PUNE, JANUARY 3: Setting the tone for the 87th Indian Science Congress which got underway today, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called upon scientists to ensure that science and technology played a more result-oriented role in making the life of the common man comfortable. He assured the scientific community that restrictive bureaucratic hurdles would be done away with.Vajpayee urged luminaries from the field of basic sciences here to attend the meet, to add their valuable inputs and help the Indian economy achieve its three-pronged objectives of employment generation, equitable wealth creation and social justice.A far greater deployment of science and technology was needed in core sectors like primary health care, sanitation, agriculture, water and soil management and energy conservation, Vajpayee told the delegates.The glittering inaugural function of the ISC at the University of Pune lawns commenced to the notes of the vidnyayn geet, penned by litterateur, the late G N Dandekar. And when R A Mashelkar, general president of the ISC, spoke about the next century belonging to India, the Prime Minister shared his optimism with a clarion call for earnest efforts to make Ikkisvi shatabdi, Bharatki shatabdi.``Generation, dissemination and use of knowledge were the key determinants of wealth creation. India will not be a mere participant in the Information Technology revolution. It will be in the vanguard when knowledge capital is poised to drive the wheels of national and global economy,'' Vajpayee said.He said it was time to augment investments in the area of research and development to translate the vast potential of Indian science into a winning performance.He underlined that Indian investments in R&D which is ``sub-critical'' should go up to one per cent of the GDP from the meager 0.86 per cent this year. It should be further increased to 2 per cent over the next five years. He also spoke of the need to increase collaboration between universities, industries and R&D institutions. The Government, he said, had taken some steps and a few more would be taken soon. ``We are committed to strengthen the cooperative network between research laboratories, academic institutions, industry, NGOs and governmental agencies.''What was most critical was to concentrate on developing Indian science for the country's accelerated and all-round development. This, he said, would require improving the standard of science education at all levels; strengthening science and technology institutions through competent and inspiring leadership; harnessing India's considerable wealth of traditional knowledge by bringing it into the mainstream of national science and technology establishments; exploiting the new Intellectual Property Right regime; and, spreading the culture of venture capital and other forms of support for new knowledge-driven enterprises in India.``Technological plurality determines the destiny of a nation like India. I dream of an India that is a contributor and beneficiary in equal measure in this prevailing inter-dependent and cooperative phase of human history,'' Vajpayee said.In his address, Mashelkar said knowledge revolution would lead to social, gender and economic equity. He spelt out the need to set right the five fundamentals -panchasheel. Mashelkar's five point agenda for the new millennium envisages child centered education, woman centered family, human centered development, knowledge centered society and innovation centered India.Nobel laureates Jean Marie Lehn and Richard Ernst, eminent scientist A P J Abdul Kalam, Minister of State for Science and Technology Bachi Singh Rawat, Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal were also present on the occasion.
