Best minds should work for the poor: Mashelkar

?THE BIGGEST challenge at present times is to make the best minds in India think and work for the poor,? eminent scientist and policymaker Dr R A Mashelkar said today. Delivering the first Homi Jahangir Bhaba Memorial Lecture on the topic ?Making High Tech work for poor? at the NITTTR auditorium here, Dr Mashelkar said that unless the benefits of advancements of technology reached the poor, India could not expect to become a developed nation.

‘THE BIGGEST challenge at present times is to make the best minds in India think and work for the poor,’ eminent scientist and policymaker Dr R A Mashelkar said today. Delivering the first Homi Jahangir Bhaba Memorial Lecture on the topic ‘Making High Tech work for poor’ at the NITTTR auditorium here, Dr Mashelkar said that unless the benefits of advancements of technology reached the poor, India could not expect to become a developed nation.

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The lecture had been organised by Pandit Sunderlal Sharma Central Institute of Vocational Education (PSSCIVE). The secretary of the Union Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and DG of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr Mashelkar said that the main concerns of the poor are illiteracy, education, healthcare, water, and energy among others and unless technological innovations, backed up by social and policy level innovations, were applied to solve these issues the country could not hope to progress.

Explaining social innovations, Dr Mashelkar gave some examples like the Ekal Vidyalaya Scheme, the water revolution by Tarun Bharat Sangh, the Kudambashree project in Andhra Pradesh and others that, he said, had definitely made impact on life of common people. As for the policy level innovations, they were steps on the part of the government that make big differences like opening up of the telecom sector to let the benefits of technology reach the lowermost economic strata.

As for the technological innovations aimed at poor, the CSIR DG spoke about the development of Jaipur foot, the production of low cost sanitary napkins by Shriram Research Foundation, the development of the Computer Based Functional Literacy (CBFL) by the Tata Consultancy Services and so on.

He said that on its part the CSIR had launched the Golden Triangle Project for bringing together traditional medicine, modern medicine and modern science to come up with low cost and effective drugs. Also the projects like New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) have led to development of 37 innovative projects including the mobile desktop PCs, low-cost water filter that filters both bacteria and virus and so on.

He said that all the people involved in these projects had the compassion, passion and innovation. These are the qualities that are most important in present circumstances, he added. Joint director of the PSSCIVE M Sen Gupta delivered the welcome address. Head of Home Science Division of the Institute Dr Mridula Saxena conducted the programme.

Four centres opened at RRL:
Dr Mashelkar inaugurated four centres at the Regional Research Laboratory – the Technology Enabling Centre, Computer Simulation and Design Centre, Micro fluidics & MEMS Center and Computational Fluid Dynamics Center.

Dr. Mashelkar had a look at the progress made in various R&D activities of the laboratory in different areas like wood substitute, building materials, sisal composites, materials from industrial wastes, automobile sector, modeling and design, cellular materials, light materials, tribo materials, environmental modeling, CFD application in minerals processing and minerals processing design.

He underscored the need to innovate cost effective new materials from natural resources. He appreciated the work done by the laboratory in the areas of natural fibre composites, Al Foam, and micro fluidics and MEMS.

Later, while addressing the staff of RRL, Dr Mashelkar appreciated the progress made by the laboratory and the commitment of the personnel. The physical income of the laboratory has gone up by threefold but the commitment, dedication and hard work being done by the scientists is much more important, he said.

At the outset, Dr N Ramakrishnan, Director, RRL presented a report on the activities of RRL.