Ahead of a week-long celebration of India’s achievements in science and technology since Independence, top officials of India’s science ministries said India was able to conduct tests and make vaccines because of investments “in the right places” going back decades.
“India was one of the few countries under colonial rule that invested in science and technology almost simultaneously with getting independent. The various revolutions such as the Green, White and Blue revolutions show that we have invested extensively in science and technology,” said Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
“The very fact that we have the diagnostic labs, the manpower and the training to be able to conduct crores of RT-PCR tests and genome sequencing... the capacity building has been excellent over the years and India has done fabulously. This will be part of the documented series,” he added.
The Vigyan Sarvatra Pujye festival, as it is called, begins on February 22 and ends on February 28 to coincide with the National Science Day, commemorating Dr. C.V. Raman’s discovery of the Raman effect.
“The festival will be conducted at 75 locations and host 75 expositions, 75 lectures, 75 films, 75 radio talks, 75 science literary activities, and more through a hybrid mode,” according to a press statement.
Speaking at the presser, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) S. Chandrashekhar said, “It’s because we made the right investments at the right time, we’ve been able to handle the pandemic much better than many countries. The generic drug industry and the vaccine industry are examples of this. DST/DBT was the first one to encourage Dr. [Krishna] Ella [head of Bharat Biotech] to start a vaccine company when he returned from the U.S. We lagged a little on innovation but we are catching up and now we are focussing on quantum computers and technologies that will take us to the next stage of development.
Principal Scientific Advisor K. Vijay Raghavan noted that the pandemic has linked science to the people by accelerating the process of delivering applications. “Earlier you could take a long time to take a tool to the people. This was for a variety of reasons and there was no rush and didn’t call for urgent decisions. It’s remarkable how science has adjusted to the requirement of speed. Going forward, scientists have learnt that it’s important to be prepared and have the tools ready,” he noted.
