July21
India and World Science, Are we There?
This year we are celebrating our sixtieth year of Independence.
When India achieved Independence, it inherited a shattered economy, hardly any worthwhile infrastructure for the development of science and technology, no sound industrial base, abysmally low agricultural production and almost non- existence of health sector. Imported food grains fed the people. Famines were chronic. But defying all these hurdles India has surged ahead and has achieved dramatic success in the field of science and technology. This article aims to highlight India’s significant achievement in past sixty years. We being future engineers should appreciate these achievements and strive to take India’s successful scientific odyssey further ahead.
The first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, laid stress on scientific research. He said “Scientific institutions are temples of modern India, and play a key role in the gigantic task of national development and nation building.” Under his leadership, innumerable national laboratories were set up, science departments in universities were expanded, institutions like IIT’s, IIM’s, and AIIMS were opened.
In the 1960s, India made head lines with its Green Revolution.High-yielding varieties and mechanization of agriculture led the country on the road to self-sufficiency, despite a rapid expansion in population. India emerged as the second largest paddy producer in the world and the world’s largest sugar producer.
With emphasis on horticulture, India also became the largest producer of fruits and the second largest of vegetables. The country ranks first in the production of mango and banana, and has the highest productivity of grapes in the world.
A successful combination of technology and milk cooperatives followed by an immensely successful operation flood led to highly increased milk production positioning India as world’s largest milk producer. The setting of National Diary Development Board (NDDB) and National Milk Grid further promoted supply of quality milk throughout the country.
In 1990s, propelled by scientific breakthroughs at some India’s leading fishery research institutions, the country push ahead with a Blue Revolution. The Indian fisheries sector, which 60 years ago produced only 6,00,000 tonnes of fish, today produces more than 5.5 million tonnes. India holds the third position in the world fish production.
In healthcare also tremendous scientific breakthroughs have been achieved. Infant mortality rate has gone down almost half of what it was sixty years ago; average life expectancy went up by more than 30 years. Smallpox, which killed or maimed millions every year, has been wiped out. Today India is in position to manufacture, apart from conventional drugs, antibiotics like penicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline, as well as vitamins A, B and C at a cost about a fifth that of the imported drug. Indian pharma industry is ranked fourth in the world.
Power drives the nation. Till after Independence, the installed capacity was as low as 1362 MW mainly concentrated around urban areas. After Independence India went on to build some 3,600 dams. These not only provided drinking water to many, but also supported economic growth by diverting waters for irrigation of fields enabling the country to be self-sufficient in food production, and also for power. Today’s installed capacity is 84,000 MW. The number of electrified villages has gone up by more than 150% since Independence.
The Telecommunication story has had a dream run in India. India operates one of the largest telecom networks in Asia and the 10th largest in the world. There are about 200 million-telephone connections, over 2,15 million Public Call Offices (PCOs), and over 150 million cellular subscribers in India. Similarly, the Internet using population in India has crossed the 30 million mark.
When the US government refused to supply a Cray supercomputer to India in 1987, our scientist went way ahead to build their own supercomputer. The pride of place goes to PARAM supercomputer, the multipurpose high-speed machine developed by Pune based Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC). The latest offering, Param Padma can make 1 trillion processes per second. Such power has previously achieved only by USA and Japan.
Among the developing countries of the world, India has achieved the distinction of being the only one to have the complete infrastructure for a viable nuclear programme. It has developed its own capacity of handling entire fuel cycle- right from uranium exploration, mining, extraction and fuel fabrication, besides facility of heavy water production, reprocessing of used fuel and waste management. The underground nuclear explosion at Pokharan in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974 was a landmark event that demonstrated to world India’s nuclear capability.
One of the most visible success stories is the country’s space programme. India’s first satellite Aryabhata was a small satellite, weighing only 444 kg, which was primarily designed to test technology. But it far outlived its designing operating life of six years and went on to remain in the orbit and send data for almost 17 years. It was a remarkable feat for a first satellite design and built by a country. India is today the only developing country to have the capacity of designing, building, and launching satellites indigenously. Today, India’s space portfolio consists of array of satellites that aid in remote sensing, tele-education, tele-medicine, communication besides performing several other functions.
Indian oceanographers also have set up a permanent research stations on icy continent of Antarctica called Dakshin Gangotri, a feat only few countries in the world have achieved today.
These achievements ought to motivate us. We must take pride in being Indian. As engineers we should take oath to utilize our brain and power for the betterment of the country that has given us everything.
Jai Hind….
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PS: My nephew asked me to write something on this topic so that he could submit the same in school. I am so bad in writing anything so I looked over the internet and found this somewhere written by some ‘Raunaq’. I am posting it here so that some other people can use this too.
