India will soon find its place in the G8, says Pranab

He calls for greater focus on research and innovation

Sage advice: Former President Pranab Mukherjee speaking at GITAM University in Visakhapatnam.

India has been invited as an observer for the G8 summit, but the day is not far when India will be a member of the G8, for which we have to focus on research and innovation, former President Pranab Mukherjee has observed.

Mr. Mukherjee was here on Saturday to receive the GITAM Foundation Award on the occasion of the 39th Foundation Day of GITAM deemed to be University.

Delivering the Foundation Day lecture, he said science was knowledge, but technology was its application. “We have to focus on research and development, and in this task universities have a big role to play,” he said.

‘Meagre percent’

Quoting UNESCO data, Mr. Mukherjee observed that India spent a meagre 0.8% of its GDP on research and innovation, and there were only 156 researches per million inhabitants in the country.

“At a time when Japan spends 3.6% , the U.S. 2.7 % and China 2%, our share is too little, and this is where universities and industries come into play,” he said.

There was a need for investment by Indian corporate houses in the area.

“Since 1930, when C.V. Raman was the last Indian to receive a Nobel Prize in pure science, there has been a dearth. There are Nobel Laureates such as Har Gobind Khorana, Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, but they all got prizes for their research work in foreign universities. We have the talent, but we are unable to harness it due to lack of funding and infrastructure. And that is why industry-academia partnership is the order of the day,” Mr. Mukherjee pointed out.

University rankings

Mr. Mukherjee said it took a long time for Indian universities to find a place in the top 200 rankings, and it was only now that we can find 23 institutes in the top 1,000 rankings. “Be it private or public institutions, the focus should be on quality research. The placement record of IITs and top engineering colleges is very good. But that does not indicate that the institutions are doing good in research. From 6th Century BC to almost 1200 AD, till the end of Nalanda, we were the hub of education in the world, but somewhere we have lost that touch,” he said.

“Despite being a 5,000-year-old civilisation, we have the youngest average population. We must channel this advantage, otherwise the demographic dividend may turn into demographic disaster. We have to find jobs for the young population to channel their skills and energy, otherwise joblessness can create a huge unrest. We are in the midst of the ‘Fourth revolution’ (IT sector) and we need to capitalise on it,” he said.

GITAM president M. Sri Bharat and Vice-Chancellor K. Sivaramakrishna spoke.