Indian science: Alive but not
kicking By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - Ever since the world started
comparing India and China against each other,
often scoring China higher, many in India have
drawn consolation from the belief that while China
may be the world's factory, India certainly has
the edge in science.
The mushrooming
Indian software companies, some of which were
beating multinationals on their own turf, and a
handful of drug companies that were unexpectedly
winning drug approvals worldwide, beating their
global counterparts, were enough for them to
substantiate that belief.
Lately, however,
not many are convinced anymore that the successes
of India's software and drug sectors mean that the
country is strong in the broad field of science
and technology as
well.
The science edge the country had been taking for
granted over the past decade is slipping rapidly
as India has started facing its most serious
challenge, not from the developed world, but from
its rapidly developing neighbors.
"Science
in India is dying," said C N R Rao, the scientific
adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "Unless
India changes the scientific policies and
practices that it has been following for the last
five decades, its science could be dead in the
next five years." He added that the country's
scientific infrastructure is now crippled, and
"there are only a handful of scientists left".
The roots of Indian science and technology
go back as far as 25 centuries when the Rig
Veda recorded that gravitational force holds
the universe together, long before Isaac Newton
put forth the idea. The fact that Indian science
is almost at a dead end indeed comes down hard on
many. Although the world hails India's software
prowess and a few of its pharmaceutical
achievements, the fact is that the practice of
basic science is falling apart.
A good
indicator that India's performance in basic
sciences is failing markedly both in terms of
quality and quantity, according to Rao, is the
number of research papers published by India's
government and private-sector science
establishments. China contributes 12% of the
world's scientific papers, while India lags behind
with a mere 3%.
The decreasing number of
high-impact papers from India, which is less than
1% of the world's total, "is of serious concern"
too, Rao said. But what is more unnerving, "Even
smaller countries, such as Taiwan, Singapore and
South Korea, have become global players and have
overtaken India."
According to a Financial
Times report on innovation in 2005, South Korea,
which was way behind India in 1980, published more
research papers (27,397) last year, while Brazil
and Taiwan have also beaten India with 17,086 and
16,503 published research papers respectively.
India produces about 15,000. "For all its
knowledge industry claims, India was not among the
top 30 countries in terms of the number of patents
applied for," the report said. "Countries like
Brazil, South Africa and Israel are far ahead of a
retreating India."
Rao said, "The problem
is Indians have started losing interest in
science. There were far more students willing to
take up science a decade ago."
According
to an analysis by the Center for Cellular and
Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, only a very small
fraction of India's schoolchildren make it to the
top so that they can make a significant
contribution to the development of the nation.
"The brightest and best of them go abroad and
become the part of the brain-drain," said center
director Lalji Singh.
Like its economy,
Indian science too needs reforms, and India is not
doing much about it. "Science in the country has
slumped into a state of mediocrity and needs a
huge wind of reform to come out of that," said R K
Pachauri, the director general of The Energy and
Resources Institute (TERI), a noted Indian
think-tank. "But nobody [has] really carried out
reforms of our scientific establishment yet. This
is long overdue."
A good example of how
lack of reform is crippling India's science
infrastructure can be gauged from the outdated
education system. Universities habitually lack
funds, and the outdated syllabi drive students
away from science toward disciplines and degrees
that get them highly paid jobs in such industries
as information technology and retail.
Consequently, "India may still produce a number of
science graduates, but the quality and caliber of
the students who come out of the present education
systems are far below the desirable standard,"
said Pachauri.
Scientists say that as the
Indian economy develops, it has to face increasing
competition from other parts of the world to
attain world-class standards.
"Science in
India until now was developing but slowly.
However, in the last four years competition has
become severe; science by itself is more demanding
today," said Rao. "But even as a number of
neighboring countries are investing heavily in
basic science, in India the scale of investments
is rapidly going downhill."
Through
various measures such as tax policies, increased
investment in research and development (R&D),
and preferential policies for science and
technology personnel, Asian governments now pump
about 4% of their gross domestic products into
science and innovations, whereas India's spends
only a fraction of 1% of GDP.
The question
of autonomy is another issue that raises
temperatures where scientists gather. Many say
that although scientific institutions and
universities are autonomous organizations on
paper, in practice archaic government rules are
forced upon these organizations with scant respect
for their autonomy. "Because of this practice,
scientific organizations end up following the
government rules, compromising on what they should
do, how and when," said Lalji Singh.
Added
Rao: "The contribution from universities is
hitting an all-time low. Even the top institutions
are not performing well in terms of research
papers and the number of research students they
train."
Nevertheless, they agreed that it
is not difficult to reverse the current state of
Indian science. "One the easiest steps to arrest
the decline would be to direct a substantial part
of what the government spends on science toward
the privately managed scientific establishments
that conduct goal-oriented research," said
Pachauri.
Rao argued that the country
could triple its spending on R&D by drawing on
the resources of private investors. Currently, 90%
of the funding on the country basic scientific
research comes from the government.
The
good news is that the government has already laid
down much of what needs to be done, in a science
and technology policy document formulated in 2003.
According to the document, the government would be
committed to raise the level of investment to 2%
of GDP, and instructs industry to increase its
investments in R&D steeply. The policy's other
important features include strengthening the
infrastructure for science and technology in
academic institutions, providing new funding
mechanisms for basic research, nurturing and
attracting talent, and enhancing international
science and technology cooperation.
However, the government seems to have put
away and forgotten the policy document soon after
its formulation.
Indrajit Basu
is a Kolkata-based journalist.
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