Need for strong links between varsities and market, says renowned scientist

Trichy: Renowned space scientist Y S Rajan reposed faith in youth's abilities while regretting the linkages between the varsities, industry and market. A lot of energy is still left with the youth who were born around the 1970s and lots of hope in the post 1990-borns, said Rajan, who is an honorary professor in the department of space. Rajan was here to deliver Sir C V Raman endowment lecture on "science, engineering, industry and markets" at the National College.
Raman effect-based industries were worth a billion dollar or more word wide, but it was not so in the country of its discovery as the vital linkages did not exist, Rajan told the students. Raman effect, also known as Raman scattering, is the inelastic scattering of a photon. It is attributed to the late Indian physicist C V Raman.
Though post-independent India established many large industries and science and technology institutions, IITs and universities, the lack of academia-industry-market linkages is deplorable, he said.
Talking about the definition of technology, he made a dig at the IT industry craze saying, "Information technology people have captured the word 'technology' for themselves as if every engineering that does not have a component of IT is not technology! Even the routine repetitive work of IT business is presented as superior technology, but complex automobile engineering does not receive any acclaim. Worse still is the situation for coal or iron mining or metallurgy of many advanced materials or regular electricity-related things."
When asked why India that had perfected rocket science did not lay good roads, he replied that it was not because that the civil engineers were lacking, but there were several factors that needed to be understood. "We do not plan. We delay things for some eight years, and suddenly we can do the same in just one year. But a lot of compromises is made midway. Another factor is rentals, which is nothing but corruption," Rajan explained.
Negating the point that scientists in the country are not doing enough, he said it was primarily the scientist who discovered there was pollution. It was the satellite that discovered the ozone hole. The scientist may not use the word environment per se all the time, but they study geology, atmosphere, chemical and water. The solutions exist because of engineering and technological research. It is through the modern scientific discovery we have started understanding environment. we could not say that the industries are not aware of pollution, But unfortunately, pollution control in the country is not effective because of red tape. The measurements are there, but people try to escape it, he said.