Union Government should increase the allocation on S&T from the current two per cent of GDP to at least six per cent of GDP whereas for Research, the allocation must increase from the current 0.9% of GDP to at least 2%, said Prof CNR Rao while delivering his lecture on ‘Doing science in India’ here in UPES campus on Thursday.
Making comparison with China, he shared their GDP allocations towards S&T as a result of which China was able to produce 20,000 Phd’s second only to America whereas India could produce only 8,000.
Prof Rao highlighted that the solitary sustainable growth driver of any economy is its Science and Technology, discussing the case of Japan & South Korea he shared how by prioritizing and focussing on indigenous science & Technology Korea has scored over Japan over the last 20 years referring to the glaring example of “Sony” and “Samsung” stories.
He also pointed out that during the last decade or so Information Technology has attracted a lot of focus and probably its growth has been misconceived by many as a measure of development of Science & Technology whereas it is just an important tool to facilitate its development he said.
Prof Rao in his lecture narrated several incidents which took place in his life where he got the chance to interact with likes of Dr CV Raman, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr Homi Bhabha, Dr Raja Ramana.
Rating ‘Michael Farady’ as the greatest scientist that mankind has ever seen, he shared some of his failures prior to achieving success and drawing inspiration from there he stressed that in order to have meaningful and worthy research and innovation there is a dire need to change the ‘judgmental attitude’ of Indian society because history has proven that good and worthy research comes out only after multiple failures.
He advised UPES to introduce research at undergraduate levels and identify and encourage students who have a bent towards R&D at young ages. He further suggested that mental training needs to be imparted to the young un-polluted minds to “Innovate with nothing”. Closing his one and a half hour talk, Prof Rao thanked science and said “Science has given me so much I wish I can give back to science that much”.