Date:12/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/12/stories/2006051205690500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Technology alone "can bridge gap between rich and poor"

Special Correspondent

Call for a change in the examination system

CHENNAI: India is a rich country inhabited by poor people, and science and technology alone can bridge the gap, agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan has said.

Addressing students at a Technology Day programme here on Thursday, he said more than half the population was in its early twenties. It should use science and technology for income and employment. M.S. Ananth, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, said the examination system discouraged children from asking questions. Entrepreneurs were not getting financial support from venture capitalists. Stressing the need to achieve 12 per cent growth in the manufacturing sector, Dr. Ananth said innovation alone could help to make it. The IIT would develop a research park on a 6.5-acre plot near Chennai. Thirty companies had shown interest in the project; 15 per cent of the total space would be earmarked for new companies.

While M. Velayutham, Executive Director, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, said the 21st century was in the hands of the youth, Ajay Parida, Director of Bio-Technology, said no idea deserved to be discarded.