Turning Points (9 page)
Interactions with PMs
In the course of my functioning as director of DRDL, scientific adviser to the defence minister, principal scientific adviser to the Cabinet and as president of India, I have had an opportunity to interact with many great personalities like Dr Satish Dhawan, Dr Raja Ramanna, Dr V.S. Arunachalam, R. Venkataraman, P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. These associations were extremely fruitful and they left an indelible mark in my mind. I learnt from Dr Satish Dhawan who was my boss and chairman of ISRO that when you execute complex missions you always encounter challenges and problems. He used to say that you should not allow problems to become your captain, you should become the captain of the problems, and defeat them and succeed. This is a great learning for anyone engaged in a complex mission. Dr Raja Ramanna and Dr Arunachalam showed the ability to recognize the value of the individual and would work hard to get the right individual for a complex task. R. Venkataraman as defence minister could foresee the needs of our country for large force multiplier systems for the Services and took a decision to mount such programmes which are paying off with large dividends today.
Narasimha Rao was an extremely clear-headed person who had a grasp of every subject related to the development of the country. Once he was chairing a defence consultative committee when the director-general of supplies and transport, ASC (Army Supply Corps) was making a presentation about the performance of the dairy farms and their modernization plans. During the presentation, the DG mentioned that progressively they were weaning out the buffaloes and replacing them with Jersey cows. Rao was quick to realize that buffaloes are unique to our country, they can live in the tropics with cheap fodder and food and yield high-protein milk. The country cannot afford to lose this native wealth. Hence, he gave directions that this proposal should be reviewed and urgent corrective action should be taken by the army dairy farms.
On another occasion, while I was presenting the report on self-reliance in defence systems some time in 1995, Rao was quick to observe that we were making a premise that the defence expenditure should be less than 3 per cent of the GDP. He said that we should not put such a limit; we should work on what is essentially needed for building a strong defence system for the nation. The GDP may be continuously varying, and we could not have the expenditure going up and down on that account.
I remember one more example. The DRDO had to take up a follow-up programme for the Agni missile system beyond the technology demonstrator which could be inducted into the Services. Rao understood the need instantaneously and approved a Rs 800 crore programme, based on a one-page proposal, without any question and
provided an opportunity to design a need-based management system for timely execution and delivery of missiles to the Services. Subsequently, the programme was approved by the finance minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to whom it would have gone before going to the prime minister in the normal course. The file was later moved to the secretaries of the Government of India who were in the execution chain. This was an example of a top-down approach in programme conception, sanction and implementation.
Later, in 2004, I had an opportunity to work closely with Dr Singh who as prime minister has applied all his economic skills to enhance growth, which has reached as high as 9 per cent in recent years. He has brought a warm and human touch to the office of the prime minister. I could see the sense of urgency in decision making in Atal Bihari Vajpayee who gave me the task of execution of the nuclear tests as my first job as soon as he took over as prime minister in 1998. In general, I found Vajpayee was decisive in all his actions while dealing with any national problem. He was the person who made an announcement that India would work towards becoming a developed nation by 2020 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in August 2002, as I have already said. The first time India 2020 was accepted as a national programme was by H.D. Deve Gowda in 1998.
The experience of meeting good people is an education in itself. I have been fortunate to meet more than my share of such people in various phases of my life.
National economic development is powered by competition.
Competition is powered by knowledge. Knowledge is powered by
technology and innovation.
T
he majority of India’s population lives in the villages. And that is the real challenge for the scientific community: to use the results of technology to enrich the lives of the 750 million people who live there.
In my fifty-year career in the fields of science and technology, I have always believed that keeping ahead in
these two areas is the only way for a developing nation to become a developed nation. The three major areas on which we must focus are nanotechnology, e-governance and bio-diesel. With regard to creating a favourable environment for innovation, I felt, why not make a start in Rashtrapati Bhavan itself?
Complex and new initiatives require the combined thinking of many specialists, the consideration of different opinions and a collective effort to execute missions and actions. In this regard, there were three unique events that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan and Rashtrapati Nilayam, the presidential retreat in Secunderabad. These were a nanotechnology conference, an e-governance conference and a bio-diesel conference. In terms of potential impact on the future of the country, each of these events was very significant.
I had long been discussing with Prof. C.N.R. Rao – honorary president of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru – and many other specialists in India and abroad the future directions in the research and development of nanoscience technology and its potential applications in areas like agriculture, medicine, space and energy. These discussions prompted me to host a full-day conference in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The discussions and recommendations eventually resulted in a coordinated programme with an outlay of Rs 1,000 crore. This programme led to several important advances and innovations. For example, I was delighted to learn that scientists from the Banaras Hindu University had devised a simple method to produce carbon nano-tube filters that
efficiently remove micro- to nano-scale contaminants from water and heavy hydrocarbons from petroleum. The scientists and technologists of Delhi University in partnership with a private company, Dabur, have successfully developed a drug delivery system that directly targets tumour cells.
Efficient, result-oriented and transparent governance is a prerequisite for a developed India and our progress as a knowledge society. An integrated system with a decentralized set-up at the state, district, and village level is essential for this. The planning and implementation of this requires a concerted effort from the central and state governments as well as private and public sector participation. Keeping this in mind, an e-governance conference was held with the participation of the concerned agencies. We also introduced a system of e-governance in Rashtrapati Bhavan. I have addressed the judiciary, audit agencies and many other sectors on this subject. A presentation was also made to the Commonwealth meet, which was well appreciated. It is my hope that an e-governance system with smart identification cards for each citizen will make for effective services and will also contribute to our fight against extremism and terrorism.
I believe that the two key areas that will be sources of conflict in the future are water and energy. One of the governors’ conferences addressed the water issue in terms of maintenance of water bodies, conservation of this resource and the networking of rivers both within states and nationally. I have been propagating energy independence from fossil fuels as the need of the hour. One key initiative
in this regard is developing biofuel. To highlight this and to consider all aspects of the initiative in an integrated way we hosted a conference at Rashtrapati Nilayam. Among others, the conference was attended by farmers who have experience in this field and are also potential users. The vice chancellors of agricultural universities explained the research on different aspects like seed characteristics and irrigation needs of plants which could be used as sources of biofuel. Government officials raised issues related to allotment of non-fertile lands. Automobile designers talked about a mix of biofuel and diesel that could be used without any changes in engine design and the changes required if the percentage of biofuel used were to be higher. Business representatives talked about investments and breakeven points. I presented my concept for the use of biofuel. At the end of the conference recommendations were drawn up and circulated to the concerned parties. I am glad that a biofuel policy has now been evolved.
In addition to these three conferences, there was another technological event which germinated from Rashtrapati Bhavan.
In 2006, the then chairman of ISRO briefed me on his future space plans including the Chandrayaan mission to explore the moon, which I am sure is just the first step towards further planetary explorations and manned missions. Regarding the proposed moon mission, he told me that the spacecraft would orbit the moon and transmit scientific
information on the chemical, mineralogical and geological characteristics of the heavenly body. He also told me that the mission would carry a variety of scientific instruments, which ISRO was in the process of finalizing. I suggested that the mission could include a combined entry package to the moon with at least one telemetry channel, with density or pressure measurement or tone ranging. This payload would enable us to gather data directly from the moon’s surface. The chairman promised to include this payload. This led to the birth of the Moon Impact Probe as a part of the Chandrayaan mission. To my delight, the probe landed on the moon’s surface on 14 November 2008 exactly in the pre-determined area. I congratulated the ISRO team for this fine achievement.
These two highly technical initiatives took place at the instance of Rashtrapati Bhavan. I was very happy to be a partner in such promising ventures.
When I was studying the global innovation report for the year 2011, I found that as per the Global Innovation Index Switzerland is ranked 1, Sweden 2, Singapore 3, Hong Kong 4, and India 62. There is a relationship between the innovation index and competitiveness. While India is 62 in the index, our ranking in Global Competitiveness Index was 56 in 2010-11. If India has to graduate from 56 and become equal to the developed nations (within the top 10), it is essential that we build indigenous design capability. The present growth has been achieved by the use of technologies
essentially developed elsewhere based on scientific discoveries and patents generated ten to fifteen years earlier. The latest technologies resulting from scientific advances are not available from developed countries to India at least for a decade. Hence, research is vital, particularly in basic sciences, to take up India’s global competitiveness to the desired level. I give below the result of one endeavour where India developed the required technology.