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.
