Indian Prime Minister pledging to double investment in science

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Pointed to by the Computing Research Policy TumbleLog, an article in the Business Standard with comments from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comments at the Indian Science Congress in Shillong on January 3

Science education is a fundamental requirement for any modern nation to meet the challenges and avail of the opportunities of our modern scientific and technologic age. Our government has placed the highest emphasis on making a career in science attractive to our young people.

…Four years ago, there was only one Indian Institute of Science, which was a hundred-year-old institution. Today, we can say with pride that we have launched five new institutions dedicated to teaching and research in sciences. This marks a historic turning point for Indian science. I had promised and I stand by the promise, that we will double the investment in science to 2 per cent of national income from the current 1 per cent.

More in the article. The world is a big place, and the future belongs to those who are willing to invest in it, and committed to honing those investments until they get it right. The US Congress has not recently indicated they possess either characteristic when it comes to science policy in the United States.