With the theme of the 99th Science Congress being “Science and Technology for Inclusive Innovation — Role of Women,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his inaugural speech highlighted the lack of job opportunities for women scientists.
Dr Singh quoted the results of a 2011 study which showed that 60 per cent of the 2,000 Indian women PhDs in science were unemployed.
“The main reason cited was lack of job opportunities with only a very small number citing family reasons,” the Prime Minister said.
He added that “This underlined the need for transparency in selection procedures at institutions and also the great importance of gender audits.”
He highlighted a scheme being formulated by the department of science and technology called “Disha” which had created 1,000 contractual jobs for women scientists allowing them to relocate to other cities but providing them with emoluments at par with what was being received by other scientists.
Another “Women Scientists Scheme” created by the department of science and technology has helped more than 2,000 women scientists resume careers after breaks arising from family commitments, he said.
The Prime Minister praised the existing Inspire scheme out of which 49.6 per cent of the awardees were women.
Dr Singh called for raising the expenditure on R&D to two per cent of the GDP in the 12th Plan period but this could only be achieved if industry, which currently contributes one-third of R&D expenditure, stepped up its contribution.
The Prime Minister regretted that while General Electric and Motorola had created world-class technology hubs in India, this was not the case with the Indian industry except “perhaps in the pharmaceutical sector.”
At present, he added, “publicly funded R&D was skewed in favour of fundamental rather than applied research.” “But it was easier to attract industrial funds into applied research,” Dr Singh said, citing the example of Biopolis in Singapore which had brought 2,000 scientists and researchers working under bio-science hub. The closest to this was the Open Source Drug Discovery project in India which had helped provide affordable solutions rather than follow the conventional “in-lab” approach.
Some significant scientific projects the Prime Minister highlighted included building of a supercomputer at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru at a cost of `5,000 crore, starting a Neutrino Observatory in Theni district in Tamil Nadu at a cost of `1,350 crore.and National Monsoon Mission to improve the predictability of Indian monsoons.