Union Minister of Science & Technology Dr. Harshvardhan inaugurated Women Bio-tech Incubator at Golden Jubilee Biotech Park for Women Society during IISF, 2017 in Chennai today in the presence of Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, Founder Chairman, Women Biotech Park,  and State Minister of Industry, Government of Tamilnadu – Shri M C Sampath.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan today delivered the Conclave Address during the Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs Conclave at IISF 2017. While delivering the Conclave Address Dr. Harshavardhan said that globally there has been a special focus on addressing the issues related to Women in Science and framing policies which support the same. In India we have laid special emphasis on empowerment of women. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed upon the need for special programmes which not only technically empower the women but also create employment opportunities.

In the field of Science and Technology and Entrepreneurship, Indian women have had a major presence over the last 100 years. The first women to receive a medical doctorate degree was  Anandibai Joshee in 1885, the first Indian women Doctorate in Basic Science was Janaki Ammal in 1931 and India’s first woman to get a doctorate of science from an Indian university was Asima Chatterjee in 1944. These dynamic women have laid a very strong foundation for women in science in India. In the last few years, there has been a special focus on “Women Empowerment by the Government. The DST and DBT have special schemes to attract women scientists and to provide employment opportunities to the unemployed women scientists. Women Entrepreneurship is a very important activity that has been growing rapidly in last few years. “Start up India” and “Stand up India” announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister are initiatives which offer tremendous opportunities to the women entrepreneurs.

Biotech Park is a good example of a Centre and State Government Partnership. The Minister expressed his confidence that with the support of the State Government it will drive many important initiatives under Start up India and Make in India. A large number of Innovation schemes of the S&T Ministry being operated by DST and DBT and initiatives taken by BIRAC have today created a vibrant innovation ecosystem.  More than 1000 Start ups and nearly 200 Women Entrepreneurs have been supported. The Atal Innovation Mission also aims to promote the innovation ecosystem.

The Minister was pleased to know the excellent participation in Women Scientists and Entrepreneurs Conclave. He informed that the Ministry of S& lays special emphasis on North East and has a special program and will be happy to set up a Women Bio-Incubator at North East.

He expressed his confidence that the women scientists would contribute significantly to the growth of the country and fulfill the dream of   Hon’ble Prime Minister of “Making a New India”. Women scientists and Entrepreneurs definitely are the Game Changers Driving Science for “Making a New India”.

Dr. Harshvardhan also released a book – Genesis of Biotech Park – on this occasion.

Women Scientists Conclave with the theme “Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held as a part of India International Science Congress, 2017 in Chennai.  The theme of the Conclave was to motivate young women to pursue science and entrepreneurship and explore new opportunities. The conclave showcased the strengths and activities of women in science and entrepreneurship and provided a platform for the young women scientist and entrepreneurs to interact with experts and peers.

The Conclave is being attended by over 350 Women Scientists, Researchers, Faculty and Entrepreneurs. There is participation from across the country – North East, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, amongst others. There was an exhibition and panels. Many Senior Scientists, Entrepreneurs who are role models shared their experiences. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary, Department of Health Research (DHR) and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research  (ICMR) delivered the keynote address.

Presentations were made in various fields of interest viz., Geoscience, Space and Ocean research. Panel Discussion on “Game Changers Driving Science for New India” was held and the discussion focused on (i) Challenges for taking science as a career and (ii) Opportunities for women in Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship. Presentations were given on “Budding Women Scientists” and “Initiatives of the Govt. of India for Women in Science and Science for Women”.

S&T Ministers Conclave at IISF 2017, Chennai

Science Diplomacy

India throws open its Science & Technology (S&T) Institutions to its friendly neighbouring countries and announces a slew of R&D programs for capacity building in these countries.

The Scientific Ministries and Departments of the Government of India have active international collaboration in science and technology both at the bilateral and regional level. Today India is engaged in active R&D cooperation with more than 44 countries across the globe including advanced, emerging and developing nations.

As a part of India’s foreign policy initiatives of the present government like “Neighbours First”, “Act East”, and “India-Africa Partnership”, India has now embarked upon a visible path of developmental diplomacy using science, technology and innovation that will not only help towards capacity building in R&D but also address the needs of the people through the application of science technology and innovation. To this end, for the first time, a Science and Technology Ministers Conclave was organised as a part of the 2017- India International Science Festival (IISF) being held in Chennai from 13-16 Oct. Invites were extended to S&T Ministers from  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Inaugurating the Conclave, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, informed that the purpose of the S&T Ministers Conclave was to build and strengthen partnership between the countries by identifying the priorities, needs and mechanisms that will enable a fruitful cooperation through sharing and complementing each other’s strength and resources. Afghanistan Minister of Higher Education, Abdul Latif Roshan, Bangladesh Minister of Science and Technology, Yeafesh Osman and Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri Y. S. Chowdary, outlined the priorities, challenges and opportunities in science and technology in their respective countries.

The common denominators for the scientific cooperation which emerged from the Conclave included the need to address societal challenges through application of science and technology in emerging areas such as Affordable Health care, Water security, Climate change adaptation, Agricultural science, Renewable energy, Information & Communication Technology and Natural disaster prediction and management. Dr. Harsh Vardhan informed that this would be achieved by sharing best practices access to scientific opportunities in India to individuals from across our neighbourhood nations who desire and deserve it, promote connectivity and capacity building by fostering research and education linkages with scientific and academic institutions of India and facilitate transfer of such knowledge and technologies from India which are affordable and accessible for larger public and societal good in our neighbourhood countries.

In order to enable active collaboration, the Minister also announced that the Ministry of Science and Technology would offer concrete programs supported by India for desiring and deserving neighbouring countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The bouquet of schemes announced by Dr. Harsh Vardhan includes:

(1) For human capacity building in S&T, the 2018-India Science and Research Fellowship (ISRF) scheme will provide a fully paid fellowship to researchers, scientists and academicians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka to undertake research and development work of their choice at any premier research and academic institution in India upto a period from 3 to 6 months.

(2) In order to address the need to support PhD students, a new element has been added in the 2018-India Science and Research Fellowship. The scheme for the first time will also include doctoral students in science, engineering and medical fields to undertake project related research work in any premier research and academic institution in India upto a period of 6 months. This will help to connect the next generation of the scientific community with India. The Department of Science and Technology will support this Fellowship scheme.

(3) Towards Training of Researchers the science agencies in India including CSIR, DBT, MOES, IMD, DST and SERB organizes tailor made hands-on training programs and advanced schools for Indian researchers. India would like to throw open these specialized training programs to participants from our desiring and deserving neighbouring countries to participate in these. 200 travel slots every year was announced for the researchers from these countries to be supported by the Department of Science and Technology to enable them to make the best use of these advanced training programs offered by India. This would help in capacity building and will also foster research networks with Indian scientific institutions.

(4) For institutional capacity building and technical assistance in Science and Technology a twinning program between Indian institution and a R&D or Academic institution in the neighbouring country was also committed by India. It was informed that a successfully model between the Institute of Biotechnology in Bangladesh with ICGEB, Delhi where scientists from Bangladesh undertake regular research and training immersions and Indian scientists travel to Bangladesh to assist in setting up the technical infrastructure of the new laboratory in making is being implemented. On a similar fashion, thiswill be replicated in other desiring countries in atleast one such institution in each of the mentioned neighbouring countries.

(5) One of the key aspects agreed was a mechanism for knowledge transfer and adoption for societal development. India offered a Technology Transfer Program, the objectives of which will be to match the socio-economic needs of our neighbouring countries by linking the public and private enterprises with leading edge Indian technologies and innovations. India will share a basket of demonstrated and validated Indian technologies and innovations developed by our scientific institutions. A need based select list of such technologies can be transferred using a Business to Business or Business to Government model of joint venture through a process of adaption and adoption.  It will replicate the model which we are already implementing in African countries like Ethiopia, Rwanda and South Africa. The joint ventures created will deliver sustainable social enterprises that will stimulate economic impact development including the components of skilling, training, mentoring along with capacity building and business planning in our neighbouring countries.

It is expected that these schemes will help to develop a close and robust partnership in science, technology and innovation with our friendly neighbouring countries based on the principles of mutual trust, friendship and goodwill. The visiting Ministers were also exposed to the Science Park in IIT-Madras where technology start-ups are being incubated, at CLRI where clean technologies for leather industry are being developed and were showcased the advanced marine technologies at NIOT, Chennai. 

Gandhi-Mandela Program on Grass Root Innovation

India and South Africa are celebrating twenty years of strategic partnership this year. The Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Dr. Harsh Vardhan attended the celebrations of the collaboration in science and technology in Durban. The event was co-hosted by the Departments of Science and Technology of S. Africa and India. The South African Minister for S&T Ms. Naledi Pandor along with Dr. Vardhan released a booklet highlighting the two decades of fruitful cooperation in science and technology spanning across the knowledge chain which has resulted into a robust networking of the best researchers and academic institutions. Inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in the field of Science & Technology was concluded in 1995. Since then the S&T cooperation has progressively evolved as an important pillar in the India-South Africa strategic partnership based on mutual trust, warmth and friendship.

So far, the cooperation has been focussed on chosen areas like Astronomy & Astrophysics, Agriculture Sciences, Green Chemistry, Indigenous Knowledge System and Health Sciences where both countries have complementary strengths. Since the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to S. Africa last year, the S&T cooperation has seen a significant boost with launch of 8 new projects on Astronomy which will help to augment the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project led by South Africa.

Earlier, Dr. Harshvardhan visited the SKA site in Karoo desert and was apprised of the progress of the mega-telescope project in which India is a member country. Indian scientists will be contributing in several design work packages of SKA, notably the Telescope Manager and the Central Signal Processing. Telescope Manager System will be the controlling nerve centre behind the functioning of the SKA observatory. The SKA project will address some of the most interesting science goals in astrophysics, ranging from the very early Universe to the search for intelligent life out there.

A multi-institutional project on HIV Vaccine Research Collaboration has been also initiated this year. This is aimed to develop preventive HIV vaccine and will also lead to the identification of biomarkers and development of novel techniques for diagnosis and management of tuberculosis. Dr. Harshvardhan remarked that this is a unique project, where two countries will use science for adressing the health care needs of people of both countries, in the area of HIV and TB.

Another hallmark of the vibrant collaboration was the launch of a new program on ‘Grass Root Innovation’ aimed towards sharing of open source technologies and IPR protection of traditional knowledge systems. This program is designed for co-development of products through value addition, validation through product deployment and market ready technology transfer with a focus on affordability. The Minister, added that both India and S. Africa have a rich pool of traditional knowledge which can be leveraged by providing the scientific knowledge base required for technology development for societal benefit. This cooperation on grass root innovation will provide scientific and technological solutions for addressing the unmet needs of the common man. The novel initiative has been aptly named as ‘Gandhi-Mandela Program on Grass Root Innovation’. National Innovation Foundation, Ahmedabad will implement this program on the Indian side.

Earlier in a bilateral meeting with the S. African S&T Minister, Dr. Harshvardhan suggested the future expansion of collaboration in the area of renewable energy including solar, wind and biomass which is a potential resource for both the countries. India is a leading country in the International Solar Alliance partnership and has extended an invite to S. Africa to join this alliance. It was also agreed that another area of potential collaboration is on blue economy looking at the marine eco-system including the living and non-living resources of the ocean. Both India and S. Africa are maritime nations and are a part of the Indian Ocean Rim Association. Indian expedition to Antarctica is also launched from Cape Town. The two countries stand to gain by understanding the ocean processes which shapes the climate and coastal eco-system.

While in Cape Town, the Minister also visited the famous Groote Schuur Hospital where the first open heart surgery was conducted by Dr. Christian Bernad in 1967. An interaction with scientists at the South African National Botanical Institute (SANBI) was also held and the ongoing cooperation with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun on bio-informatics was highlighted. Dr. Harshvardhan visited the national park and the herbarium showcasing the rich flora of the Cape region.

In Durban, besides the bilateral meeting with the South African side, Dr. Harshvardhan also paid his floral homage to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, at the Pietermaritzburg Railway platform, where the Mayor of the city welcomed him and conducted a tour of the Gandhi exhibition at the station. At the India House in Durban Dr. Harshvardhan interacted with the Indian community and highlighted the major programs of the Government and urged them to contribute and remain connected in the various development facets of India.

The 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics has been conferred to three scientists namely Rainer Weiss, Barry C Barish & Kip S Thorne under the LIGO Project for their discovery of gravitational waves, 100 years after Einstein's General Relativity predicted it. The Nobel Prize for Physics 2017 celebrates the direct detection of Gravitational waves arriving from the merger two large Black holes in a distant galaxy a Billion of light years away. Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. This opens a new window to Astronomy since Gravitational Waves are an entirely new way of observing the most violent events in space.

This is a proud moment for India also, since the discovery paper has 39 Indian authors/scientists from nine institutions-, CMI Chennai, ICTS-TIFR Bengaluru, IISER-Kolkata, IISER-Trivandrum, IIT Gandhinagar, IPR Gandhinagar, IUCAA Pune, RRCAT Indore and TIFR Mumbai. primarily funded through individual/ institutional grants by Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Human Resource Development AE, DST and MHRD, who are co-authors of this discovery paper.

Late Professor CV Vishveshvara of RRI, Bengaluru (DST AI) and Professor SV Dhurandhar of IUCAA, Pune and some other Indian scientists made seminal contributions to this field which contributed towards the principles behind the LIGO Detector.

The group led by Bala Iyer (currently at ICTS-TIFR) at the Raman Research Institute in collaboration with scientists in France had pioneered the mathematical calculations used to model Gravitational Wave signals from orbiting black holes and neutron stars. Theoretical work that combined black holes and gravitational waves was published by C. V. Vishveshwara in 1970. These contributions are prominently cited in the discovery paper.

An opportunity for India taking leadership in this field has opened up with the LIGO-India mega-science project that was granted ‘in principle’ approval by the Union Cabinet on Feb 17 2016. LIGO-India brings forth a real possibility of Indian scientists and technologists stepping forward, with strong international cooperation, into the frontier of an emergent area of high visibility and promise presented by the recent GW detections and the high promise of a new window of gravitational-wave astronomy to probe the universe.

The global science community is unanimous that the future of Gravitational wave astronomy and astrophysics, beyond the first discovery, lies with the planned global array of GW detectors, including the LIGO-India observatory. Inclusion of LIGO-India greatly improves the angular resolution in the location of the gravitational-wave source by the LIGO global network. For the discovery event observed by the two advanced LIGO detectors in the US, with a hypothetical LIGO-India in operation, there would have been 100 times improvement in the angular resolution.

The LIGO-India proposal is for the construction and operation of an Advanced LIGO Detector in India in collaboration with the LIGO Laboratories, USA. The objective is to set up the Indian node of the three node global Advanced LIGO detector network by 2024 and operate it for 10 years. The task for LIGO-India includes the challenge of constructing the very large vaccum infrastructure that would hold a space of volume 10 million litres that can accommodate the entire 4 km scale laser interferometer in ultra high vacuum environment at nano-torrs. Indian team is also responsible for installation and commissioning the complex instrument and attaining the ultimate design sensitivity.

The LIGO-India project is being jointly executed by lead institutions: the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune of the University Grants commission, and DAE organisations, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore and the Directorate of Construction & Estate Management (DCSEM) of DAE.

LIGO-India is being jointly funded by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). A LIGO-India Apex committee, together with the LIGO-India Project Management Board (LI-PMB) and LIGO-India Scientific Management Board (LI-SMB), were constituted in August 2016 to oversee the project execution, and there has been rapid pace of progress since then. LIGO-India is on track for commencing operations by 2024.