By Vijay Chauthaiwale

This article responds to various critiques of the Narendra Modi government’s science and technology (S&T) policy.

Let’s look at allocated funds. In the last five years, funding to the S&T ministry has gone up by 133%. The figure for UPA-2’s tenure was 44%. Equally important, more than two lakh high-school students are participating in programmes to foster a culture of scientific innovation, and 5,000 Atal Tinkering Labs are imparting practical exposure to students in 3D printing and robotics.

Also consider the encouragement to the scientific community to engage in problem-solving for areas like affordable diagnostics, agritech, Swachh Bharat, clean energy and digitising India.

For young researchers, 2,500 postdoctoral fellowships for fresh PhDs and 1,300 awards for early career research funding have bridged a major gap and retained the talent within the country. For young innovators, more incubators were set up by this government in last five years than previous 40 years combined.

Then there are big-ticket items. India is a major partner in the Thirty-Meter Telescope and in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo) project; the latter’s Indian site is coming up in Maharashtra.

Afundamental change has been the breaking of silos. Indian industries, research labs and universities are now guiding university students and giving them access to their labs as well as industries.

One such example is ongoing research involving five IITs, 200 researchers and 40 faculties on 5G technology. Today, India has scientific collaborative arrangements with 25 countries, several non-government organisations and private entities like Texas Instruments and Lockheed Martin. Prominent non-resident Indian (NRI) and Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) scientists can avail the unique scheme ‘Vajra’.

This allows them to spend up to three months every year in a collaborative institute in India.

All of these initiatives started early in the prime minister’s term —when he met 25 leading scientists in 2015. In a frank discussion, he heard their views, leading to periodic review meetings.

In 2018, the PM set up the Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PMSTIAC). On the recommendation of PM-STIAC, the PM approved nine new science missions ranging from quantum science to solid waste management.

Look at institution building. In the last five years, seven new IITs, seven IIMs, 14 IIITs, four NIDs, two IISERs and six research parks have been started. There are 1,000 new fellowships for PhD financial support under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (Rusa). Funding for this has gone up from Rs 267 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,300 crore in 2017-18.

There’s also greater autonomy. The IIM Act, by which IIMs have been granted complete autonomy to run the institute without government interference, was passed. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) now evaluates more than 5,000 academic institutions, bringing accountability and transparency.

A national digital library, an online repository of 17 million books and recordings available free of cost, is up and running. Through the SWAYAM initiative, 1,000-plus interactive online courses are available for anyone interested.

Science is grounded in listening to criticism and revising one’s opinion when the evidence points otherwise. Critics of this government should, therefore, deal with facts and data.

(The writer heads the foreign affairs department, Bharatiya Janata Party)