India to double spending on S&T: Kasthurirangan

KOCHI: India will double its spending on science and technology from the 12th Five Year Plan, said Planning Board Member and former ISRO Chairman K Kasthurirangan.     The increase will be from 0.9 percent to 2 percent in the next Five Year Plan. The research and development in the universities of the country leaves much to be improved.    In the 12th Plan,  the government is looking at strengthening the education programmes and intensifying research, he said.He was speaking at the 10th Prof K V Thomas Endowment Seminar organised by the Department of Chemistry of S H  College, Thevara.The government will improve the research facilities in  universities and research organisation. More university clusters and Inter-University Centres will be developed to give accesibility and flexibility to the universities. There can also be linkages between industries and research instituitons as well universities. As of now, only 0.9 percent of the GDP is spent on science and technology. Out of this, only 4 percent goes to the universities. This has to be worked upon, he said. He said that focus should be on research which is demand-driven. The focus of the 12th Plan is enhance the contribution of science and technology for the overall economic development.So far this has not been very effective in India. The research institutes and universities will be encouraged to come up with technolgies and research papers that can have a direct bearing on the lives of people. There is a lot of scope for reserch socio-economic sectors including energy, education, water, agriculture etc. National security is another area where research institutes have a huge role to play. Globalisation of research and development is another area which needs to be looked upon. “Today India is in a position where we can play a role in the global research. We must make take advantage of this oppurtunity . We have to look at harmonising the International Property Regime in this regard, he said. He said the newly discovered earth-like planet Keppler-22 was a significant one.