Date:02/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/02/stories/2009010254210500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Science academy must influence national policy’

Staff Reporter

Papers on ‘controversial’ topics will help: experts

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Celebrations: Past presidents of Indian Academy of Science Kasturirangan, R. Narasimha, N. Kumar, C.N.R. Rao and Obaid Siddiqi inaugurating the platinum jubilee of IAS in Bangalore on Thursday.

Bangalore: The Indian Academy of Science (IAS), one of three science academies in the country, must aim to influence policy through position papers and analysis — something that the US National Academy of Science has done successfully, said C.N.R. Rao, Chairman of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.

Speaking at the inaugural function of the IAS platinum jubilee celebrations here on Thursday, he added that the American academy was “taken seriously” by the government. “IAS must be made relevant not only to the scientific community but to society at large and especially to youth,” said Prof. Rao, who is also a former president of the academy. “We must ask ourselves if science in the country would have been poorer if the academy did not exist.”

Member of Parliament and Director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, K. Kasturirangan (IAS president from 2001-03) said that while emphasising good scientific research, the academy must also attempt to “connect with the systems operating in the country so that our thoughts are implemented into action”.

Echoing this sentiment, Roddam Narasimha, Chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and past IAS president said that “the scientific community in India is too insulated from society”.

Controversial subjects

The academy should tackle problems that are “controversial” in nature such as genetically engineered food, climate change and energy, “subjects that the public would rather learn about from experts than from social activists or the media”, Prof. Narasimha added.

Three other past presidents of IAS spoke at the event: Obaid Siddiqi, National Research Professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences; T.V Ramakrishnan, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; and N. Kumar, Homi Bhabha Distinguished Professor at Raman Research Institute, as did the academy’s current director, D. Balasubramaniam, Director of Research, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad.

The academy has 930 Fellows and publishes ten journals.