Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan on Sunday said India should not allow other countries to snoop on it and extract information sensitive to national interests.
In the wake of revelations in the media that the USA had under surveillance many countries and their national leaders, Dr. Ramakrishnan said America’s policy might be in the interest of that country, but India and its scientists should work towards making its internal information more secure.
“Cyber security is very important for a country like Ind-ia as a lot of vital information might be out in the open. Indian government can take the help of scientists to develop algorithms which are hard to crack and this can make snooping difficult,” he said.
The eminent microbiologist, who teaches at University of Cambridge, was speaking at the inauguration of the C.R. Rao Gallery at the C.R. Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Hyderabad.
Dr. Ramakrishnan felt solutions to problems that are unique to India could come from the fundamental sciences.
“India has lot of interesting problems that can lead to fundamental sciences developing a solution for them. For example, scientists can work on lost plants and animal species. They can also work on Indian genomes as they can generate lot of data since genetic diversity of India is second only to Africa,” he said.
Gallery inaugurated
Earlier, the C.R. Rao gallery was inaugurated on the occasion of the 126 birth anniversary of legendary mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujam. Designed by Dr. Rao’s daughter Tejaswini Rao, the gallery gives a peek in to the vast contribution made by the 93-year-old in the field of mathematics and statistics.
Dr. Rao said the main aim of the gallery was to inspire young scientists and open a new door of knowledge for them. Former DRDO Director-General V.K. Saraswat said with the country’s focus on cyber security and bio-defence, maths and statistics institutes would play a pivotal role in the near future.
