Modi chants mantra to ‘connect’

January 03, 2017 05:13 pm | Updated November 28, 2021 10:12 pm IST - Tirupati

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus at the inaugural session of the 104th Indian Science Congress in Tirupati on Tuesday. Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus at the inaugural session of the 104th Indian Science Congress in Tirupati on Tuesday. Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has underlined the need to inculcate the concept of ‘scientific social responsibility,’ akin to corporate social responsibility, to connect the leading institutions with all stakeholders, including schools and colleges.

The idea is to create an environment for sharing of ideas and resources by providing opportunity to the brightest and best of brains in every corner of India to excel in science.

“This will ensure that our youth get high-end training and exposure to the best of science and technology to make them job-ready in a competitive world”.

Delivering the inaugural address at the 104th Indian Science Congress on Sri Venkateswara University campus here on Tuesday, on the theme ‘Science and Technology for national development’, Mr. Modi announced all form of support to the scientific and research organisations, and in turn, told scientists to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the fruits of science reached the marginalised sections of society.

 

Pledging his government's support to building a strong S&T infrastructure that is accessible to academia, start-ups, industry and R&D labs, the Prime Minister sought to address the problems of ease of access, maintenance, redundancy and duplication of expensive equipments.

In this connection, he mooted the idea of establishing professionally-managed centres in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode to house high-value scientific equipment. Mr. Modi exhorted national laboratories to establish a ‘connect’ with schools and colleges to develop appropriate training programmes.

Hub and spoke model

“Laboratories, research institutions and universities in each major city and region should be interlinked to function on a hub and spoke model. The hubs will share major infrastructure, drive our national science missions and be the engines that link discovery to application,” he said, while asking institutes to consider involving NRI Ph.D. students and outstanding scientists from abroad for long-term research association.

Referring to the constraints involved in securing and completing research projects, he indicated the need to ensure ‘ease of doing science’ as an empowering factor for scientific delivery.

The PM later felicitated Nobel laureates and presented ISC awards for the year 2016. Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan, his deputy Y.V.S. Chowdary, ISCA General-President D. Narayana Rao and SV University Vice-Chancellor A. Damodaram were present.

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