Focus on villages to bridge econ divide: Nuclear physicist

Panaji: As India makes economic progress, it must ensure disparity in the country does not increase, said nuclear physicist and former chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, Anil Kakodkar, on Thursday.

Kakodkar, during his address at the 7th Manohar Parrikar Vidnyan Mahotsav, said disparity is an element that causes instability over a period of time and that the country must have a model of development that keeps disparity in check. India needs to create applications that bridge the divide between the haves and have-nots, he said, and suggested that a good way of doing this is by paying attention to the villages.


“When we talk about doing good science, we need to keep three things in mind: there should be excellence making it comparable to the very best in the world, it should have an impact, and it should lead to new things — both in new knowledge and new technologies — that others have not done at the time. The second aspect, which is equally important, is that we should be able to understand the core problems facing our country and resolve them through science and technology,” Kakodkar told students.

The physicist said there should be India-specific development of science and technology because that is what will propel the country forward faster.

“We must also recognise that as a country advances and economic progress moves forward, so does the disparity. You create applications that create a bridge that eliminates the divide between the haves and have-nots, between the rich and the poor, between people who have access and people who have difficulty in accessing knowledge and facilities. One good way of doing that is to pay attention to the villages,” said Kakodkar.

He said that in an era where work-from-home has become acceptable, one can consider contributing to the economy by working in a village, like Sridhar Vembu, the chief of Zoho Corporation, who moved his global headquarters from the US to a village in Tamil Nadu.

Kakodkar said former Goa CM Manohar Parrikar had a vision for Goa, and that science and young people were at the centre of that vision.

Chairperson of the Manohar Parrikar Vidnyan Mahotsav celebration committee, Jose Manuel Noronha, said the mahotsav has attracted more than 30,000 students over the last six years.

CM Pramod Sawant said 19 scientists are delivering lectures for students at eight venues simultaneously as part of the mahotsav, and that such a festival does not take place anywhere else in India.

Former Isro chief A S Kiran Kumar said India’s space mission has taken big strides since it began in 1969. “In a few years, you will see Indians going around the earth in our own launch vehicles,” he told the students.

The Manohar Parrikar Yuva Scientist Award was conferred on Sai Gautam Gopalakrishnan, an early-tenured associate professor of materials engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, where he leads a research group in computational materials science.