PM points at political involvement, red tape for scientific regress - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday regretted red tape, political interference and lack of recognition of good work contributed to regression in country's scientific development. Addressing the 97th Indian National Science Congress, Singh said: "It is unfortunately true that red tape, political interference and lack of proper recognition of good work have all contributed to a regression in Indian science in some sectors from the days of Dr. C V Raman, Meghnad Saha, J C Bose, Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan and other great pioneers of Indian science." The Prime Minister mentioned a recent statement of the Indian origin scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry who stressed on the need for greater "autonomy from red tape and local politics" for Indian scientists. In his address, Singh urged all the scientific institutions to introspect and to propose mechanisms for greater autonomy, including autonomy from the government, which could help to improve standards for research and development. Stressing the need to revert the brain drain into brain gain, Singh said: "We must make a special effort to encourage scientists of Indian origin currently working abroad to return to our country including coming to our universities or scientific institutions for a short period." "This will require special incentives. We need to think creatively on how this can be done so that high quality minds are attracted to teaching and research in our country," he added. He invited all those involved to explore solutions to solve these problems and engage the government in that direction and said "Only then we can unleash the latent talent and creative energies of our vast scientists and engineers too."