Via: Hasit seth
=========== Comment ===================
Hi All,
I like Shekhar Gupta's walk-the-talk interviews transcripts in
indianexpress.com. Below is one with R.A.Mashelkar, CSIR chief. See
how a personal story of hardship, education, science meshes up with a
nation's quest to become an innovation powerhouse. I like it best when
people who do science and invention speak about patents and
innovation, so here is one of such person speaking.
Regards,
Hasit
======================================
INDIAN EXPRESS
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
On the record
Dr. R A Mashelkar, Director-General Chemist CSIR
'Patent, Publish and Prosper'
This man rose from humble origins to be one of India's leading
scientists and science administrators. Dr. R.A.Mashelkar,
Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,
speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV
24x7's Walk the Talk programme about his difficult childhood, his
return to India as a newly-qualified researcher in the late 1970s, and
his meteoric rise to positions of leadership in the scientific
community since then.
• In a hundred and forty two years, only eight Indians have been
elected as fellows of America's National Academy of Sciences. It's an
honour considered second only to the Nobel Prize, and in 2005, after
many decades of hard work, it was given to Dr. Raghunath Anand
Mashelkar. Today, Dr. Mashelkar leads what is perhaps one of the
largest government scientific establishments in the world with more
than 16,000 scientists and technicians. Dr. Mashelkar, you're an
inspiring presence and it's a very special privilege to welcome you on
Walk the Talk, and that too in your alma mater, the National Chemical
Laboratory in Pune.
Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here in this lab. I came
here in 1976, almost three decades ago, as a young man. It's wonderful
to be standing here today.
• I believe you still keep coming back here, whenever you find the
time, to continue with your research.
Yes. Science is my first love and although I'm in Delhi, I do come
here on the weekends to spend time with my students and with my
colleagues. I keep active — it's extremely important for me.
• Dr. Mashelkar, before we get into your life in your labs, let me
take you back to your childhood. You've had very humble beginnings;
you've written very touchingly about your tough childhood, the death
of your father when you were six, the trouble your mother had bringing
you up, even the fact that she had to borrow money from a housemaid to
pay for your education.
Yes. It was Rs 21 that we needed and we had to go to a housemaid who
was working at Chowpatty in Bombay to get it so I could get admission
in school. You know, very importantly, that was her saving and she
gave it to us, telling my mother that your son must study. It was an
amazing time.
• I think opportunities have got a bit better now for children from
humble backgrounds. India has changed.
Indeed. I am very proud to say that I went to a municipal school, a
Marathi high school. Primary education would have been impossible if
it was not free. Scores of such children today get an opportunity. I
actually had a scholarship from the Tatas, just Rs. 60 a month, which
allowed me to go to college after I did my SSC.
• But life has become more of a level playing field for people like
us, people I describe as HMTs, the Hindi Medium Types.
(laughs) Yes; I was an MMT — a Marathi Medium Type — but that's true, yes.
• In fact, I was speaking at a function at Infosys and on impulse I
asked the audience, which had Infosys engineers, that how many of them
came from English medium schools. It was pleasantly surprising to see
how few hands went up. It means real India, or Bharat, is doing
alright.
Absolutely. I believe that really is an area we need to worry about. I
mean, 50 per cent of the children go to school, about 30 per cent of
them go up to class X, 40 per cent of those pass. We are talking about
six per cent children who go beyond Class X. It's the tip of the
iceberg — the rest of the iceberg is submerged. I think our biggest
challenge is how to lift that iceberg, where Mashelkars resided at one
point of time.
• And to give them an environment where it's not so vital any more
that your parents should have done very well in life.
Indeed. And you see scores of such examples of young people coming up
who have been given an opportunity. I think the essential issue,
Shekhar, is an opportunity in life to go ahead, like the scholarship I
got or the subsequent opportunities I had. Even when I went abroad,
for example, the way I was brought back is very interesting.
• Mrs. Gandhi, I believe, told Dr Nayaduma to search for somebody and
he found you and he said: "No application, no certificates, just come
with me."
Yes, it was an unbelievable time. In fact, Mrs. Gandhi was really
concerned that Hargobind Khurana, who got the Nobel Prize, actually
came here and could not get a job. So she said to Dr Nayaduma, who was
my predecessor, the director general, "Just go, spot the brightest,
and offer them a job on the spot." That was how I was brought back.
• I didn't know that she was spurred to this by Hargobind Khurana's Nobel.
Yes. At that time, there was a lot of discussion over why young people
have to struggle, basically, with all these applications and waiting
and interviews.
• So Mrs. Gandhi in 1974, who at that time was beginning to swear by
Socialism, was willing to short circuit all the rules to spot talent.
Indeed. And she trusted Dr. Nayaduma and his judgement. I remember his
coming to the Savoy Hotel in London; I went, talked to him for half an
hour and he filled me with the dream of a new India. I accepted his
offer on the spot somehow, I am a very intuitive person, I think from
my heart and in the evening, I phoned up my wife and said: "The nation
is calling us, let's go back." I came here on a salary of Rs. 2100.
Times were very tough then, Shekhar, in 1976. I still remember coming
here, to this lab, and struggling to get a gas cylinder; my wife used
to cook on a kerosene stove. I remember applying for a Bajaj scooter
which cost Rs. 3500. I waited for it about five to six years.
• And this lab produces more chemistry Ph.D.s than any place in the
world, I believe.
Absolutely. There are more than 450 research scholars who do their
Ph.Ds here in the National Chemical Laboratory. But, going back to
those times, those times and now it's very different. I remember, at
that point of time, if one talked about 128K, it was a big memory for
a computer. Today we talk about gigaflops and teraflops. The library
you see, I remember the journals used to come here by sea mail. It
used to take four months for them to arrive. Today, I have 3,000
e-journals for our students.
• But, Dr. Mashelkar, on the flip side, there are many universities in
India, particularly agricultural universities, which spend 110, 120
per cent of their budget just on salaries and establishment, and have
no money for journals or research. In fact, in many cases you would
find that their subscription for journals has lapsed.
I believe that our university system is in dire trouble, particularly
the state universities; the central universities are doing reasonably
okay. There is hardly any money for development. I do believe that
unless our universities are resurrected, in a major way, India has no
hope.
• You've been working on some of that. I think you've been associated
with some work on the ICAR; Sharad Pawar set up a committee to look
into it.
Yes, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. We thought
agriculture is very critical for India. You know the good work that
they have done in the past, but we found that that the system needed
huge reforms, so there was a committee under my chairmanship.
• It had become hugely bureaucratic.
It has. We have suggested a large number of reforms. Why should there
be a director-general and a director, and in between, so many deputy
directors-generals and additional directors-general and so on? I
believe that Mr. Sharad Pawar is looking at this report to see how
that entire system can be reformed.
• Tell me a bit about when you took over CSIR. I believe it was as bad as ICAR.
Well, to be very honest, we were in trouble. We had 40 laboratories
and they behaved like 40. There was nothing like Team CSIR. Strong
trade unions, my director of the National Environmental Engineering
Research Institute would phone me up and say: "Sir, there are a
hundred people in my room, speak to them." We would have laboratories
where directors would be locked up, practically, not even be allowed
to go to the washroom.
• I believe you had meetings in boardrooms which had slogans painted
inside on the walls.
Absolutely. All that is gone because we now have a very transparent,
open system. We see a new, vibrant CSIR. And most importantly, I
believe, what has happened is that CSIR has become Team CSIR: 40 labs
working together.
• You've called patents as a 'wealth creator'. Explain that to me a little bit.
Well, it's like this. I remember Robert May, the president of the
Royal Society, used to say that the UK is great in coming up with new
ideas, and lots of wealth is made, not in the UK, but in Europe and
the US. It was the same thing for India. We would generate new ideas
but we would not patent them, others would. So we've changed the
paradigm. In this laboratory, we've changed the paradigm. We've said
it's not 'publish or perish', but 'patent, publish and prosper'
because there is a wealth creation potential.
• 'Patent, Publish and Prosper' — these are your three Ps of
scientific research, like the three Ps of marketing.
Absolutely. Even Nobel laureates have patented; Einstein had patents,
34 of them. This entire issue in India has been, very frankly,
Saraswati on the one hand and Lakshmi on the other, we have kept them
apart. Whereas that part of the world discovered the route from
Saraswati to Lakshmi. Today, I am very happy to say that when we talk
about India as a global research design and development platform, with
companies like General Electric setting up their R&D centres in this
country, its beginning was here.
• I believe you sold them a patent, in fact, one of your first patent
sales, wasn't it?
In fact, General Electric had a 40 per cent share of polycarbonate.
Polycarbonates are plastic materials from which we make CDs, among
other things are made. And on polycarbonate, in this laboratory, we
had a breakthrough. At that point of time, rather than publishing it,
what we made sure of was that we had a US patent.
• Because if you had just published it, somebody else would have
picked up the idea.
Oh, wealth would have been created by others. We wanted to create
wealth here. I remember going to the General Electric R&D centre in
Schenectady and actually marketing. Basically, they shook hands with
us with mutual respect because they saw a flag on their territory
which came on the basis of an idea. I have always said, it's not the
big budget, it's the big idea that matters. Our partnership with GE
flowered from there and one day Jack Welch said: "If they are so good,
why are we not there?" And that is how the General Electric R&D centre
came up here and today we talk about 150 such centres coming up.
That's why when we talk about India as a global innovation hub, its
beginnings can be seen now.
• So you are a globaliser at heart?
Very much so. I don't believe in national boundaries. In fact, in
1989, when I took over this laboratory, I went into this whole issue
of globalisation for a very simple reason. Any time we develop
something and bring it to Indian industry, they would say: "Have they
done it?" — meaning have the US or Europe or Japan done it? I said:
"What do we do? Am I going to be copying US engineering all my life?"
That is where we opened up and we said our markets would be global.
That did something special. It raised the benchmark for us.
• What happens in India — it's a theme I've been working on for some
time — we wrap bad science in the tricolour and say: "This may not be
cutting-edge internationally, but it is indigenous." There's nothing
indigenous about science; science is global.
Absolutely, by definition. Technology can be local, to meet local
needs. For example, a product can be local. But science is global. I
think there is only one benchmark by which we should be judged and
that is global.
• There is a problem in our country. When Pokharan I and II happened,
they were confused in the public mind with a scientific breakthrough.
I was appalled when the BJP government hailed Pokharan II with the
slogan of 'Jai Vigyan' — a nuclear test is not a triumph of
cutting-edge science. It is 1950s science being replicated and
re-engineered. When science gets politicised like that, don't you
think it causes a problem?
It does indeed. When one talks about India becoming a knowledge
society, it's not only about becoming a knowledge society, but an
enlightened one, which understands all this.
• Dr. Mashelkar, let me take you back to your origins, because that is
really so fascinating for a vast majority of Indians. So, tell me,
what did your mother say when she first saw your success?
My mother is with me even today. It's very interesting — she was
illiterate herself, you see; she did menial work to bring me up. But
she understood the value of education, and, Shekhar, I myself do not
know why she insisted on education. She had gone in search of a job in
Congress House in Bombay. She stood in the queue and returned without
a job. You know why? Because the minimum qualification was third
standard. So when she was returning she said: "My God. This has
happened to me; I don't want this to happen to my son. He must have
the highest possibility." So, when I did my masters in chemical
engineering, she said: "There is something further"; she made sure I
did my Ph.D. And when I finished my Ph.D., she had found out that
there is post-doctoral research to be done too.
• This is what makes Indian society special — the great store it lays
by education.
Education is the only real gift a parent can give.
• I believe 67 per cent of the graduates who are unemployed are
science graduates.
Indeed. You know, I am currently the president of the Indian National
Science Academy. Just last, month we brought out the India Science
Report and it shows these statistics. The National Council of Applied
Economic Research has done a field study and this is true. Why is
there this unemployment? It is simple. First of all, the bulk of the
time, you are looking for jobs in the government. Government jobs are
restricted. Universities today are in such a state that they have
vacancies but they can't fill them.
• In fact, I remember in my reporting years, I had once gone there to
cover a strike and one of the faculty members told me: "We have a very
limited curriculum here now. It's called Brahmin, Thakur, Bhumihar,
eastern UP, Western Bihar."
My goodness! The other thing is that there must be a demand on science
in society, in industry, for example. Our industries were so protected
that they hardly bothered about science or innovation. But it's no
longer so. I find that there is a demand which is coming up after
1991, after opening up, liberalisation, competition has come in. You
know, what has happened with the drugs and pharmaceuticals industry?
Their R&D spending has gone up by a factor of five in the last four
years; new R&D centres are coming up, they are looking for hundreds of
Ph.Ds.
• I remember you writing some where, complimenting the Tatas for
spending Rs. 1700 crore on developing the Indica — I think the largest
project you ever got was Rs 150 crore?
Absolutely. If you look at the way the Tatas did it — Ratan Tata, I
must say — hats off to him. He put in 700 engineers who had never
designed a car in their lives and risked Rs 1760 crore. And today we
talk about the Indica.
• To steal your words, he built that wall for his engineers to paint
on. In that article you wrote for the India Empowered series in The
Indian Express, you talked of scientists as painters. You said that
Michelangelo became a great painter because somebody gave him a wall
to paint on and you said that the US gave you your wall to paint on.
Who's going to build these walls for other Indian scientists? What are
the bricks that will make these walls, who are the best masons,
architects; what's happening?
I think this is where new institutions, institutions like this, the
National Chemical Laboratory, become important. You mentioned my
National Academy of Sciences honour — it is one of the highest
honours, yes, that is true. But, as a matter of fact, I did that work
right here. And it is true that I am only the eighth Indian in 140
years. But that wall did come to me, so as to say, and it was given to
me by a visionary, backing up a 32-year old man, and saying: "Invest
in him; he has potential." I believe that we require new institutions
which will do that. That is why I am very happy that, just on this
campus, we have given a hundred acres of land to create a new
institute of science. It's a shame that for a country of a billion, we
had just one institute of science, and that too built by the Tatas. I
am very happy that the government is building two institutes of
sciences, one of them will come up right here.
• Pune has the potential of becoming the new science capital of India.
Absolutely. We have the National Chemical Laboratory here, we'll have
that institute of science, we have the Pune University. In fact, if
you take a compass and draw a circle of one-and-a-half kilometres, we
have 14 top class institutions here. Just imagine what it could be.
It's amazing.
URL:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82884 
