R&D In India: a Paradoxical Situation

Karanam Ramakumar

If we assess the stature of different nations over the past millennium, some interesting
trends emerge.

About 150 years ago, the United States, after the civil war of 1860s, started picking up
threads of development. The industrial revolution and the speed with which it was adopted by
the United States contributed significantly. Particularly due to the then upcoming industries like
railroads, steel and oil, the US economy grew and the 20th century belonged to the United
States.

Before that due to colonisation of Asia by the British from 1700s, it had been a British
century. This mainly came out of their complete hold on Asian countries and also the industrial
revolution.

What about India? Was there any period in the past which belonged to India?

It is a historical fact that by 300 B.C., the Maurya Empire united most of the Indian
subcontinent. The Oxford historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, in his acclaimed book
Millennium: A History of Our Last Thousand Years, mentions: A history of the first millennium of
our era would have to give India enormous weight: the subcontinent housed a single civilisation,
characterised by elements of common culture, coterminous with its geographical limits; the
achievements it produced in art, science, literature and philosophy were exported, with a
moulding impact, to China and Islam; and it was a civilisation in expansion, creating its own
colonial New World in south-east Asia. The reasons for the state of affairs are well known. The
political unity and military security allowed for a common economic system and enhanced trade
and commerce, with increased agricultural productivity. It had a developed banking system and
vigorous merchant capital, with a network of agents, brokers and middlemen. For the next 2000
years, India was estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world
controlling almost 25 to 30% of the world's trade.

Colonisation of India by the British ruined the Indian economy. British used to buy raw
materials from India at cheaper rates and finished goods were sold at higher than normal price

in Indian markets. During the period, 17801860, India changed from being an exporter of
processed goods for which it received payment in bullion, to being an exporter of raw materials
and a buyer of manufactured goods. And while Europe and the US benefited from the Industrial
Revolution, Indias economy stayed stagnant for 90 years. Reasons for the countrys stagnation
include Britain's establishment of an agricultural base in India, thereby providing cheap raw
materials to England at the cost of local citizens. During this phase India's share of world
income declined from 22.3% in 1700 AD to 3.8% in 1952. Starting from late 1980s, India's
economy started picking up momentum. Despite being the second fastest growing economy just
behind China and expected to surpass China by 2040, India is still called a developing country
by world economy forum.

India thus had enjoyed a glorious past. What about its knowledge base?

There are many articles by educationists and research scientists on this topic both from
India and abroad (e.g., Nature and Thomson Reuters). Let me take a snapshot of their findings
before I put forward my own views.

The Global Research report on India published by Thomson Reuters has the following to
say about India: The tradition of science in India, of course, extends back millennia, with
Aryabhatta, Bhaskara, Brahmagupta, and others still celebrated for their foundational
contributions to the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry. Indias knowledge, skill
and scientific tradition dates back to some 3,000 BC. Twenty-six centuries ago, much prior to
the advent of modern medical science, an Indian physician, Sushruta mended the severed nose
of his patient. This revolutionary step, considered the worlds first plastic-surgery, was a great
milestone in the history of medical science, since the rest of the world knew little about the
human anatomy. From the introduction of zero, to exploring the wonders of astronomy,
chemistry, medicines, mathematics and physics, Indian scientists have left their footprints in
every sphere of science. Famous universities like Nalanda, Vikramashila, Pushpagiri imparted
quality education by eminent masters in wide variety of science and philosophy subjects to
disciples including from abroad.

Even during the latter half of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries, India did have
stellar scientific contributions. Jagadish Chandra Bose made innovations in wireless signalling;
Praful Chandra Sen pioneered the discipline of chemical sciences; Meghnad Saha developed

an ionisation formula for hot gases that has a central role in stellar astrophysics; Satyendra Nath
Boses theoretical work in quantum statistics led to BoseEinstein statistics; Chandrasekhara
Venkata Raman did Nobel-prize winning work on light scattering; and in mathematics, the
contributions of Srinivasa Ramanujam were equally pioneering.

In the modern era also, science and technology have been central to Indias
development efforts. In 1943, Archibald Vivian Hill, one of the secretaries of the Royal Society of
Britain, was invited by the Government of India to design a plan for scientific and industrial
research post-World War II in India. In his report, he described the role of universities, the need
to establish centres for research (such as AIIMS and CSIR). He also outlined some lacunae in
the system. Primary among them were lack of skilled faculty, understaffed colleges, attitude to
think on research problems, innovation and independent and rational research.

But since 1947, there has not been a single Nobel-prize winning scientific or
technological discovery, despite Indias successes in space, radio astronomy, biology and
pharmaceuticals and the worldwide reputation of its information technology (IT) industry. (Who
would forget India's prolific expertise and acumen in addressing the Y2K issue?) Granted, three
other Indian-born scientists (not considering other Indian Nobel laureates Rabindranath Tagore
(literature), Mother Theresa (Peace), Amartya Sen (economics), R.K. Pachauri (peace), and
Kailash Satyarthi (peace)) have won a Nobel prize biochemist Har Gobind Khorana (in 1968),
astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (in 1983) and molecular biologist Venkatraman
Ramakrishnan (in 2009) but for work done entirely outside India. Two mathematicians; Manjul
Bhargava won the 2014 Fields Medal and Subhash Khot won the 2014 Nevanlinna Prize, again
for the work done outside India. The only exception is Prof. Ashoke Sen, particle physicist from
Harish-Chandra Research Institute winning the Fundamental Physics Prize, the world's most
lucrative academic award for the monumental work he carried out in string theory.

What does it indicate?

Despite having the recognition as cradle of scientific accomplishments in the past and
also in the early part of 20th century during pre-independence days, India could not keep up this
tradition of excellence in science in the post-independence. But it should also be recognised
that our scientists are brilliant and second to none in the world as mentioned above by their
contributions elsewhere abroad.

At the same time we should also take note of in-house achievements. Through
government directives such as the Scientific Policy Resolution (1958), the Technology Policy
Statement (1983), and Science and Technology Policy (2003), the nation has also achieved
notable scientific successes. These include self-sufficiency in food grain production; a space
program that has enabled satellite launches, our own geographic navigation satellites- cluster,
moon and Mars missions; full mastery in the entire atomic energy programme; indigenously
developed missiles and aircraft; and exports in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and informationtechnology services. The DSTs web site lists about 600 and odd Government or Government
funded research institutions in the country carrying out research in wide variety of disciplines. In
addition, India does have very fruitful and significant mega science international collaborations
such as CERN, ITER.

But going back to the general observation of India lagging behind in science and
technology, an introspection is in order. Speaking in general terms, it should be mentioned that
our post doctoral fellows and scientists are among the best in the world. They are highly
professional, very competitive and impressive. However, the credibility of research laboratories,
educational institutions labs or institutions leaves much to desire. Internationally also they are
not considered as competitive. It is indeed a paradox that our professionals are held in high
esteem and not our institutions, universities or research institutions barring a very few. And
Indian institutes and universities do not feature in the worlds top 200 higher-education
institutions. Further, to a large extent, research is still done mostly by small teams working in
isolation rather than through collaboration.

Some of Hill's observations, made almost 70 years back, seem valid even today in the
Indian research and development scenario. Recently, the Science Advisory Council (SAC) to the
Prime Minister of India said the country could be among top five science-faring countries in next
10-15 years, with good leadership and policies. But at the same time, the report warns that the
present situation is "not altogether encouraging" as there are many areas of science where
India has fallen behind even small countries. "In most cases of Science & Technology there are
only a few real experts and there is a leadership crisis at a time when there is increasing
competition from some Asian neighbours." That said, the stagnation afflicting Indian science is
as much administrative, and structural as it is financial. India's emergence as a global leader in
Science & Technology would require unstinted support for basic research and judicious choice
of main Research & Development areas and massive effort to solve pressing national problems.

Thus there has been a growing realisation among scholars, policy makers, and other
observers that India lags behind other key countries and some of its BRIC partners in research
investment and output. The government has made concerted efforts to invest in education by
creating facilities such as the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, dedicated to
the highest international standards of scientific research and science education. But this alone
does not bring out the expected turn-around.

How do we realise this?

First and foremost, the way we go about identifying research topics and prospective
research students need to be looked into.

Before dwelling on this issue, let us examine what constitutes research?

In the annals of science, there are any number of instances when a certain need is felt
by the practitioners of the discipline for an effective tool or gadget to understand and interpret
the observed phenomena. I consider, among many examples, periodic table of elements and
Mosleys law linking atomic number to the emission frequency belong to this category.

And equally, there are instances when a scientific curiosity resulted in the invention of a
powerful and exotic tool, which later on led to the foundations and evolution of a broader
scientific thought. X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy fall in this category.

There is yet another class of scientific discoveries which are outcome of serendipity and
perspicacity borne out of incredible and inevitable conclusion of purely a theoretical
interpretation. Discovery of positron by Dirac way back in the early part of last century is one
such phenomenon.

Thus challenges in research are aplenty. What about a typical researcher? What are his
identification marks?

A motivated researcher is like a truth seeker totally committed to bring in tangibles to the
society. The attributes or the hall mark of the motivated researcher may be explained by
referring to an acronym QUEST. He should question or query the on-going activities,

understand the basic principles, engage in out-of-box thinking to identify the new directions of
research, seek-out the ultimate solution to the problem, and finally triumph by making it
available to the world. Let me elaborate the concept of QUEST by taking the profile of Stefan
Hell of Germany who shared this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry with two other scientists from
USA.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was awarded jointly to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell
and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy". The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences came out with an engrossing pen picture of Stefan Hell
and his Nobel Prize winning scientific pursuits, which elegantly capture the essence of QUEST.

Let us recall the subject of optical microscopy a little. For a long time optical microscopy
was held back by a physical restriction as to what size of structures are possible to resolve. In
1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe published an equation demonstrating how microscope
resolution is limited by, among other things, the wavelength of the light. For the greater part of
the 20th century this led scientists to believe that, in optical microscopes, they would never be
able to observe things smaller than roughly half the wavelength of light, i.e., 0.2 micrometres,
the diffraction limit arrived at by Abbe. This limit is small compared to most biological cells (1
m to 100 m), but large compared to viruses (100nm), proteins (10nm) and less complex
molecules (1nm). To increase the resolution, shorter wavelengths can be used such as UV and
X-ray microscopes. These techniques offer better resolution but are expensive, suffer from lack
of contrast in biological samples and may damage the sample.

Question/Query:
Ever since getting his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1990, Stefan Hell had
been looking for a way to bypass the limitation that Ernst Abbe had defined more than a century
earlier. The thought of challenging such an established principle was tantalising. But senior
scientists in Germany had met his enthusiasm with scepticism. He had to move to Finland for
further research. He did not lose hope.

Understand:
But Stefan Hell was convinced that there had to be a way of circumventing Abbes
diffraction limit. He began his quest to understand fully all aspects of microscopy.

Engage:
When he read the words stimulated emission in the book on Quantum Optics in a
student apartment in South-western Finland in 1993, a new line of thought took shape in his
mind. When Stefan Hell read about stimulated emission, he realized that it should be possible to
devise a kind of nano-flashlight that could sweep along the sample, a nanometre at a time. At
that moment, it dawned on me. I had finally found a concrete concept to pursue a real thread.
Complete out-of-box-thinking!

Seek-out:
In 1994, Stefan Hell published an article outlining his ideas. In the proposed method, socalled stimulated emission depletion (STED), a light pulse excites all the fluorescent molecules,
while another light pulse quenches fluorescence from all molecules except those in a
nanometre-sized volume in the middle. Only this volume is then registered. By sweeping along
the sample and continuously measuring light levels, it is possible to get a comprehensive image.
The smaller the volume allowed to fluoresce at a single moment, the higher the resolution of the
final image. Hence, there is, in principle, no longer any limit to the resolution of optical
microscopes.

Triumph:
Stefan Hells theoretical article did not create any immediate commotion, but was
interesting enough for Stefan Hell to be offered a position at the Max Planck Institute for
Biophysical Chemistry in Gttingen. In the following years he brought his ideas to fruition; he
developed a STED microscope. In 2000 he was able to demonstrate that his ideas actually work
in practice, by, among other things, imaging an E. coli bacterium at a resolution never before
achieved in an optical microscope.

In 2014 it culminated in Stefan Hell getting the ultimate reward any scientist would
aspire. His is only typical example to illustrate the excellence in scientific pursuits, and
unwavering belief in ones intuition. There are any number of such examples.

Secondly, it may be desirable to have a central agency to maintain a research project

database featuring all research projects sanctioned by different granting institutions. Such a
database could help avoid duplication of research projects, decide thrust areas and translate
promising findings of one group to another to advance discoveries. The cross-talk between

agencies could help them prioritise objectives, mission and awards. The improved system would
increase the efficiency of the staff at the agencies and move things faster.

Thirdly, we should take a serious look into the findings of the global competitive report for
2013-14 namely innovation is lacking in the country and research undertaken by institutions
whether public or private are not turning out to into commercial ventures in a significant way,
and despite being ranked ahead of other peers when it came to market knowledge, technology
and creativity, the country ranked poorly when it came to other metrics such as institutional
support, human resources, research infrastructure and business sophistication. This has to be
addressed at different levels; both within the Government, public and private institutions. Other
competitive international models available need to be studied for a holistic approach to solution.

Fourthly, we may learn from the experience of IT industry. It may be desirable to draw
the private sector into major research programmes. Industry at present contributes about 30%
of Indias total spend on R&D, most of it devoted to improving productivity and reducing cost
and energy consumption, rather than product development. As of now it is essentially shut out of
basic research. There should be a cross-talk between industries, universities and other public
research institutions for synergy.

Lastly a thought comes to my mind. It is indeed a paradoxical situation that is prevailing

in India as far as scientific research is concerned. The world acknowledges that India produces
brilliant students worthy of carrying out post-doctoral research, but has no brilliant teachers or
no world class institutions. But paradoxically these brilliant students do come out of the socalled mundane institutions. Whether they are inherently brilliant while studying in India or
discover their brilliance while pursuing their higher studies or research abroad is a mute
question. What is the parameter which motivates them abroad but not in India? This is
something one should look into. Perhaps this is a worthy topic for doctoral thesis!

Finally, R.C. Levin, the then president of Yale University, while speaking at a function
organised by Tsinghua University, China, in 2001 made a powerful observation: universities can
be an essential source of national economic competitiveness and, ultimately, a wellspring of
worldwide growth and prosperity. He went on to add that research is widely believed to be
essential to the countrys economic growth, and the innovations derived from basic and applied
research provide enormous benefits to society. UGC-DAE- Consortium for Scientific Research

is an ideal platform for providing specialized training and advanced facilities for university
researchers. I am sure all the four centres in Indore, Kalpakkam, Kolkata, and Mumbai would
take up this challenge, become power houses for R&D and contribute to Nations development.

Any funding for R&D programmes is a long term investment. It has been well accepted
that public funding will play a major role in this direction. The funding agencies and the
Government should have patience to reap the benefits of this long term investment for the
benefits to society.

In conclusion, let me refer to Bhartrihari, who gave us wisdom through his Subhashitas.

There are worthy and beautiful references to the attributes of single minded pursuit in
our Bhartrihari Subhashitas. Let me quote two of them. During Amrit manthan, the deities were
neither satisfied with the evolution of pearls and other exotic things, nor were they putdown by
the emission of Halahala poison. They continued their untiring efforts until they realised their
goal namely Amrit. The hall mark and attributes of a committed person are: he neither bothers if
he sleeps on rocky floor, or on a flower bed, if he has only the leaves for food or full course
feast, wears rags or covered with silk robes; if he is in comfort or in distress. He is only focussed
on the ultimate goal.

What India is looking forward is such dedicated and committed personalities.

Jai Hind!