8/8/2019 India Scientific Vision_Science 2010[1]

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/india-scientific-visionscience-20101 1/1www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 330 1 OCTOBER 2010

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NEW DELHI—In 1930, Indian physicist C. V.Raman won a Nobel Prize for his discoveryof inelastic photon scattering, known as theRaman effect. The phenomenon becamea powerful tool for analyzing matter—butit was other countries that used the basicknowledge to invent Raman scanners. Thatstill causes heartburn here. In a new report,a blue-ribbon panel cites Raman as one egre-gious example of India’s systemic failure tocapitalize on basic research findings.

The report, released last week by PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh, offers a stingingindictment of India’s scientific frailties, not-ing that science here is “severely hampered byoppressive bureaucratic practices and inflex-

ible administrative and financial controls.”Titled  India as a Global Leader in Science,the “vision document” also offers a blueprintfor strengthening Indian science—one thatwill require heaps of money to implement.

“We would need to redouble our effortsand hope that the ideas in the vision docu-ment will inspire the scientific community,”Singh said in releasing the report. The first of its kind, the report is getting mixed reviews.Goverdhan Mehta, an organic chemist at theUniversity of Hyderabad and past president

of the International Council for Science inParis, says the recommendations are sound.“If India is to become a formidable force,incremental approaches will just not work.One needs to leapfrog,” Mehta says. Othersare unimpressed. It is a “very environment-friendly document since it has recycled somany old ideas,” scoffs one senior scientist.

Commissioned by Singh’s office, the panel, led by the chair of the prime minister’sscientific advisory council, C. N. R. Rao,a chemist at Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore,flatly declares in its report that “India is yet to become a major force in global science. …Indeed India’s relative position in the world 

of science has declined in the last twentyyears.” It blames inadequate investment inscience both by the government and by indus-try. That has led to a disconnect between basic research labs and industry, says chemi-cal engineer Raghunath A. Mashelkar, now president of the Global Research Alliancein Pretoria. The paradigm of “science being born in India but products being born over-seas has to be overturned,” he says.

“To begin to contribute significantly toworld science,” the report says, India’s shareof scientific papers should rise from the

 present 2% or so to “something like 10%”over the next 10 years. It also urges Indianresearchers to claim more intellectual prop-erty: The panel calls for a 10-fold increase ininternational patents owned by Indians, from1900 in 2007 to about 20,000 by 2020. And training scientists should get a major boost:India should produce about 30,000 sciencePh.D.s a year by 2025, up from 8420 in 2006.To meet those targets, the government should double science spending by 2020, the panelsays. It also seeks a $250-million-a-year ven-ture capital fund to develop basic researchfindings. And the panel calls for the creation

of a National S&T Council along the lines of the U.S. National Research Council to helpIndia address urgent issues such as water,energy, and food security.

“We will seriously try to implement thevision,” India’s Science Minister PrithvirajChavan told Science. Any new funding initia-tives would be considered in the 2011 budget.Rao is not optimistic. “I feel a bit depressed and discouraged by the state of Indian sci-ence,” he says.

–PALLAVA BAGLA

India’s Vision: From ScientificPipsqueak to Powerhouse

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India

False positive? Although India is grabbing a largershare of scientific publications, a panel led bychemist C. N. R. Rao argues that India’s scientificstature is shrinking.

From the Science  Policy Blog

Government lawyers asked an appeals courtto suspend a federal judge’s ruling that frozefederally funded research on human embry-

onic stem cells. The three-judge panel hadtough questions for both sides, but at presstime, the court had not yet ruled on whetherto allow research to continue while the caseproceeds. http://scim.ag/stem_hearing

Weeks after it emerged that four paperswritten by prominent gene therapy expert

Savio Woo had been retracted and twopostdocs subsequently fired, two morepapers have been retracted. Mount SinaiSchool of Medicine in New York City hascleared Woo of wrongdoing, and severalpapers on his techniques have not been

retracted. http://scim.ag/New_Woo_papers

The outgoing chair of the science com-

mittee in the U.S. House of Representativessays he wishes he had pushed harder topass the reauthorization of the AmericaCOMPETES Act, which supports increasedU.S. spending on research and scienceeducation. But Representative Bart Gordon(D–TN) still hopes the Senate will take upthe House-passed version in the lame-ducksession after next month’s elections. Mean-while, top U.K. science officials have lob-bied the British government to avert spend-

ing cuts expected to be part of next year’sbudget, to be released 20 October.http://scim.ag/competes_latehttp://scim.ag/UKcuts

Chinese police have detained a top surgeonin an investigation into the assaults on acritic of medical research and an investiga-tive journalist. Xiao Chuanguo, chief urologysurgeon at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, wasdetained in connection with attacks on mis-conduct watchdog Fang Shimin and reporterFang Xuanchang. http://scim.ag/XiaoDetained

Scientists can entice the public to donate

to their work on a new philanthropy sitecalled SciFlies. Started by a veteran politicalfundraiser and scientist with experience as anentrepreneur, the site hopes to raise funds forgrants as large as $100,000 to support scien-tists in all fields. http://scim.ag/sci_donate

For more science policy news, visit http:// 

news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider.

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