The new member secretary of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Virendra Malhotra believes that the country needs a balance between growth of technology and the social sciences.
“Social science has to move further and move as much as physical sciences and technology. Social sciences like political science, economics and sociology are as important as physics, technology, maths or biotechnology,” he told The Hindu days after formally assuming charge.
“The day these are treated as equal the movement of society would be at the same pace as technology.”
He added, “We have to learn from the experience of developed countries. Societies have to be developed as technology develops. We have to be a society that is conscious, aware, developed and provides better living conditions for people within.”
Prof. Malhotra joined on October 28 and is spending time meeting the ICSSR staff and acclimatising himself to the new role he has been offered.
He has replaced Ramesh Dadhich, whose term expired in 2015.
The Hindu first reported that he had been selected by the government for this position from among a panel of names suggested by a search-cum-selection committee formed to choose the ICSSR member-secretary.
A newcomer to Delhi, Prof. Malhotra has spent two decades teaching economics at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut.
While his profile at the ICSSR website is under construction, his resume at the CCU, Meerut, website shows him as the author of two articles in Samajik Vigyan Shodh Patrika, a half-yearly research journal of social science published in Meerut.
He also authored one article on the Doha Collapse in an anthology edited by J.C. Pant and Savita Taneja, both economics teachers in colleges in Meerut, and a monograph on ‘Agricultural Development and the Indian Economy.’
