developing world.

Many of these scientific processes are dominated by scientists from the advanced countries. The concerns of developing countries need to be voiced more forcefully in these processes. As governments we are trying to create greater synergy and coherence in policies among developing countries, but these efforts must be backed by solid technical inputs.

The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World can play a very important role in providing a space where scientific collaboration on critical areas such as climate change can be facilitated.

India has been a strong advocate of South-South Cooperation on challenges facing developing world.. The India Brazil South Africa Forum provides a unique framework of cooperation among three major democracies from three different continents. Under the IBSA framework, there has been a series of collaborative activities in science and technology including in ocean research, space sciences, biotechnology, agriculture, health, climate change, nano-technology and cooperation in the Antarctica.

With Africa, we ushered in far-reaching initiatives to strengthen our development partnership following the India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in 2008, including in the areas of science and technology. India has offered more than 400 scholarships through a specific fellowship named after the Indian Nobel Laureate Dr. C.V. Raman, which will provide support to African researchers and post-doctoral fellows in the field of scientific research. To strengthen the institutional framework in science and technology, India has offered to strengthen three institutions in Africa engaged in research activities, which have cross-cutting impact across the African continent.

These initiatives can be and should be expanded and multiplied across the developing world. I hope that your Academy can be the instrument to catalyse such partnerships not only between institutions but also between the scientific establishments of the developing world. India is ready to do more in this direction.

In conclusion, I wish once again to congratulate the award winners who have distinguished themselves in various fields of scientific endeavour. In honouring these great scientists, we honour the best of science in the developing world. India has been a partner and member of the Academy from its inception and has offered collaboration, capacity building and knowledge sharing programmes. We wish to expand this cooperation. With these words, I have great pleasure in inaugurating the annual meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World for the year 2010. "