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Journalism of Courage
Good news: India has around 9 million science graduates, 1.8 million post-graduates and 0.1 million doctorates, the number of those enrolled in science up from 28.8 to 36.4 per cent.
Bad news : 22 per cent of unemployed graduates in the country are from the science stream.
The first Indian Science Report (ISR) released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said ‘‘there is no decline in interest in the proportion of students who wish to study science” but it also raised a red flag: many of those who study science are either unemployed or pursuing non-science related careers.
In a highly alarming finding, it says that India while being ‘‘predominantly agricultural economy, not many are taking interest in pursuing agricultural education’’.
The two-year study, released by the PM today, was commissioned by the Indian National Science Academy and executed through the National Council of Applied Economic Research, which carried out the first Indian Science Survey in 2004.
The study says the share of post-graduates with science background in the total unemployed post-graduates is significantly higher going up to about 62.8% which, they feel could be symptomatic of why students opt out of the science stream when pursuing higher education.
Suggesting that the ‘‘lower follow-through to higher levels, particularly doctorates could lead to a critical shortage of technically qualified—as with greater outsourcing of information technology and research and development jobs the requirement of good quality scientific manpower is bound to increase.’’
Addressing the CSIR diamond jubilee gathering, he said the government would set up two institutes dealing exclusively with science education and research. “To rebuild our foundations in basic science, the government is creating two institutes dealing with science education and research, one each at Pune and Kolkata,” he said.
Award winners
• DIAMOND JUBILEE TECHNOLOGY AWARD: Midas Communications Technology Ltd
SHANTI SWARUP PRIZES:
• Gopalchandra Kundu (NCCS), w Dr Ramesh Venkata Sonti (CCMB)
• Vinod Kumar Singh (IIT Kanpur)
• Siva Umapathy (IISc)
• Subhasis Chaudhuri (IIT Mumbai)
• Vivek Vinayak Ranade (NCL)
• Arup Bose (ISI, Kolkata)
• Sujatha Ramdorai (TIFR)
• Chetan Eknath Chitnis (ICGEB), Madan Rao (Ramand Research Institute)
