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Scientific advancement must, says expert

Manipal: R. Chidambaram, Principal of Scientific Adviser, Government of India, said on Friday that long-term sustainability of gross domestic product (GDP) growth required advanced scientific capability.

He was speaking at the conference of Technology Information Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) — Centre of Relevance & Excellence (CORE)] in India, organised by the Manipal Life Sciences Centre (MLSC), a unit of the Manipal University, here.

Mr. Chidambaram said that national development and national security were two sides of the same coin. Development without security was vulnerable, and security without development was meaningless. “India should aim at becoming economically developed, scientifically advanced, and militarily strong. TIFAC has an important role to play here,” he said.

He said an intangible part of the innovation in ecosystem was the courage to take the risk. The greater the innovation, higher was the risk in converting it into a marketable product or process. The Government was looking for ways to help make risk manageable.

The United States had programmes such as Small Business Innovative Research Programme and the Advanced Technology Programme that provided funds to companies to invest in critical high-risk technology where private funding was hard to find. “India must have similar programmes. The department of Biotechnology has initiated a pioneering programme in this context. TIFAC and National Academies (U.S.) are holding a meeting in this context at New Delhi on December 18,” he said.

The Government was keen on strengthening small and medium enterprises which had little access to modern R&D facilities through technology infusion. The TIFAC-COREs played an important role here.

New TIFAC-COREs have been approved in sectors such as telematics, textiles technology, food processing and quality control, green pharmacy and machine vision. Establishment of TIFAC-COREs in the fields of sports goods and medical instruments was being studied, Mr. Chidambaram said.

Pro-Chancellor of Manipal University H.S. Ballal, Vice Chancellor of Manipal University Rajasekharan Warrier, National Research Professor M.S. Valiathan, executive vice president of Pepsi Co-Holdings N. Bhatia, and director of MLSC K. Sathyamoorthy, were present.

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