Bengaluru: Vice-President Hamid Ansari, during his keynote address said Science is the answer to all the problems that plague our country today, at the closing ceremony of the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, in the city on Monday.
“If our aspiration of becoming a leading global force in science is to be attained, a massive increase in science and technology education will be necessary both in quality and quantity,” he said.
“This is essential to fulfill our domestic demand of S&T resources and to emerge as a quality supplier of scientific knowledge for the rest of the world.”
The percentage of the GDP allocated to scientific research has stagnated at 1% for over two decades, he said. “Asian countries, like China and South Korea, have left us behind in R&D expenditure. We need to increase the overall expenditure to atleast 2% by 2017, as envisaged in the 12th Five Year Plan.”
Students, he explained, show a great deal of interest in science until they finish high school. When it comes to choosing a career, however, science ranks below other streams, mainly because it appears to offer fewer opportunities.
“Consequently, there is a shortage of required human resources in higher education in sciences, including advanced research.”
India’s strength in basic science, he said, has contributed hugely to technologies being developed across the world.
This is because students with a science background choose to pursue their careers abroad, where prospects appear better, he added.
Industry should increase its share in R&D
With percentage of GDP spent on research and development stagnant at one percent over last two decades and two-thirds of the expenditure coming from the government, there is an urgent need for industry to increase its share to double spending to two percent by 2017, Vice President Hamid Ansari said Monday.
“Indian industry has to increase its contribution to R&D expenditure and bring it in line with the share contributed by industry in other comparable countries so as to double the overall expenditure on R&D to at least two percent of the GDP by 2017, as envisaged in the 12th Five Year Plan,” Ansari said at a function here.
Noting that India was yet to realise its full potential in scientific research and technological innovation, he said a massive increase in science and technology education would be imperative to build human resources and emerge as a quality supplier of scientific knowledge to the rest of the world.
“Though the government had taken many steps in recent years to give a boost to science and technology, which are having an incremental effect, the overall outcome is a mixed one,” Ansari said in his address at the silver jubilee celebrations of the state-run Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).
Citing a report by the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Ansari regretted that as a career option, science continued to rank below other streams at the school-leaving level despite great enthusiasm for the subject in the students, who see it offering fewer opportunities.
“As a result, there is a shortage of required human resources in higher education in sciences, including in advanced research,” he noted.
Stressing India produced about 1,000 PhDs in engineering and technology in 2005-06, while the US and China had produced about eight times as many in 2004-05, Ansari lamented that in areas such as computer science, the situation was serious as the country was able to produce only 25 PhDs per year.
“During 2004-06, India produced one research scientists for every 7,100 people, while China had 1 in 1,080, South Korea one in 240 and Sweden one in 163,” he noted.
Observing that mere increase in the number of Ph.Ds or scientific institutions and publications or patents was not an end in itself, he said they were only means to promote the well-being and progress of all sections of society.
Earlier the Vice President – Mohd. Hamid Ansari being received by the Chief Minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah and Governor of Karnataka Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala on his arrival at the HAL airport, Bengaluru
