Science education in for big boost

A mission to Mars, tourists in space and Rs 1 lakh annual scholarship for science students are some proposals that will come before the Planning Commission later this week, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Nov 6, 2007, 03:03:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A mission to Mars, tourists in space and Rs 1 lakh annual scholarship for science students are some proposals that will come before the Planning Commission later this week.

The schemes, estimated to be over Rs 2,000 crore that will be executed in the next five years, are being suggested to cultivate an interest in science.

Scientists like CNR Rao, the head of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, had expressed disappointment over the state of science education in India. ISRO is also witnessing a fast attrition rate with 11 scientists leaving every month, the Parliament was informed earlier this year.

The Ministry of Science and Technology plans to set up an institute — the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology — to create quality human resources for ISRO.

Within ISRO, the government will provide training on management and leadership to scientists and engineers.

“Specialised training on new vistas of technology and science will be provided to the young engineers and scientists,” a ministry’s proposal to the Planning Commission said.

With the pool of manpower, the ambitious mission to Mars, asteroid missions to fly close to comets, space tourism and developing technologies for manned missions will get a boost, the ministry has said.

The government also plans to launch a scheme — Innovations in Science Pursuits for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) — that will provide financial aid to 10 lakh young innovators in schools.

The recommendation of the Oversight Committee for Higher Education to start a scholarship scheme for students pursuing B.Sc and M.Sc courses will also be part of the scheme. Each of the 10,000 students to be covered will get Rs 1 lakh per annum as scholarship fee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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