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Scientists must help in fight against terrorism, says Vajpayee
By P. Sunderarajan
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, releasing the `Biographical Dictionary of Indian Scientists' during the opening session of the 89th Indian Science Congress in Lucknow on Thursday. Also seen is the Uttar Pradesh Governor, Vishnu Kant Sast
LUCKNOW, JAN. 3. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today gave a clarion call to the scientific community to help in the fight against terrorism and assured that the Government would do everything in its power to help in resolving the various challenges being faced by it.
Inaugurating the 89th annual session of the Indian Science Congress, which began here today, he said ``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 civilised world.''
`` The only way we can stop them in their tracks is by building even more powerful collaborative networks among all those Government agencies and non-governmental institutions committed to defending peace and human values''.
Mr. Vajpayee directed the appeal to not only scientists, technologists and academics in India, but also those in the other countries of South Asia.
``Affirm loudly, for one and all to hear, that the function of science was to help, and not to hurt, and that the purpose of technology was creation and not destruction. Close your ranks to rid the region of tension and hostilities.''
He reiterated amid claps that India was committed to fighting terrorism to the finish. ``We shall succeed in this fight. I have no doubt about it. Let no one have any doubt about it.''
Regarding the various problems being faced by the scientific community, he said that in spite of resource constraints, the Government would steadily move towards achieving the target he had announced two years ago at the 87th Science Congress at Pune of raising the R&D investment to 1 per cent of the GDP by the end of the ninth Plan and 2 per cent of the GDP by the end of the 10th Plan.
The bulk of the incremental R&D investment, Mr. Vajpayee indicated, would go to meteorology, disaster management, renewal energy, oceanography, environment protection and other such areas, which were ``important and promising sectors, (but) which have not received enough attention so far''.
He also reiterated the Government's resolve to overcome the problem of bureaucratisation in scientific institutions and said the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet, led by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government, R. Chidambaram, would undertake a comprehensive study of such problems and come up with changes in policies, practices and procedures that would create a liberal, flexible and motivating environment for R&D both in Government agencies and academic institutions.
``I assure you that the Government would consider their recommendations with utmost seriousness,'' he said. Mr. Vajpayee further indicated that the Government would consider providing some fund as seed money if the industry were to collaborate with universities in tackling their lack of investments, both material and in terms of faculty.
He indicated that policies would be formulated soon to attract Indian private and foreign direct investments in the R&D sector so that the services became part of the country's growing service sector.
The Union Science and Technology Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, said that his Ministry would soon take up a mission mode project to integrate the indigenous systems of medicine in mainstream healthcare.
The initiative would cover the entire range of interventions, from the seed to the market, along the value chain and involve the industry, academia, laboratories and the NGOs, besides the States, particularly in the Himalayan region.
He said the Group of Ministers on Scientific Matters would shortly discuss a major programme to improve upon the Kishore Vaignanik Protsahan Yojana, the scheme to encourage children to take up a career in science.
The scheme at present had a very limited scope and the endeavour was to further expand it so that the complete chain of steps and processes required to create a good researcher was taken care of, he said.
UNI reports:
Mr. Vajpayee today gave away science congress awards to 15 eminent scientists at the inaugural function.
The recipients were P.N. Srivastava of the Jawahar Lal University, S.S. Jha of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, S.P. Dixit, Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, A.S. Paintal, the Vallabhai Patel Chest Institute, Delhi, J.V. Narlikar, IUCAA, Pune, G.S. Aggarwal of the PRL, Ahmedabad, K.R. Parthasarthy of the ISI, Delhi, M.S. Valiathan, the INFA, New Delhi, C.L. Khetrapal of the CBMR, Lucknow, R. Natarajan of the All-India Council for Technical Education, Manju Sharma of the DBT, New Delhi, Panjab Singh, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, Lalji Singh of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Goverdhan Mehta, IISC., S.K. Joshi of the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi and the Midnapore Science Centre, West Bengal.
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