TO BE A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY S&T–driven growth is needed to become a ‘developed’ country. But for this development to be sustainable, a Knowledge-driven Economy is essential. This requires Global Leadership in Science, Engineering Technology, Manufacturing and Innovation. Excellence is needed in Basic Research (including what I call ‘Directed Basic Research’: Chidambaram, 2007). Excellence is required in Applied Research, including ‘pre- competitive Applied Research’, particularly in “Critical Technologies”, as determined by Technology Foresight Analysis. We need excellence in R&D–led Technology Development and Innovation. All this must be backed by high-quality Manufacturing skills. R. Chidambaram
Role of P S A’s Office and SAC-C Principal Scientitific Adviser(PSA)’s Office and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet(SAC-C) have a multi-departmental role. The scientific business of the Govt. has been divided into many Scientific Departments. But there are subjects which fall in nobody’s territory. And there are things, bits and pieces fall in many territories. These are the things PSA’s Office and SAC-C focus on. The PSA is also ex-officio Chairman of the SAC-C. SAC-C has as members all the Scientific Secretaries, Presidents of the Science/Engineering/Agricultural Academies, Presidents of Industry Associations, and some other leading scientists and intellectuals. PSA’s Office has held brain-storming sessions and has prepared reports (under the guidance of SAC-C) on a wide range of subjects – from Nanoelectronics, and Research & Education Networks to Photonics and Quantum Matter Physics to Additive Manufacturing– to provide roadmaps for these areas. PSA’s Office is funded for ‘Synergy Projects’. Examples are the establishment of Core Advisory Groups for ‘pre-competitive applied research’ in various technology sectors and the Rural Technology Action Group (RuTAG). R. Chidambaram
“Measures of Progress in Science and Technology (R. Chidambaram, Current Science, Vol. 88, No.6, 25 March, 2005) The metrics for Basic Research is the number of publications and their impact factors; the originality of the problems and their importance (to science or society—a la Peter Medawar) are also relevant. The metrics for industry-oriented applied research and technology development are patents and R&D-inspired innovations. The metrics for the application of science and technology for rural development (needed for inclusive growth) can only be related to success in technology delivery. The achievements of the mission- oriented agencies like the successful Pokhran tests, the perfect launching of missiles and satellites, the design and indigenization of the construction of nuclear power reactors, etc., though they do create a sense of great pride in the country, are difficult to be represented by metrics like papers or patents. All these dimensions of S&T are relevant as India puts in effortsto become a developed country and a knowledge economy.
“The Appropriability Conundrum” “The returns from basic research are large, but they are not very appropriable. The nature of basic research is such that its results flow to the rest of the world. Although basic research can be turned into applied research—into patents, products, and eventually economic growth—this may not necessarily occur in the laboratory where the work is originally done or even in the same country….....until as late as the sixties, America’s potential competitors, Japan and Europe, lacked the full capacity to absorb the results of U.S.- funded basic research…information flows today are so rapid that anyone, anywhere, can potentially be the entrepreneur who recognizes the economic potential of scientific discoveries…. The first path forward is to adopt policies that maintain the appropriability of returns from U.S. basic research to the U.S. economy.” From Dr. William H. Press(President AAAS), Science, Vol.342, pp 817-822, 15 November, 2013 We must paraphrase these comments in the Indian context.
C.V. Raman : the greatest experimental physicist India has produced. Homi Bhabha : the founder of our atomic energy programme. Srinivasa Ramanujan : Srinivasa Ramanujan : Hardy and Littlewood have compared Ramanujan’s natural genius with great mathematicians like Euler, Gauss and Jacobi. For the last three decades, I have kept the photographs/paintings of these great scientists behind my chair in the Office! Raman and Bhabha created their own Ecosystems, Ramanujan was a soloist and did not need an Ecosystem Very different in the nature of their work, but they always focused on important problems.
Representing my people……………….. “When the Nobel award was announced I saw it as a personal triumph, an achievement for me and my collaborators --... But when I sat in that crowded hall and I saw the sea of western faces surrounding me, and I, the only Indian, in my turban and closed coat, it dawned on me that I was really representing my people and my country. I felt truly humble when I received the Prize from King Gustav… Then I turned round and saw the British Union Jack under which I had been sitting and it was then that I realised that my poor country, India, did not even have a flag of her own - and it was this that triggered off my complete breakdown” (from Dr. Subodh Mahanti, Vigyan Prasar Science Portal) C.V. Raman
Celebrating Science February 28, the day Raman announced the discovery of the Raman Effect, has been declared the National Science Day. Ramanujan’s birthday (22 nd December) has been declared the National Mathematics Day. The first day of the 1998 Pokhran tests, May 11, has been declared the National Technology Day
National Development & National Security “More than ten years back(Tenth Nayudamma Lecture, November 1999), I said that ‘National Development and National Security are two sides of the same coin’. Development without Security is vulnerable; Security without Development is meaningless…In the context of nuclear deterrence, we must remember that the greatest advantage of recognized strength is that you don’t have to use it. And that the greatest disadvantage of perceived weakness is that your enemy may get adventurist… “The design of nuclear weapons (India is one country globally recognized as having designed its nuclear weapons without outside inputs, overt assistance or clandestine acquisition), with exactly predictable yields, requires expertise in many areas of physics: explosive ballistics, shock wave physics, neutron kinetics, and physics related to radiation coupling of the two stages in the case of the thermonuclear device. Precise estimation of design yields also requires complex computer calculations…accurate determination of the yields after the tests requires capabilities in advanced seismology and radiochemistry.” From R. Chidambaram, INAE Lifetime Achievement Award Lecture, Kalpakkam, 17 th December, 2009
Science & the 1998 Pokhran Tests “These tests were the culmination of a committed team effort…It is universally recognized that India’s nuclear weapon development pogramme is based on self-reliance (see Paine & McKinzie, 1998)…when we refined our computer calculations for the designs we tested, physics knowledge had advanced tremendously in every field (compared to the Manhattan days)…(also) the number of (U.S.A.) tests per year came down with increase in available computing power…the May 1998 (Indian) tests were fully successful in terms of achieving their scientific objectives…establishing the computer simulation capability to predict the yields of nuclear weapons – fission, boosted fission, and two-stage thermonuclear – of designs related to the designs of the devices tested by us…Thus the carefully-planned series of tests carried out by us gave us the capability to design confidently and build nuclear weapons from low yields up to around 200 kt. A great deal of further scientific and technical development work has taken place since then. ” From R. Chidambaram, “Atoms for Peace” An International Journal(UK), Volume 2, No. 1, 2008, pp 41-57
Building facilities like Synchrotron Radiation Sources, Particle Accelerators, Research Reactors, Telescopes, etc. - requires large multi-disciplinary engineering teams. Unique multi-billion dollar facilities like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva(CERN) are built through international cooperation. India contributed 40 million dollars worth of equipment (Leader: RRCAT, Indore) – superconducting sextupole, octupole and decapole magnets and advanced grid software - to this facility. India is also contributing to and participating in experiments with two detectors – CMS (Leader: TIFR, Mumbai) and ALICE (Leader: VECC, Kolkata) – and analysis of data from them. The first signatures of the Higgs boson came from the CMS detector.
POLAR SATELLITE LAUNCH VEHICLE (PSLV) – INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATIION The countries include Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, UK. On 5 th Nov., 2013, a PSLV put the Mars Orbiter into Earth’s orbit. 2 Satellites Jointly built by ISRO- CNES ( French Space Agency) MEGHA-TROPIQUESSARAL Satellite is meant for studying water cycle & energy exchanges in the tropics Launched by PSLV in Oct 2011 Satellite is meant for oceanographic studies viz. marine meteorology, sea state forecasting, climate monitoring Launched by PSLV in Feb 2013 22 successive successful launches COMMERCIAL CO-OPERATION Mass : 1000 kgMass : 410 kg Till date 35 Satellites from 19 countries have been successfully launched using PSLV Courtesy: Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, ISRO
IAEA PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY By Yukiya Amano, Director General, IAEA in a lecture in BARC on 11 th March, 2013 “(After) the Fukushima Daiichi accident, some people predicted that nuclear power will go into decline. However, the evidence suggests that this will not be the case. At the moment, there are 66 new reactors under construction. Seven of them are in India. Other major users of nuclear power such as China and Russia also have significant expansion plans. A number of countries have taken the decision to introduce nuclear power, including Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Poland, Turkey and Vietnam. The United Arab Emirates has started building a nuclear power plant, the first new country to do so for 27 years.”
India, a Leader in the Nuclear Sector Yukiya Amano contd… India is at the forefront of technological development in the nuclear sector, not least in the area of fast reactors and related fuel cycles. Fast reactors and related fuel cycles will be important for the long-term sustainability of nuclear power. This innovative technology has the potential to ensure that energy resources which would run out in a few hundred years, using today’s technology, will actually last several thousand years. Fast reactors also reduce the volume and toxicity of the final waste. from his lecture in BARC, 11 th March 2013
Nuclear installed capacity with open and closed fuel cycle options Closing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and the Climate Change Threat from Chidambaram, Sinha & Patwardhan, Nuclear Energy Review 2007 Nuclear is now an accepted mitigation technology in the context of the Climate Change Threat. But if it is to be a sustainable mitigation technology, you have to close the nuclear fuel cycle.
Indigenous Light Water Reactor Based on the experience of design, analysis, fabrication, commissioning and operation of the PWR for the propulsion programme, India has taken up design of an indigenous 900 MWe PWR, whose construction is expected to be started within five years. Courtesy: Sekhar Basu, Director, BARC The reactor in the nuclear submarine ARIHANT, which went critical on 10 th August, 2013, is a Pressurized Water Reactor(PWR). Earlier the land-based prototype reactor, shown in the figure became operational in September 2006 at Kalpakkam.
19 Variation of Human Development Index(HDI) with respect to PCEC R. Chidambaram 2012 Each point refers to a country. The numbers are female literacy percentages. I have been saying for two decades and more that the two measures of development for us are PCEC and Female Literacy To achieve an increase of PCEC by 6 to 8 times, all energy options are important for India To achieve an increase of PCEC by 6 to 8 times, all energy options are important for India
Techniques applied include; Measurement of environmental stable isotopic ratios of 18O/16O, 2H/1H and environmentally radioactive tritium. Based on the above analysis, sub-surface dykes were built at selected locations. The rate of discharge increased three to nine times in many springs and also two new springs sprang up. Almost all the springs have become perennial. So successful that it is being replicated at ten places in Uttarakhand and Himachal Here springs are the only available source of water for domestic and agricultural use. An Example of RuTAG/HESCO-BARC work in Uttarakhand (RuTAG is an Open Platform Innovation Strategy of PSA’s office and is centred in 8 IITs) Identification of Recharge Zones to Drying Springs in Gaucher from K. Shivanna, Gursharan Singh, A.P. Joshi et al, Current Science(2008) R. Chidambaram
The term “Re-Innovation” has been used * in the context of industrial development by Roy Rothwell (1985) and often by China. I use the term ‘re-innovation’, in the context of rural development, in the sense of repetitive, but suo moto, innovation, starting from the same core concept and ending in nearly the same product. This kind of innovation seems to be inevitable in the context of rural development because of variations in raw material resource, taste, skills or even culture. Whether it is reactors or rural products, evolutionary changes of existing products are more acceptable than revolutionary designs, however advanced. Roy Rothwell coined the word “re-innovation” to denote successive incremental modifications to a ‘generic product’ to ‘take advantage of emerging technological or market opportunities’. China has often referred to a process: “introduction, absorption, digestion and re-innovation” R. Chidambaram (in Rural development)
This is not a zero carbon-emission but a relatively cleaner Coal-based technology. In the Advanced USC coal-based plants, the steam temperature is 700-750 deg.C. A Consortium of IGCAR, BHEL and NTPC has been formed through our Office for developing this technology. Two new indigenous materials have been developed by IGCAR for boiler tubes: 304HCu SS Tubes Alloy 617 M tubes They have been produced by MIDHANI and the tubes have been drawn by the Nuclear Fuel Complex. A Test Loop will be set up by BHEL/NTPC. R. R. Chidambaram ( an example of synergising exceptional component capabilities)
Indian Nanoelectronics Users Programme (INUP) and University Collaborations CEN facilities at IISc and IITB are open for use by other academic users through INUP 115 projects completed or ongoing 230 users 112 papers 7 patents CNT FET by INUP user International Collaborations of CENs IISc: NUS, Singapore EPFL, Switzerland Stanford University, USA UC Berkeley, USA IITB: Cambridge University, UK University of Waterloo, Canada NUS and NTU, Singapore UCLA, USA Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Courtesy: Prof. Juzer Vasi, IIT Bombay
Industrial Partnerships at CeNSE Indian Industrial Partners Domain of Collaboration HCL Semiconductor Process Equipment BEL Electronics Manufacturing Centum Electronics Systems Electronics and packaging Titan MEMS Sensor for Consumer Markets TATA SOLAR Solar PV Cells Titan MEMS Sensor for Consumer Markets UHP Technologies Process Equipment and Clean Room Technology StartupsDomain of Collaboration I2N TechnologyNanometrology Cirel SystemsMEMS Sensor – ROIC Modules By DesignSilicon Optical Bench platform Bhat BiotechHealth Care Systems First Industry Meet: March 20-21, 2013 @Centre for Nano Science & Engineering with 70 industry delegates Courtesy: Prof. Rudra Pratap, CeNSE, IISc Bangalore International Partners: IBM, Tokyo Electron, Samsung, Analog Devices, Lam Research, Unilever
A university research park is a “cluster of technology-based organizations that are located on or near a university campus in order to benefit from the university’s knowledge base and ongoing research”. Effective parks can aid in the transfer of technology and business skills between university and industry teams, encourage the creation of startups, and promote technology-led economic development. India’s first and only University-based Research Park is in IIT Madras Some precursor examples include: Society for Innovation and Development in the IISc, Bangalore. Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the IITB. Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer in the IITD. Innovation and Incubation Centre in the IITK. Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research Centre in the IITM. IITMRP has filed more than 70 patents in its first one and a half years of existence. Courtesy : Dr. M.S. Ananth, former Director, IITM, now in IISc Bangalore
NKN NKN (National Knowledge Network) APPLICATIONS NKN e-Classroom NKN Webcasting Remote Experiment Climate Change High Energy Physics
“NPTEL(MHRD) along with NASSCOM and companies such as Cognizant, Infosys and TCS, is proposing to conduct MOOCs in the following three Computer Sciences Courses: (1) programming, (2) Algorithms, (3) Data Structures… The MOOC will target between 100,000 to 500,000 graduates in all areas of S and T over the next few years…. The contribution of NASSCOM and the IT companies is a key differentiator for the proposed MOOCs, which can be a valuable employment creator for graduates…. The MOOCs will be followed by an in- person proctored exam…. We plan to launch a pilot of the MOOCs in January, 2014, with a limit of 50,000 students. A full launch is being planned from June 2014”. Courtesy: Dr. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras MOOCs require the e-connectivity provided by the NKN
The Third Industrial Revolution is being driven by the Internet and by Additive Manufacturing (3-D printing technology), Robotics and other advanced technologies and also by a desire to develop Green Technologies. Additive manufacturing is not dependent on ‘economy of scale’ and the products can be customized. We must also close the existent technology gaps (vis-à-vis the Second Industrial Revolution) R. Chidambaram
Global Leadership in Manufacturing If we want India to be a global leader in manufacturing in the long term, we must be willing, if necessary, (particularly in a new strategic technology area) to live with products with somewhat lower specifications (compared to what the current global leaders with long experience in manufacturing in the field can provide) in the short term, as long as the indigenous products meet the critical requirements. Then only we will be able to manufacture tomorrow’s products at globally competitive or even higher standards.. And we must shed addiction to branded products. This is what is inhibiting introduction of indigenous diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices and of advanced research instruments. from R. Chidambaram’s keynote address in the first Engineers’ Conclave-2013, organized by Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi, 17 th September, 20 13 from R. Chidambaram’s keynote address in the first Engineers’ Conclave-2013, organized by Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi, 17 th September, 20 13
India should be a First Introducer of New Technologies The path to a Knowledge-driven Economy is paved by New Advanced Technologies. India should have the courage to be the first introducer of new advanced technologies after, of course, assurance about their safety. And, for providing this assurance, we have ample capability. The so-called Proven Technologies, unless subjected to continuous evolutionary improvements, are often a synonym for Obsolete Technologies. The sinews for New Advanced Technologies are comprehensive capabilities in frontier areas of science. R. Chidambaram
Conclusion Basic Research, though it gives prestige, cannot by itself create prosperity -- wealth, strategic strength or societal benefit-- without applied research, technology development, high-quality manufacturing skills and R&D-led innovation. On the other hand, an advanced technology superstructure cannot be built without the foundation of basic research, including what I have called ‘directed basic research’, to develop new knowledge and to provide the ability to appropriate knowledge developed in other countries. We need ‘Coherent Synergy’ (a phrase I introduced many years back) among all the component efforts needed to build a Knowledge Economy. R. Chidambaram