India's youth power in the globalised world

India has to work hard in value addition techniques in its manufacturing industries, in honing core competency of skilled manpower, in procuring raw materials, and in upgrading capital equipment so that it becomes competitive in a globalised world.

We must create a sound environment to help the manufacturing sector cope with the emerging challenges of globalisation. This could include the following measures:

Special thrust on modernisation and technology upgradation of existing units Special package for promotion and development of small and village enterprises Consortium of Indian R&D laboratories and industries to gain design development expertise that will enhance competitiveness

• Technology support

• Marketing support

• Credit support

• Entrepreneurship development

• Promotion of self-employment

• Infrastructure

• Facilitation

Science is a beautiful mission

The youth of our country, which represents 50 per cent of our population, has challenging scientific missions full of opportunities to make India competitive in the globalised world. The youth should have an aim in life, acquire knowledge and sweat, and not be afraid of problems. Some of the missions are as follows.

It is said that the ozone layer, which regulates sun radiation and cosmic radiation on earth, is in the process of dilution. Atmospheric research is a big field and the mission is to lead to a livable atmosphere for sustainable quality of human life for generations to come. The human genome project has led to the discovery of about 30,000 genes amongst us. But the bigger scientific challenge for our youth in this globalised world is how to characterise every gene. This field is called Proteomics.

The next challenge is that current mainstream physics concepts require a “Theory of Everything”, to unify all fundamental interactions of nature, which are usually considered to be four in number: gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force. It is said that the results of the unified theory could lead to man knowing how he was born. It is estimated that our sun has a life of 10 billion years, half of which is already over. There are, however, many possibilities that may emerge, such as human migration to other planets in other solar systems, where life may be possible. I visualise manned missions to the moon and Mars in the near future. Therefore our astro scientists have challenges in this field too. ISRO now has plans for unmanned spacecraft exploration of the moon starting with Chandrayan-I in 2008. There is a proposal emerging for manned space missions in low earth orbit by 2014. Space technology can play a major role in realisation of the nation’s goals in education, health, natural resources survey and infrastructural planning.

The Tata Institute of Fundamental research (TIFR) has built the largest radio telescope in the world in a rural area near Pune. They have played a major role in discovering the binary millisecond pulsar. The Indian Astronomical Observatory, set up atop Mt Saraswati, 4,500 metres above mean sea level at Hanle, south eastern Ladakh, is the highest observatory in the world. The galaxy is giving plenty of opportunities for our young scientists to make discoveries and there are numerous areas of scientific research which will benefit humanity as a whole.

Healthcare is an area where our young scientists can work and contribute. Innovation and creativity should remove the pain of the people. We have to discover preventive vaccines for diseases like HIV-AIDS, malaria and cardiac diseases. Thus there are so many scientific challenges before the youth. The question is: only a prepared mind can discover. A prepared mind comes out of accumulated knowledge, possesses will power and ability to defeat problems and succeed.

Our country, at the end of 20th century, witnessed four great scientific events. In the 1950s, India was in a ship-to-mouth condition for foodgrains. The vision of political leaders like Shri C Subramanian and scientific leaders like Dr MS Swaminathan led to the First Green Revolution enabling India to produce over 200 million tonnes of foodgrain through the use of high-yield variety seeds.

Dr Varghese Kurien, through the milk co-operative movement, led India to become the largest producer of milk. Homi Bhabha established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, leading to nuclear science and research.

Nanotubes, atoms, jatropha

Today India has 14 reactors producing nearly 4000 mw electrical power and the Department of Atomic Energy targets 50,000 mw of power by 2030.

Prof Vikram Sarabhai’s space vision has enabled India to acquire the capability to design, develop, build and launch any type of satellite from Indian soil. Similarly, Prof Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar created multiple CSIR laboratories in various disciplines for developing and transferring technology to Indian industry, including drugs for many tropical diseases. Simultaneously, Dr Kothari was on the mission of creating a chain of DRDO laboratories for promoting self-reliance in critical technologies and strategic systems. Recently, youth power has led to a revolution in ICT and pharma where industry has started producing internationally competitive drugs from new molecules. This culture must spread to other scientific and industrial tasks.

Energy Independence

On 14th August 2005, in my Independence Day eve address to the nation, I spoke about Energy Independence. What is the solution?

I have suggested a possible solution for our country for making maximum use of solar power, nuclear power and bio-fuel instead of fossil fuels and make the country energy independent by 2030. Some of the scientific and technological challenges of these areas are given below:

Carbon Nano Tube (CNT) based solar cells for higher efficiency: The low efficiency of conventional photovoltaic (PV) cells has restricted the use of solar cells for large power generation application. Recent research has shown that the alignment of the CNT with the polymer composites substrate is the key issue and this aligned CNT-based PV cells would give very high efficiency in photovoltaic conversion. In this process, researchers could achieve an efficiency of about 50% at the laboratory scale. Our scientists have to take up this challenge and come up with the development of CNT-based PV cell with an efficiency of at least 50% within the next three years so that it can go into commercial production within five years. Solar power generation using high efficiency CNT based solar power photovoltaic cells will be highly competitive, compared to other forms of energy generation systems.

Nuclear Energy: Nuclear power generation has been given a thrust by the use of uranium-based fuel. However, to meet the increased needs of nuclear power generation, it is essential to pursue the development of nuclear power using Thorium, reserves which are higher in the country. Technology development has to be accelerated for Thorium-based reactors. Thorium is a non-fissile material. For conversion of Thorium and maximising its utilisation, development of Fast Breeder Reactor has been rightly taken up.

Use of Biofuel: We have to realise production of 60 million tonnes of bio-diesel per annum by 2030 (this would be 20% of anticipated oil consumption in 2030). This has to be realised through intensive research for improving productivity of Jatropha plant seeds, mastering extraction and esterification technology and finding remunerative bi-products, which is a challenge for life science scientists.

Conclusion

Science and technology will be an important ingredient to transform India into a developed nation before 2020 as well as making it competitive in a globalised world.

Our youth, numbering 300 million persons, should develop the curiosity, knowledge, core competence, determination, perseverance and the courage to invent new phenomena in science and technology leading to pathbreaking discoveries.

—Adapted from President APJ Abdul Kalam’s addresses to the 14th Children’s Science Congress at Majitar, Sikkim on December 27, 2006, and the 25th convocation of the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad on January 5, 2005