Battle for water

This refers to the article “ >The battle for water ” (Feb. 20). Indians should be happy that our per capita consumption of water remains the lowest in the world today, mainly because many of us are vegetarians. In comparison, a number of Southeast Asian countries are contemplating shifting water and energy-intensive industries (especially food and steel-based) overseas and having produce imported. This is a lesson to promote vegetarianism.

M.M.R. Athreya,

Bangalore

A documentary on the subject of water conservation, called “Hiware Bazar”, is an eye-opener for those of us who care to watch it. Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district, is noted for its irrigation system and water conservation programme. The documentary shows how the key individual, Popatrao Baguji Pawar, urges villagers to adopt eco-friendly methods of farming and water usage, resulting in the transformation of a drought-prone village into a land of lush green fields. The message is that people at a local level can contribute to the conservation of water rather than expect the government to act.

S. Kavya Lakshmi,

Chennai

On science

This refers to the article “Paralysis in science policies” (Feb. 7). With the objective of making education affordable, it is a fact that there has been an overall decline in academic quality. Balancing this is tough as most chief administrators are political appointees who look at ways to please their masters rather than taking the institution on the path of scientific progress. Research requires a fair amount of independent thinking and implementation. There is no dearth of native talent and knowledge. The problem is of recognition and encouragement. Finally, there has to be an enabling mechanism in the form of proactive training and retraining on modern methods of conducting research and providing research funding.

V. Subrahmanian,

Chennai

In countries that have a strong science and technology base, the proportion of private-to-government spending in research and development is 80:20. In India, it is just almost the other way round and it has remained so for years. In today’s world, carrying out scientific experiments is expensive. Unless industry comes forward it is difficult for the government to bear such a massive expenditure alone. To say that the government will only match private R&D investment to bring it to the level of 2 per cent of GDP is unrealistic.

The word innovation should be dropped from the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2013. Loud campaigning for “innovation” only pushes science research (especially basic science) to the back, encouraging the import of technology.

Concern over our continuing poor performance in basic research has been expressed in no uncertain terms by doyens of Indian scientific research. If India has to prove its world-class innovative prowess, there is no alternative other than attaining excellence in basic research. Allocation of greater government funding for research and installing an effective mechanism to make industries fall in line to reverse the ratio to 80:20 in favour of the private sector, are two two imperatives.

Subrata Ghosh,

Kolkata