From Silent Genocide to Silent Observer: A Tale of Domestic Apartheid in India

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With persistent inequalities in India, the girl child is at already at disadvantage and faces strong discrimination at every stage of her life in little or no access to education, lack of health care and nutrition and child marriage. In a shocking (?) revelation about the increasing intolerance of ‘modern’, ‘educated’ Indian society, a research article published this week in ‘The Lancet’ has shattered the claims of Indian governments—both central and states –in stopping the girl child killings every day and night in well-developed Indian habitats. This study, supported by India`s 2011 census preliminary results, reveal a growing imbalance between number of girls and boys aged 0-6 years due to increased parental sex determination with subsequent selective abortion. The international team of nine health experts lead by Prabhat Jha assessed sex ratios by birth order in 0.25 million births in three rounds of the nationally representative National Family Health Survey covering the period from 1990 to 2005.


The life of the girl child reflects strong elements of discrimination at various stages. Prejudice against daughters stems from the perception of girl child as a liability. Devil is apparently frightening us before we enter into details. But we have to face this grim nature of facts before we prepare ourselves to fight this challenge root of which firmly and deeply lying in social/cultural prejudice and convictions about the women as a whole in our everyday lives. The 2011 Indian census revealed about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys aged 0-6 years, a notable increase in the gap of 6.0 million fewer girls recorded in the 2001 census and the gap of 4.2 million fewer girls in the 1991 census. In effect, more girls than boys die at ages 1-59 months, but this is mostly offset by more boys than girls dying in the first month of life. In contrast, in most high-income countries, only slightly more boys than girls are born, with recorded sex ratios at birth of 950-975 girls per 1000 boys.


Significance of this study lies in the fact that this is first one to assess the trends over time in selective abortion of girls in India at the national level with nationally representative data. Research compared the sex ratios of second-order births after firstborn girls with the second-order sex ratio after firstborn boys. Findings note a sharp decline in the girl-to-boy sex ratio for second-order births when the firstborn was a girl. These declines are greater in educated and richer households than in illiterate and poorer households. The total of about 4-12 million selective abortions of girls happened during the period from 1980 to 2010. The data also suggests that selective abortion has spread from a handful of states to most parts of the country. Thus, most of India`s population now live in states where selective abortion of girls is common. The exact contribution of selective abortion of girls to the measured sex imbalance at ages 0-6 years in the censuses also depends upon child mortality rates. However, the uniqueness of this study lies in exposing that it is only in recent years did slightly more girls die compared with the boys.


A UNFPA study (2010) points out that even after legislations such as the ‘Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act of 1994’ (PCPNDT Act) and many campaigns to promote the value of girl child, the situation has barely improved. Both central and states have launched many programs and policies which aims at empowering girl child so that they can avail equal freedom and opportunity. All the policies target the poor families which de facto face poverty as a major constraint that prevents raising and educating girl children. But findings published in Lancet provoke us to shift the focus of policy, programs and schemes in completely reverse manner. It is to be emphasized here that for example poor regions, tribal regions of the country are far ahead as far as protecting the girl child to enhance the child sex ration than compared to so called educated, developed and rich class. We can easily make out that availability and access of cheap technology is making the monster out of this ‘modern life style.’


During the last decade, there has been a substantial decline in the sex-ratio at birth (SRB) as well as child sex ratio (CSR). The 2001 census data and the different rounds of sample registration surveys show that the problem is acute in the economically progressive states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Gujarat. Examination of child sex ratio at the district level indicated that in 1991, not a single district in India recorded a CSR less than 800. However, in 2001 census 14 districts came under this category. Likewise, there were no districts having CSR in the range of 800-849 in 1991, however 31 districts recorded this range in 2001. Triggering a sense of crisis, many states were forced to swing into action on the premise that financial incentives would trigger behavioral changes among communities, more specifically among newly weds and young parents to value a girl child. The effect of all the schemes was basically intended to improve Sex Ratio at Birth and Child Sex Ratio, increased school enrolment and attendance in primary, middle and high schools, and an enhanced age of marriage.


What the performance of all the schemes launched recently tells us about the effectiveness of the government`s efforts in this direction? Firstly, let us look at kind of schemes launched. Dhan Laxmi scheme of government of India, Ladli scheme of Delhi and Haryana, Ladli Lakshmi Yojna of Madhya Pradesh, Bhagyalakshmi of Karnataka, Balri Rakshak Yojna of Punjab, Balika Suraksha Yojna of Himachal Pradesh, Mukhya Mantri Kanya Vivah Yojna of Bihar, Balika Samrudhi Yojna of Gujrat etc.


Multiple conditions and corresponding documentation hinders the smooth implementation of the scheme. The monitoring mechanism for these kind of schemes is very poor. Government monitors the scheme through district authorities and organizes public hearing to gather feedback from the beneficiaries to take corrective actions. Many applicants are normally unaware of the benefits under the scheme. The ignorance and lack of awareness among the beneficiaries in turn leads to manipulation and corruption. These schemes are implemented through the vast network of Anganwadis and the ICDS machinery. Successful implementation requires support and co-operation from other departments such as education, health, pachayats etc. The officials responsible for implementing the schemes complain about non-support from the government departments resulting in delays and difficulties.


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Being Ambitious: Consolidation leading towards transformation aiming for reforms-12th Plan Strategy for Higher Education

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The 12^th plan has accorded high priority to Education and higher education in particular. As issues of access, excellence, expansion are at the centre of the new initiatives being taken in the higher education sector there are some key thematic issues which needs special attention in the coming few months. While there are many desirable goals, the efforts should be aligned to the implementable schemes and strategies. The prime focus via the point of departure or strategic shift for the 12^th plan would be from creation of new institutions to their consolidation, focus on quality and raising the bar for high quality institutions to make them globally competitive. Also, for the coming plan--the document of which will be ready by 1^st April 2012--the key bottom-line emerging out of recent public policy discourse is about having flexible strategy which will have a good feedback mechanism so that it can react and adapt rapidly to country`s changing requirements.

Among many crucial issues, the very urgent issues attracting immediate attention are firstly the improvement of quality of teachers and secondly the strategy for skill development in alliance with the growth of higher education in the country. Key institutional issues are    a) allowing flexibility in the kind of interdisciplinary experiments we can make with different disciplines in academic set up, b) creating research culture in the universities and reversing the decline of social sciences and humanities, c) strengthening increasingly ignored higher education provided by the state universities with their affiliated colleges forming around 99% of total higher education sector, d) increasing the number of community and vocational colleges e) focussing on the absolute numbers of enrolment and ways to strategize for achieving 10 million enrolment at the end of this decade 2020 rather than focusing on 21 percent enrolment figure and f) encourage private participation in the higher education through different incentives and regulatory framework. 

There is great need to provide additional infrastructure or strengthen the same in existing institutions. Addressing leadership and governances issue in the context of reform process remains the basic concern of the government in the midst of dynamic changes in the higher education sector. With the leap in technology and ‘death of distance’ we must accelerate the distance education programs more vigorously. National Knowledge Network with its ambitious plans of 1GBPS, embarking on massive distance education programs will be possible. There is need of having barrier eliminating consortia approach in total approach towards higher education in which collaborative alliance with the other crucial partners like DST is going to be important in creating the intellectual wealth to promote innovation. Boosting the IPR chairs in the universities will help in visualising the new opportunities in exploiting the IPR potential in the higher education sector. Nurturing the culture in which book reading is at the centre of knowledge acquisition, Book Promotion Policy will enable government to create more awareness about this issue. Developing, conserving and enabling translation of Indian languages will also ensure the securing and disseminating education and knowledge in regional languages, not only in the 22 scheduled languages but also other languages.

There is need to have a clear understanding about the qualitative impact of the initiatives about the higher education are going to have in terms of 12^th Plan strategies. While the issues of access, equity, relevance, quality, internationalisation in higher education, assessment and accreditation are pivotal for the rejuvenation of the higher education sector in country, we must realise that we cannot be complacent or be satisfied with small targets in higher education. The challenge in equity lies in bringing the huge population of SCs/STs/women/children/differently abled/vulnerable sections/economically backward sections of the society in the mainstream of higher education. This will help to move in the direction of democratization of higher education.

The concern on quality of education is alarming as out of 577 universities and around 34,000 colleges (approx.), only 164 universities and 4000 colleges have subjected themselves for the accreditation. Within these institutions also, the number of universities and colleges getting C & D status is greater than getting B & A. It remains to be reminded again and again that support for higher education from states is very low compared to what centre has given now, ironically true compared to the almost 99 % of the higher education is dependent on the state universities and affiliated colleges. Incidentally number of students enrolled in central universities is only around 1, 39, 000, less than one percent of the total students enrolled in higher education. (Planning Commission has suggested to the stakeholders a possibility to create joint funding of state plans by central and state governments while central funding focussing on governance and academic reforms.) Moreover, the states do need to change their ambivalent attitude towards higher education. Strengthening higher education is not possible without addressing the qualitative aspects of the primary and secondary education. To increase the transition rates from secondary to higher education, we need to evolve new strategies which would address the major weaknesses of the current system.

While there are around 8000 colleges awarding degrees in professional technical education and more than 3000 awarding polytechnic degrees, the challenges of the technical education are many. Some of the new ways to expand technical education would be to bring community around these already existing technical education institutions. Going ahead, forming the clusters of different institutions to share the faculty and other resources would be possible alternative. Involving industry to train the students to have quality skills according to the requirements of the industry will help to improve the employability of the students enrolled there. Building skills with the help of technical education institutions will be very beneficial to the community around those colleges. Around 90% of the technical education institutes are in the private sector. Government needs to invest more in this sector and also continue to promote private participation with the oversight on quality and other regulatory issues and moving towards formulating more PPP model mechanisms to address the expansion issue. Major intervention is needed in terms of allowing industry in setting up the R&D centres in technical education campuses by involving the faculties and the students of that specific technical education institution. So, incubation centres can be established by different funding schemes and incentives arrived from time to time by central regulation and understanding of the technical education institutions in states.

Faculty development forms the core of the agenda for realising the quality in primary, secondary and higher education in the country. While holistic scrutiny of the skills and knowledge levels of the teachers at the recruitment level is not possible, very little happens about quality training of the teachers after recruitment. The regular periodic training sessions conducted by Academic Staff Colleges are not very successful. As recognised by Yashpal Committee and National Knowledge Commission, the university and college level leadership needs to be inspired for the changes we wish to see to be brought out by them. In this direction, a ‘National Program on Leadership Development and Governance Reforms’ can be launched. Empowering the teachers through the quality training and enabling them to take initiatives in terms of ways to promote excellence are crucial steps for consolidating the gains made in the eleventh plan.

Maintaining quality, pushing for excellence in existing institutions and creating new centers of excellence and universities is crucial for 12^th plan. Focussing on the urgently needed numbers in recruitment and further on developing skills of the teachers remains the catalyst to realise the other changes we want to see on the ground in the context of 12^th plan. We cannot ignore the vital link between primary, secondary and higher education. This needs more attention because there is lot of overlapping of course structure. We need to have special attention for scientific research and we could look forward for having separate science universities or we can strengthen newly established IISER.

GER improvement can only be done by state universities and by incorporating more open and distance learning. Even if each university takes responsibility improves enrolment by 10, 000 it will help to have quantum jump of 10% growth in GER.  We can learn from other countries experience especially in community colleges example of USA can be imitated where they are providing education to 14 million students through more than 5500 community colleges while India is having around 13 million of its population being educated through existing more than 4000 colleges. A good institution must have enough number of students so that it can conduct different programs on its campus. We need to pay more and more attention to girls hostels. India has many old colleges and universities. Also, reputation and quality of old colleges needs to be re-established. But during the course of time, many institutions languished because they did not catch up with the changing realities and they could not connect to the education they are providing to the challenges in industry, society and research. A lot needs to be done on the part of faculty positions by improving and revising the guidelines in that direction.

Skill development needs huge advocacy because country as a whole, there is still huge disconnect between the challenges on that front and related potential we have. There is need of attaching some kind of premium to the skill development initiatives. Large chunk of the faculties are either too young or too old, middle segment having both energy and experience is still missing. Along with the plans set to establish 5000 skill development centres and 1500 new ITIs, focus should be on how higher education institutions can be leveraged for the skill development. Centre can attach conditionality for approval for the new engineering colleges related to the kind of contribution they can make towards skill development in their localities.

Very few higher education institutions in the country today understand how they are addressing the real needs of the country. We need no blind imitation. There is greater urgency to break the barriers we have created over the decades between university and real world. Our higher education system is burdened with the past. The need of lateral entry in different disciplines of the higher education is greater than ever before. The fresh, innovative approach must be adopted towards the classroom teaching by looking towards new alternative in distance education. Indian higher education institutions are not offering any innovations in any sense. The universities should move in the direction where knowledge gained must be associated with the craft and hands on in that particular sector of discipline or profession.  

The focus must be addressed towards removing the weakness of the higher education system. As 99% of the higher education stems from state universities, there is need to have model act for uniform implementation for state universities to improve their capacity and performance in the context of rising demographic challenges. The research facilities are very poor. The strategy for equity and inclusion is not satisfactory. Time has arrived when the issue of National Education Finance Corporation needs to be accelerated for addressing inclusion and equity. Currently there is huge pressure on autonomy of colleges so state university guidelines should be revised in a way to reducing the stress on the autonomy of the colleges.

Steering motto for the 12^th plan must be consolidating the achievements made until now. Country of this size needs large institutions and half islands of success. Higher education should be seen as a sector which brings people, societies and regions together aiming towards national integration. Holistic development of higher education demands attention towards mobility of faculty, students, technology and resources. Concept of Teachers without Borders can be promoted to accommodate vast talent pool outside the formal educational system to enable and incentivise their participation in knowledge delivery processes. Therefore consolidation of existing data is relevant is immediate requirement in that context. Publishing annual India Education Report will be welcome step in that direction.

Higher education without quality is a waste of resources. We do not need Ocean of mediocrity and islands of excellence. Problems in higher education started when true meaning of regulation was interpreted in terms of disciplining and controlling institutions rather than enabling them to reach upto quality benchmarks and strive for excellence. Ignoring performing institutions is not going to motivate them to excel and therefore nurturing a culture where there is a natural incentive based on proactive action for performance is needed. Capacity building of the teachers is at the core of whatever kind of academic reforms we have in our mind. New adaptive pedagogy which understands potential of technology for delivery of knowledge, cumulative assessment and revision of the curriculum is very crucial to consolidate the knowledge base and thus catalysing the changes required for organising the research environment in the universities.

Industry participation in the higher education is very much neglected. The growth of whole service sector depends upon the skill development and the kind of professional training they are getting in higher education. There are a huge number of students who are simultaneously involved in job and distance education. Many of the people are who are employed are reluctant to enter into some kind of distance education program because there is lack of incentive in terms of economic security and about relevance of those programs for the career growth. Biggest challenge ahead of economic growth objectives of the country remain in the terms of human resources. There is huge section of population which is disadvantaged people. Creating and mainstreaming the special schools for them is one of the important requirements to accommodate the aspirations of that section. If we wish to achieve 30% GER, then the norms for setting universities must be made more flexible. Especially the conditions related to land and capital can be more flexible off course without compromising the quality and other regulatory compliances.

The corporate world always experience quality higher education as inadequate for their functional requirement so they always train the people being recruited. Therefore it is not economical for industry to invest in that person all again for training and upgradation of their skills. So, introducing soft skills in the curriculum may be one of the ways to address this difficulty. Significant revisiting of faculty recruitment process is very necessary because there seems to be little correlation between subject expertise and the kind of teaching skills needed in higher education set up. There is need to enthuse greater respect for teaching in general and motivation to teach must be a prime mover for talented people in the experts of discipline and profession.

There are huge regional, sub-regional imbalances and knowledge disciplinary imbalances. There is extraordinary fragmentation of the higher education. The concept of university seems to have been diluted and umbrella status of centre for learning and research is being superficially used for very narrow purposes of vocation and study. It should once again be reminded about huge disconnect between primary, secondary and higher education. Government needs to have special attention towards the schemes incentivising the participation of the private sector in the higher education. Everything about improving standards and access of higher education is about public interest, so the concept of Private, Public and Public Private Participation should be revisited to reformulate their contexts in changing paradigms.

Huge spurt in the number of Ph.D. have thrown the challenge of deteriorating quality of research in the country. This needs to be addressed immediately. The issue of credit transfer has to be approved because it provides greater mobility to acquire knowledge and positive push for the cross sectoral employment and knowledge acquisition opportunities. As mentioned earlier, the much desired interdisciplinarity and the promotion of the culture of liberal arts is very much crucial for spirit of enquiry in academics.

Higher education needs fundamental change. Higher education is not asking for transformation and not for reforms. It is seeking transformation of organisation of higher education and research in institutions, consistent revisiting the content of higher education and regularly ensuring the social reach. Priority in the transformation should go to the undergraduate students. We do not have mechanism of teacher training and it should be formally established in universities. Our university system needs to have Human Resource Planning and Management Centre in order to utilise existing potential up to an optimum level and address the university faculty requirements. There is need of disaggregation of the data of the kind of enrolment achieved and the kind of visualised in the next few years. Then only we will be able to address the issues of inclusion.

We are having uneven expansion of the higher education system at the expense of quality of the academics. UGC affiliation programme needs to be strengthened. There is huge increase in the admission of professional colleges but the enrolment in basic sciences, core disciplines of social sciences and humanities. The basic issue of concern is that we are moving towards the kind of higher education where the understanding about the basic sciences or social sciences is being compromised at the cost of aggressive entry of professional courses.

Absorptive capacity of the state universities and other institutes is a matter of concern. Research funding in social sciences is a different ball game altogether. It should not be compared to the kind of funding patterns and criteria developed for the science technology sector.

What happened to secondary education is going to happen to higher education in the flow of elite to massification to universalization. There is more emphasis on infrastructure and less on quality of education and human resources being nurtured. There are very few journals of higher education and comparative higher education. There is great need to have flexibility and porousness connected to the kind of professional skills needed and the kind of academic courses being conducted. India is natural for developing and least developed countries in higher education. So, it is not desirable to always look towards west. We should also develop and work with the other countries sharing our experiences, resources and expertise.

Forecasting and developing the industry potential needs metrics of measurement. These metrics are helpful in measuring feedback from the stakeholders and thus empower them to promote change. Therefore there must be efficient mechanisms which frame the indicators of learning outcomes. Goal is to visualise the parity between learning, employment and research-development objectives. The kind of ecosystem in the current higher education sector does not have the elements which will support the innovative and different thinking initiatives. Online teacher training programs can be used for skill transfer and quality improvement. Judging learning outcomes is extremely important. The distinction between examination and evaluation must be made in order to improve the assessment of the both students and teachers.

Eventually, vision for the 12^th plan is “Society and Higher Education should go together.”

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"I wish to reach my wife to gift her before fashion changes" : Dynamic world of speed, efficiency and supercomputing !

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Advances in computer technology have revolutionalised the transfer of information rendering national borders to critical new knowledge. As the pace of new knowledge and discoveries picks up, the speed at which knowledge can be accessed becomes a decisive factor in the commercial success of technologies. Computing has become a symbol of our creativity and productivity along with being a expressive barometer of the competitive position of the organizations and the country in the world of knowledge economy. Supercomputers, in particular, are extremely important to design and manufacturing processes in diverse industries like oil exploration, aeronautics and aerospace, energy, transport, automobiles, pharmaceuticals and electronics to name few of them.


(With the acknowledgement to Copyright of Niels Drost, 2010 for the work Real-World Distributed Supercomputing published by NOW):-  “Ever since the invention of the computer, users have desired higher and higher performance. For an average user the solution was simply a matter of patience: each newer model computer has been faster than the previous generation for as long as computers have existed. However, for some users this was not enough, as they required more compute power than any normal machine could over. Examples of high performance computing users are meteorologists performing weather predictions using complex climate models, astronomers running simulations of galaxies, and medical researchers analyzing DNA sequences.


To explain some of the major challenges encountered by high performance computing users, we use an analogy: making coffee. What if I was responsible for making coffee for a group of people, for instance a group of scientists on break during a conference? If the group is small enough, I could use my own coffee maker, analogous to using my own computer to do a computation. However, this will not work if the group is too large, as it would take too long, leading to a large queue of thirsty scientists. I could also brew the coffee in advance, but that would lead to stale and probably cold coffee.

 The obvious solution to my problem is to get a bigger, faster, coffee maker. I could go out and buy an industrial-size coffee maker, like the one in a cafeteria, or even a coffee vending machine. Unfortunately, these are very expensive. In computing, large, fast, expensive computers are called supercomputers. Fortunately, several alternatives exist that will save money. Instead of a single big coffee maker, I could use a number of smaller machines (a cluster in computing terms). I could also rent a coffee maker (cloud computing), or even borrow one (grid computing). In reality, I would probably use a combination of these alternatives, for instance by using my own coffee maker, borrowing a few, and renting a machine. Although combining machines from different sources is the cheapest solution, it may cause problems. For one, different coffee machines need different types of coffee, such as beans, ground coffee, pads, or capsules. Moreover, these different machines all need to be operated in different ways, produce coffee at different speeds, and may even produce a different result (for instance, espresso). In the end, I may be spending a considerable amount of time and effort orchestrating all these coffee makers.

Recently, cloud computing has emerged as a high-performance compute platform, offering applications a homogeneous environment by using virtualization mechanisms to hide most differences in the underlying hardware. Unfortunately, not all resources available to a user offer cloud services. Also, combining resources of multiple cloud systems is far from trivial. To use all resources available to a user, software is needed which easily combines as many resources as possible into one coherent computing platform.”

Now my story begins about what India wish to do about the supercomputing in coming few years. :- Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons. Apart from these areas, other notable frontiers of research where supercomputing is being used are: In ccomputational fluid dynamics for optimization of turbines and wings, noise reduction and air conditioning in trains, in fusion for plasma in a future fusion reactor (ITER), in Astrophysics for studying the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies, in solid state physics for superconductivity, surface properties and semiconductors, in Geophysics for earth quake scenarios, in Chemistry for catalytic reactions, in medicine and medical engineering to simulate and control blood flow, neurysms, air conditioning of operating theatres, in Biophysics to research on properties of viruses, genome analysis and in climate research for modeling, currents in oceans among the many other applications.

Relevant here is the distinction between capability computing and capacity computing, as defined by Graham et al. Capability computing is typically thought of as using the maximum computing power to solve a large problem in the shortest amount of time. Often a capability system is able to solve a problem of a size or complexity that no other computer can. Capacity computing in contrast is typically thought of as using efficient cost-effective computing power to solve somewhat large problems or many small problems or to prepare for a run on a capability system.

In 2005 India was on 4th position in the world in terms of supercomputing capacity, in 2010 country slided to 24th position. We always take pride in the fact that when supercomputing technology was denied to India in the 90s, our brilliant engineers at CDAC made us proud of them by creating PARAM for us. Even in 2007 we had third largest supercomputer and since then India’s performance in this strategic sector has downgraded such that time has arrived to ask question are we languishing far behind what we envisioned? We need to improve on the fronts of capacity (human and computer/networking resources), capability (manpower skills) and identifying the challenging areas where we wish to focus our attention for problem solving in either R&D or other applications. So, as things stand today, out of first top performing supercomputers in the world, USA has 274 in list, China has 42 and imagine India four.

When it comes to building and using of supercomputing facility in India there are many serious stakeholders: DRDO, DAE, Dept. of Space, DST, DBT, financial sector, E-governance initiatives, international collaborative projects like ITER, telecom and others. With the increasing realization about the technological and financial viability to use network as a computer rather than just building network of computers use of distributed computing has been envisioned for massive applications. Moreover, Indian strategy is focused on using supercomputer more oriented towards memory centric operations compared to processing and analytical operations.

The transformational journey of supercomputing strategy is based on fourth paradigm in supercomputing going from computer centric to data centric. Initiatives like National Knowledge Network will only add to our experience about creating, hosting, sharing, transmitting, broadcasting and conserving the huge amount of data in the back end. Here, potential of integrated capacity of large number of computers in a network can be visualized yielding enormous amount of outcome which increases exponentially over a short period of time. And it is very difficult to handle the exponentially increased high speeds and high performance computing at greater degrees of operation. Therefore sharing has emerged as a new champion of performing very critical and complex tasks. Due to sharing, seamless integration of data and high precision experiments is possible.

It is desirable and positive step that country is thinking seriously to invest in the frontiers of supercomputing and thus consolidating the initiatives in the emerging areas of the research and development, real challenge lies in the developing the absorptive capacity for the large amount of funds being released from the centre and complementing them with attraction of right mix of talented people with motivation by having good infrastructure in place in time. Largest number in the universe is Avogadro’s number which is around ten to the order of 23. This was the strong belief of scientific community up till now. But with the help of large supercomputing facilities it is possible now to calculate the numbers beyond the degree of Avogadro’s number. In a way, from the perspectives of growth of fundamental science and addressing the issues of inclusive society, we need supercomputing.
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From Skill Development to Nation`s Development: A Giant Leap of Pragmatic Dream !

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It is belief of government of India that skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development of any country. They have become even more important given the increasing pace of globalization and technological changes taking place in the world. As India moves progressively towards becoming a “Knowledge Economy”, it becomes increasingly important that vocational education and training (VET) create and nurture a skill

development system. The issue of skill building has been at the forefront of policy debates in recent years. Unprecedented scope for skill development in the country arises from the unique 25-year window of opportunity, called India's demographic dividend. Skill enhancement of the younger generation is imperative to trigger economic development in India. Moreover, it is expected that the ageing economy phenomenon in rich countries will globally create an acute shortage of skilled manpower approximately 56.5 million by 2020. 

This belief goes further in asserting that by getting the skill development act right, India can have a skilled manpower surplus of approximately 47 million Skill formation, productivity and growth are interlinked. Skill perceived as the ability to efficiently utilize human energy and perform better in any occupation, could be acquired and updated. Skill needs are always dynamic and acquired skills need to match demand on a continuous basis. Skill base of population in India is very low. Nearly 90 percent of total population in India do not have any skills. 

See the exactly opposite picture belying this hope. As per 61st NSSO Survey, 2004-05, the total workforce in the Indian economy was 459 million of which the unorganized sector accounted for 395 million, constituting 86 percent of the total workers (and 433 million, i.e. 93 percent of the total workforce was in informal employment).2 The sector cuts across all economic activities and includes rural and urban areas. It contributes to about 60 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The unorganized sector is dominated by own-account workers; workers and apprentices in micro enterprises; unpaid family workers; casual labourers; home based workers; peripatetic workers and migrant labourers; out-of-school youth and adults in need of skills; and farmers and artisans in rural areas. These groups are characterized largely by low skills, poor productivity and, low and uncertain income.

Also, consider following challenges in realizing the targets of skill development. 1) Sheer size of unorganized sector, 2)Too heterogeneous, broad age range, unorganized, widely distributed sector, 3)Generally poor educational level, 4) Trainers must know and be able to communicate in local language, 5) Existing skills have been acquired largely through informal apprenticeship, 6) Competencies not certified, 7) High opportunity cost to trainee, 8) Training as worker's right in the context of RTE, 9) Should training not be a requirement for employment in the organized sector?, 10) Research in Training pedagogy and delivery issues, 11) Training coordination, 12) Requiring formal sector training institutions to work also for unorganized sector, 13) Service sector as an area of special thrust, 14) Methodological and Logistical problems in carrying out surveys

Educational levels of the labour work force, which have significant bearing on capacity to acquire and absorb skills, have not undergone any significant changes in last twenty years.  Improving the educational and skill levels could seriously contribute to productivity growth. The skill up-gradation all the more important to take advantages of the "demographic dividend". Poor skill and educational levels could also be a factor for the predominance of informal sector and near stagnant employment in organised sector. Considering the importance of skill development and training, the eleventh five year plan launched a National Skill Development Mission to bring about a paradigm change in handling of "Skill Development"programs. A three tier structure of Prime Minister`s National Council on Skill Development, secondly National Skill Development Coordination Board and National Skill Development Corporation. 

Since vocational training is a concurrent subject in the Indian Constitution, both the Central and State governments share the responsibility of financing vocational training. The Central Government has created a Skill Development Fund with an initial corpus of Rs. 99.5 billion for supporting the activities of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to provide financial support to skill development initiatives emanating from the private sector. The corpus of the fund is expected to go up to about Rs.150 billion as it is intended to garner capital from governments, public and private sector, and bilateral & multilateral sources.

In skill development and training, both the content and the delivery mechanism are equally important. This sets the case for involvement of corporate sector. Corporates in India need to be aware about their social responsibility.  Ten most important sectors of the economy where skill gaps have been identified could be picked up for initial action. These sectors are: auto & auto components, building & construction industry, transport & logistics, organised retail, healthcare, food processing, education & skill development, gems and jewelery, leather & leather goods. ITIs hold the key to cater to the needs of manufacturing sector. Informal service sector has emerged as an important sector with large employment opportunities. Despite the sound intentions, there is lack of linkages with industry; many of the skills have been drawn up without active consultation with industry. No attempt has been made to standardize curriculum across ITIs.  

The skill gap in Indian economy are across the spectrum and are not confined to lower or intermediate levels. Even at the top level, full equivalent of man-power employed in primary R&D is just around one lakh persons.  The thrust of skills, therefore, is required at traditional and modern industry levels and also at the level of basic sciences and research. Skill gap should also be identified at the top level and incentive structure should be such which encourages people to take these activities. Efforts are needed to bring vocational education programs parallel to the normal conventional school and college program by providing lateral induction from one stream to another at all stages. This will remove the apprehensions of vocational training as inferior to conventional education and an option for school leavers/dropouts. 

In most countries, apprenticeship concept is the most important intermediary step for improving employability of the workers. In India, there is no institutionalized infrastructure which matches an apprentice candidate to an employer, an employer to a candidate, and a trained apprentice to a job. The apprenticeship regime therefore did not pick up. This must be remodeled so that it becomes effective on job training rather than compliance with the act without any focus on the outcome. Reason for the limited use of apprenticeship route for employment for the trainees is the low rates of stipend and for the enterprise its cost. 

Skill standard-based curriculum and assessments provide students with credentials that link recognition with workplace requirement. Industries then are expected to be involved in developing benchmarks for assessments to evaluate skills, knowledge and abilities in classrooms and on-the-job training or internships. The training modules and materials of the various trades of ITIs have become outdated and are not in line with the needs of the industry. This could be a continuous exercise. Identifying learning needs and needs of skill identification and standardization can be mapped by coalition of industry bodies or sectoral skill councils. These councils can work on identifying skill development needs with an emphasis on employability and training sector wise, mapping the standards of training, procedures of delivery. The councils can also measure quality assessment criteria by reviewing mechanism and parameters on which training institutes and programs. Next, these councils can determine competence standards and qualifications as per the changing scenario of industry employability. 

The structured ways to impart skill development could be (i) using innovative delivery models such as decentralized delivery, mobile training, distance learning, e-learning and web-based learning; (ii) involving panchayats, municipalities and other local bodies in skill development and employment generation at the local level in collaboration with Self Help Groups (SHGs), cooperatives and Non-government Organisations (NGOs); (iii) establishing sector specific Labour Market Information System (LMIS) and Human Resource Planning at national and state levels, and area-specific planning at local levels with the help of Sector Skill Councils (under National Skill Development Corporation) to undertake labour market analysis; (iv) establishing a 'National Vocational Qualifications Framework' to facilitate standardized and acceptable, international comparability of qualifications; and (v) strengthening and upgrading Employment Exchanges under the National Employment Service to provide counselling, guidance and placement services to employment seekers. However, all these are actions to be taken in the future. 

India is at the cusp of a great new opportunity: the demographic dividend. The proportion of the dependent population is decreasing, and the share of the working age population has been increasing, and will continue to increase over the next two decades. If they are not productively employed, this dividend might become a demographic nightmare. On the other hand, if they are better educated and more skilled, they will be able to not only contribute to India's growth. 

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Let us plan together...going beyond state and districts, towards talukas and villages.

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Setting new standards--planning to improve the implementation of new procedures according to them-- improving the level of excellence according to the quality benchmarks already set in--then moving to create the assets which will help in the operation of the various schemes the government is running and finally monitoring and evaluation of the funds used in all these operations; these are all the things which are being reviewed again and again in the view of 12th plan formulation of the approach towards centrally sponsored schemes under which money is being allocated to the district administration.

Increasingly there is feeling that funds being transferred from centre to states for empowerment of Panchayati raj institutions and for the development schemes run by them are being directed through various grey routes as slush funds for ' employment guarantee' of few vested interests. Everyone talks about social audit of the funds and schemes at the Panchayat, tehsil and district level. Interestingly, recent upsurge of Lokpal Movement also highlighted ' auditing ' at higher levels of administration. Few people in beuracracy feel that social auditing is like plucking a tree after being planted and then complaining that it is not growing. So, a new comprehensive approach is being demanded by beurecrats for smooth functioning of the scheme. This seems to be exactly opposite of the kind of demands social movements are making about accountability and transperency.

Anywhere documenting the problems in details creates huge aspirations in society. Any how, these kind of socially communicated wish lists have its own political benefits. It creates positive pressure groups and waves of proactive actions which ultimately benifits people. While everyone will agree to the fact that details are very important in the planning process, many times we tend to miss the qualitative aspects of nuanced issues. When missionisation of government schemes related to health, education happens, these schemes do come under fire from concerned different ministries. This must be the reason that in the 12th plan there is special emphasis on the moving out of the silos and having harmonious integration of coordination with the ministries while implementing the development schemes and the innovative efforts government is trying to take.

During the consultation processes or working groups of policy formulations many times the experience is that final outcome of draft is very much different from the original unerstanding of the issue. One may call it cumulative improvement about the understanding or the comprehension of the gravity of the issues. But there needs to be a structure while documenting the key issues involved during the discussion of the problem under consideration. The approach of many meetings to explore different kinds of documenting resources, techniques or technologies is very poor considering the kind of challenges being faced in the spectrum of policies. When the broad parameters are designed there should be capacity of the recieving audience to comprehend the details involved in those issues. For that different kind of mapping techniques can be used. This is a matter of mind set change. If we view every issue in matter of text and numbers only we will be definitely missing the larger ground relaities on the ground.

There will be no doubt about the assertion that any policy must be people driven. Normally, we always believe thatv we should create institutional framework and those institutions will take care of the mechanisms, processes and the kind of operations involved in the performance of the specific task. Going beyond this, HRD approach tells us that we should be investing in the ability of the people to deliever. We have to create environment of trust within different stakeholders. Then only they will share key contextual information which will lead towards formation of common knowledge about the problem. We need to consistently train the people. We need to reward the people for their innovative ideas and steps they have taken in their respective domain of work. We need to secure their well being in terms of their basic needs in order to motivate them to contribute them meningfully towards the work they are doing in development projects.

Key question is despite that billions of crores being poured, why the certain areas are always backward. In the era of liberalisation where there is huge increase in indirect taxes, central government is pulling the strings about the allocations of the many development schemes. So central government is calling the shots to motivate the district administration for the execution of all the schemes. But are all these schemes and huge some of money is making effect. The number of centrally sponsored schemes to the states is huge. Previous number was 230, before it was chopped down to 99 and again was increased to 120. It is interesting to note that top 15% of the schemes eat up almost 95% of the money. Do we need more schemes? Or we need fair rationalisation of the number of schemes and funds to have maximum impact on the capacity of the decentralised panchayati raj to solve their problems? Is the approach of only relying on the district administration for approaching all development problems is reliable or we need to go to tehsil and village level by looking at the data in more desaggrigated way so as to have more incisive microplanning? The questions are manifold.

We need to think in the direction of asking the question: is there any other way or choice to strengthen the vehicle of channeling development efforts other than decentralisation? How approach of rural development policies can be made more harmonious by including talukas and panchayats more, going beyond district administration? How we can accomodate rising political ambitions of the Panchayati Raj system to enforce a lot of energy and incentive for creating conducive enviornment of accountability and performance in implementation of the different schemes? Will always roof top solutions will work? Do we ever measure the governance deficit? If we do not measure it, we will lose the opportunity to take corrective measures also. Do we need to concentrate on the qualitative aspects of the issues rather than just looking at the quantitative aspects of the every scheme? Do we only want to fight for the funds or we should be fighting for the creating the enabling environment for having optimum impact of the work being done in perticular area.

Government is relying hugely on different types of Rights acts like employment gurantee, food security, information access and more recently delievery of services. Beyond creating this rights based approach do governments of our times have convergent vision about creating the environment of hope, aspirations and constructive engagement with the issues by more participative way? Do government has shared vision of rural development across the board of ministry of finance, rural development and Planning Commission? Understanding all these questions will only enable to have detailed understanding about microplanning we need to look more seriously towards. Real movers and shakers of development are in the states as recognised by recent state elections and examples like Nitish Kumar, Navin Patnaik, Tarun Gogoi, Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan. Here the name and the political affiliation of the people at the helm is not being highlighted. But the point is that they have the capability, knowledge and socio-political will power and context to mobilise the what I call anthropoligally sound manifesto of development. So, role of centre must become less and less to enable states to do more and more. That is the real spirit of federalism, we dont know word forgotten long ago but burning beneath the surface of the issues like Telengana etc. So, bottomline is centres must respect the political leap of faith expressed by different states in their understanding of the development paradigm they wish to enter in. 

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What state plans mean for national development: Devil and God both lies in details....

Maharashtra to Publish Human Development Report Every Year.
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Planning Commission has approved annual state plan for Maharashtra 2011-12 worth Rs. 42,000 crores, a 500 crore in addition to what state government proposed in its presentation before Planning Commission in New Delhi on Thursday. According to the sources, the Planning Commission has applauded Maharashtra state’s performance in many areas.


The key issues discussed in today’s meeting were water, power, and infrastructure, millennium development goals of nutrition, sanitation, and infant mortality. The discussions about water and power were largely centered about the availability of coal to new power plants being proposed or coming up in the state. A large number of investors who wish to establish power plants are interested in Vidarbha region because of its proximity to the coal resources in Chattisgarh and Orissa. Even though state government has a policy, which gives freedom to new private investors to establish power plants without any licensing, out of the total Memorandum of Understanding signed by state government with the private investors, only 10 percent projects are moving towards status of formal start. The companies which wish to invest in Konkan region are thinking about importing quality coal from abroad but imported coal is not cheap compared to domestic coal. Therefore, Vidarbha is gaining more importance in terms of increasing investment in power projects. State government has expressed its concern saying, while much of the power need is being felt in Western Maharashtra, ensuring the dedicated coal supply from far regions to the power plants is a problem, considering the role of railways involved.


Planning Commission congratulated Maharashtra state for establishing Water Regulatory Authority and appealed to state government to work on the tariff modalities, so that Planning Commission can learn from this unique experiment to accommodate the lessons to draft Model Act on Water Regulatory Authority to be listed in the 12th Plan Document. Planning Commission also felt this draft model act, would be useful in guiding other states in implementing this regulatory system in their state. Maharashtra, under its Water Regulatory Authority has decided water entitlement for 260 projects. State government informed Planning Commission about the revised policy of the government about the priority of the water usage in the state. According to the Barve Commission report of 1962, the priority was set in order of drinking water, industry and agriculture. But state government has revised the order keeping drinking water at first place, while agriculture taking higher priority over industrial use. Therefore, the issue of water allocation is also becoming crucial n the clearance of the new power plants.


Planning Commission expressed concern over the pattern of water use in state. Pointing out that of the total cultivation in the state of Maharashtra, sugarcane is cultivated on only 2 percent land, but it is consuming over 70 % of water available for irrigation. State government has promised to look into this matter citing this as a politically sensitive matter. Commission noticed that state government is investing only half percent of the total irrigation budget for the development of command area. On this issue, state government clarified that priority of state government being focused on securing water in the dams rather than investing it for irrigation projects, in the light of mandatory deadlines of water sharing agreements between Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.


Planning Commission praised state government’s initiative in reducing the load shedding and the claim of the state government that state will be load shedding free by 2012. At the same time Planning Commission cautioned about transmission and distribution losses. Current peak power deficit of Maharashtra is 3000- 3500 MW. Planning Commission has suggested the state government to learn from the experience of Haryana, which is currently implementing PPP model in power transmission investing 400 crores. Apart from this, the State government informed about its scheme under which agriculture sector is not provided electricity during peak hours during day. Instead, they are being provided electricity in non-peak periods, without compromising the domestic 24 hours electricity supply. This has ensured lesser load shedding along with lesser loss of water.


Notably, the state government expressed its deep concern over the conservative role played by State Electricity Regulatory Authority in deciding the electricity tariff structure, which is not helpful to the efforts of state government to recover from the challenges in the power sector. State government also assured Planning Commission that government is not interfering in the operations of the MERC. In turn, the Planning Commission suggested that the government should look more positively towards the ‘Open Access’ policy mooted by Central Electricity Authority under which, any big consumer can purchase energy from anywhere, and thereby loosen burden on the state electricity distribution boards. In this respect, state government informed Planning Commission that state has initiated policy in which consumers using more than one megawatt of electricity are relieved from state regulator tariff and they can access energy on market price.


State government requested Planning Commission to expedite the Land Acquisition Act so that it can implement many power and other infrastructure projects, which are being delayed otherwise. The major infrastructure projects discussed today were MIHAN SEZ project of Nagpur, international airports at Nagpur, Navi Mumbai and Chakan, Pune. State government requested Planning Commission to assist in the expedition of the MIHAN project and international airport at Nagpur, so that crucially important location like Nagpur can be used for direct exports of goods. State government appealed Planning Commission to look carefully into the matter of viability gap regarding the MIHAN project. The Viability Gap Funding Scheme provides financial support in the form of grants to infrastructure projects undertaken through public private partnerships with a view to make them commercially viable. Central Government has established a Viability Gap Fund to aid the PPP infrastructure projects which face the viability gap due to inherent nature of the project. The Scheme is administered by the Ministry of Finance. Planning Commission appealed to the state government to look for the viability of the Metro project in Mumbai and suggested to look towards solely state funded project rather than approaching PPP route in this respect. State government has not notified SEZ act yet so the initiatives on this part are yet to take any shape.


In the wake of 25 % of the awards given to villages by the President of India for sanitation campaign going to Maharashtra, the Planning Commission expressed its concern over the consistent pattern of these villages falling back on their performances in this regard. Planning Commission suggested establishing a feedback system or implementing a check list for assessing the performance of these villages in cumulative manner. Regarding the ‘Total Sanitation Campaign’, the state government is embarking on a mission under which, every state government building would be ensured with the availability of ladies toilets, going beyond the routine practice of building toilets in primary schools to help reduce the drop out rates of the girl students. State government has requested Planning Commission to consider additional assistance to extend sanitation scheme for secondary educational institutions and beyond.


State government has suggested novel idea to Planning Commission about checking of water quality in the state. According to this idea, every Science College, medical college, engineering college in particular area can use its laboratory and human resources to check quality of the water in the area in consistent manner. Planning Commission has commended this idea and promised to look at it more seriously at central level.


State government informed Planning Commission about its experiment in Kolhapur district where sonography machines are being monitored for the actual girl sex determination and thus ensuring the check on the female feticide. Punjab government has taken note of this experiment. State government has requested Planning Commission to guide it about the possible implications of the widespread implementation of this experiment because it may provoke ethical debates in future. Planning Commission has expressed deep concern about the greater girl child infant mortality in minority population in Parbhani, Jalna, Washim and Buldhana districts. Commission appealed state government to expedite some kind of research study to identify the reasons for this greater girl child infant mortality in other backward districts of the state also.


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Enriching the Knowledge Base

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Which is the most important thing we wish to achieve in Indian science ? The critical mass. Yes, we are urgently and massively needing the critical mass of scientific experts in each scientific discipline you can imagine of. As Indians, we have tendency not to define things specifically. Around the corner, we always kept things vague. We dont like to publish the white reports of each scientific sector`s future as Japanese are doing it since many years. Or we do not wish to learn from the American system of alarming to their nation through the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in which National Academy of Science and Engineering warns about what we today understand by Fareed Zakaria`s Post American World and its deep engagement with science, mathematics education, rising tendency to do hard work, rising science technology indicators like publications, patents, R&D investments etc. Even conservative historian who takes pride in supporting colonialism Niall Ferguson in his latest book "Civilization: West and the Rest", endorses how complacency of the western world and hard working approach of the east is making the difference. Is India ready to take plunge in this great transformation through genuine investment in science education, research and development and innovation activities? Or we also will be content only by the historical successes of IITs, IIScs and few centers of excellences which are also not growing around the greatest benchmarks of world science.


The other day, when I attended a expert meeting who were discussing how the future of weavers and how the  handloom sector can be  secured by planning different schemes, policies; Minister of that department asked a provocative question. At the end of day what we want? Do we really wish to make the handloom sector the world class brand and make weaver community self reliant by making them free from the government schemes and multi national company`s paltry benefit share after the handsome sale of their products. He further added, "What we are discussing is what. We know what  we wish to achieve. There is not doubt about that. But how to do that is the crucial question we need to ask each other consistently." In a way Minister was hinting towards the fact that traditional knowledge of weaving community resides in the weaver. We have to respect him. On the same lines when I was thinking about many of the initiative central government is taking about creating new central universities, 14 world class universities, IITs, IIMs, INSPIRE scheme for inspiring young students to move towards the science research, different R&D grants being given for projects etc. We usually talk about creating huge facilities, institutions and great laboratories to foster scientific research in India but we hardly pay attention to create the genuine people who can do that. Again we know what we wish to achieve it. But we do not know how we will do it. 


When every year there are crores of rupees allocated for Indian science, one thing is clear. Government is not able to monitor how that money is being spent. There is not evaluation. Because large money given to R&D projects is a grant-in-aid, so government dont want the research results, because it believes that those research results will go to public. Fair enough. But there should be some kind of feedback system to monitor the funding. On the top, DST is not the executing agency for big science technology projects, it is a just demonstrator. Why? The execution of training programs is not mandate of DST. Why? Can you imagine, the increase in MHRD budget is 1.5 times more than entire budget of DST in last few years. Most important challenge is to create that manpower to use all these funds and all these facilities being planned, created.
We are talking about joint appointments of scientists in academic and research institutions, we are talking about creating more post doctoral fellows, we are talking about creating world class facilities at every corner of the country but consider one fact. The number of Indian students working on their Ph.D.s in USA is more than that of working in India. So, even though we boast about creating many many institutions, who will come to teach and do research in coming Indian institutions.


So, what lies ahead? Govt. has started thinking in terms of paradigm. Some catalysts which started to be working since National Knowledge Commission are showing colors. In the last sixty years we have witnessed innovation playing major role in improving health, education, transport, communicate, infrastructure, energy, governance. At the same time there are serious global challenges related to female literacy, infant mortality, water and sanitation, food and nutrition, alternate energy, draughts and floods, preserving scientific temper, better delivery of services, environment, war, security etc. As we enter the Innovation Decade and 12^th Plan it is necessary to refurbish our understanding about innovation. It involves thinking differently, creatively and insightfully. This will enable to have solutions/inventions that have an impact on social and economic value. The kind of scientific initiatives we need to take require definitely going beyond conventional products/processes/institutional forms. So, moving beyond R&D to mean new applications of old technologies, new processes and structures, organizational creativity are needed.

The science and technology can contribute to the innovation in different domains of life. Products, services, processes, organizations, governance, creating opportunities in development/social sector, addressing urban rural divide, how to collaborate or create links of cooperation between public, national, international, private sector, individuals, institutions.  The driving factors behind innovations are people, culture, diversity, ecosystem, new threats, opportunities, and unbalancing elements in flow of knowledge when encountered with particular problem. Innovations are required to improve performance, productivity, quality, reducing price etc. They are key to growth, prosperity and problem solving world over. Science and Technology institutions with their human resources, knowledge intensive capability of enterprising mind, high broadband connectivity and ability to forge new collaborations on the basis of problem identified for particular area of work. Changing nature of science and technology demands multidisciplinary, collaborative and increased speed in terms of execution because obsolescence rate in new technologies is very fast compared to previous generation technologies.

Human development factor remains key to the any initiative of scientific mission of government. Universal applications which address the basic concerns of the livelihood and motivating open source innovation models is inescapable reality. Making best use of scarce resources like people and institutions is the top priority of this hour. Ensuring the relevance of research institutions in modern economy is very much the direction in which we should be going. This belief also includes providing scientific technological support to local industries to assist in improving their competitive position. Sustaining and improving quality of both curiosity driven research and applied research is required.

When we view science technology as strategic sector establishing a sense of urgency must be first step to take. Formation of powerful experts coalitions groups, creating clear vision and objectives which can be monitored, evaluated and followed for post-implementation analysis, communicating this vision, creating short term target which will incrementally add to the bigger plan targets, consistently consolidating the targets and improving upon the change and institutionalizing the innovative approaches which will be easy to train/educate people to inculcate into the human resources of the organizations; are some of the crucial steps in the direction of deploying science and technology for strategic purposes. The strategic challenges in front of Indian Scientific establishment are clearly complex web of multiple issues to handle simultaneously with great harmonizing effect. The number of researchers per million (119 compared to 715 of China, 4628 of USA & 5300 of Japan), R&D expenditure (0.8 % of GDP),

Larger strategy for science and technology will include providing broader platforms for innovations to include products, services, organizations and institutions, processes, research and development, science and technology, governance, social and cultural issues, mindset and national, state, sectoral councils. In this direction, encouraging innovations aiming at bottom of pyramid which will provide awareness, access, affordability, availability, scalability, sustainability, quality, pervasive growth, innovations by/for people & innovations for the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid is necessary.

Creating ecosystem for this will have multiplier affect. This will include incentives and awards, innovation clusters in universities, innovative business clusters, promoting innovation in MSMEs, allowing organizational autonomy and flexibility, clear policies and programs, creating new institutions for addressing that strategic core of scientific research, creating institutional framework and awareness about venture capital, creating awareness about Intellectual Property Rights and also strengthening the initiatives which believe in open source research, establishing ICT tools in more pervasive ways.

This ecosystem will only be sustainable if we will be able to establish the key drivers in that system. These drivers are approaches which are multidisciplinary, collaborative, distinguishing between generational changes vs incremental changes, durable vs disposable, need vs demand, nature vs nurture, locally relevant, globally connected and competitive, focusing at the quality edge. These drivers will enter into realization of stakeholders after the Spaces of Discourses communicate these issues consistently. These spaces are discussions, debates, seminars, conferences, best practices, subversive dialogue, irreverent dialogue, new ideas, innovation, ICT portal etc. Thus role of technology will be as a tool for problem solving. Technology is definitely entry point to increase the delivery, access, efficiency, productivity, transparency, service etc.

In terms of policy building, main stake holder is government with evidence based approach and innovation ecosystem as a paradigm. When it comes to strengthening human capacity or raising critical mass of the professionals, it is the research community and how they plan for coming decade to attract talent and support systems for them in the paradigm of proactive measures. Strengthening institutional capacity is also next thing in waiting where institutions like community and university have big role to play by making use of increased competitive grant size given by government in the paradigm of excellence and expansion. Technology development harnessed by government, society and industry is very much participative process where solutions converge with each other`s interests. Societal interventions matter and governments, society and NGOs often need each other`s support to chart out a plan which needs to be changed from supply driven to demand driven where interventions to empowerment held greater chance of being successful. In the domain of international S&T cooperation, government and scientific community will use their resources and networks to move ahead with clear cut goal of strategic cooperation keeping in mind the principles of reciprocity, parity and emerging themes of science-technology diplomacy. So these are some of shades of coming times where Indian science is moving for? Enough for today, will keep discussing these issues in coming days. Have a nice visionary day !


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