Science and Technology is India’s Strength
'I' in India shall stand for innovation. Gone are the days
when imitations ruled the day. 'I' in India shall stand for intellectual capital
and inventive imagination.
What India could achieve in the field of science and
technology in the post-independence era is worth mentioning. India was lucky
enough to have leaders like Bhabha, Bose, Shah, Sarabhai, Swaminathan, Subramanyam,
Kasturirangam, Kurien, Kalam,… visionaries and the faceless architects of
modern India. With small purse for research and development, with a curse of
being a developing nation with uncounted hungry mouth, India has stood up like
the phoenix to the state of self-sufficiency and global leadership. This has
been made possible due to the continuous and dedicated service of our services
of our scientists, research laboratories and institutions. This is never ending
process where uncounted man-hours are being utilized to make our lives beautiful.
India today is the nerve centre if the world’s computer
manpower. She has the world’s largest population of technical and scientific
graduates. She is behind none in the field of space technology, molecular
biochemistry, chemicals industries, metallurgy, nuclear power harnessing, etc.
Her vaults are filled with diverse flora and fauna. The world is taking our
knowledge of ‘Ayurveda’ and other indigenous home remedies seriously. The
wisdom of Gita and Veda are keeping her heritage strong and healthy. Our vast
mineral resources are every nation’s envy. The vast flood plains have the capability
of feeding the billionth Indian. Her future, the youth, are promise in
themselves.
Our scientific and technological identity can be found in
the following post-independence achievement. The four revolutions –
- Green Revolution – The leadership under Dr. Swaminathan and Dr. B. Subramanyam along with the toil and initiation of Punjab farmers made India self-sustained in food grain production.
- White Revolution – The vision of Dr. Kurien led to the growth of milk cooperatives in Anand, which turned India into the largest producer if milk products.
- Blue Revolution – The resources of Dr. Sarabhai and the team of dedicated scientists and technicians of ISRO gave India a leadership in the endless world of space. Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS), INSAT, PSLV are all benchmark in themselves.
- Grey Revolution – The challenge taken up by Vijay Patekar and Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC) gave India its first supercomputer, PARAM-8000, in a period of three years and at low cost in the days when USA denied India a CRAY needed mainly for weather forecasting. Today India manufactures and exports supercomputers.
For an Indian to be a leader in the 21st Century,
he has to increase his knowledge based skills. India has to go for large-scale
and incremental innovations and radical breakthroughs. We need to have Parallel
Knowledge Systems. Reformations has to be done in our Education System. The
imperial method followed by our Education Boards and Universities has to be
changed. The scientific reckoning, experimenting and inquisitiveness have to be
encouraged further. Integration of our ancient knowledge and modern technology
has to be commenced.
To make “21st century, India’s century” we need
to protect and create knowledge wealth. India will lead the world if we can
harness the great potentials hidden among us. Policy decisions favouring
Research and Development, technological upliftment, quicker implementations of
projects and release of funds has to be made. Moreover, every Indian needs to
take pride in our Scientists and their achievements.
 |
| Trijoy Saikia, 1999 |
Trijoy Saikia wrote these essays in between 1997-2001, when he was undergoing his engineering studies at Jorhat Engineering College,Jorhat, Assam. The views and opinion there in are not edited during restoration from archives. The views, affiliations and influences at the time of writing these essays may have evolved and changed over the period of time.
 |
| College Building where I studied Computer Science and Engineering |
 |
| Hostel No 4, Eagle's Nest, Room 404 where the author stayed from 1997-2001 |