Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation

PM’s address at Vaishvik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit 2020

  • Namaskar! Greetings and gratitude to you all, for joining this conversation. This forum has got together distinguished talent, both Pravasi and Indian. Vaishwik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit 2020 celebrates science and innovation from India and the world.
  • I would call it a true Sangam, or confluence of great minds. Through this gathering, we seek to form a long-lasting association for empowering India and our planet .
  • Friends, I would like to thank the scientists who offered their comments, suggestions and ideas today. You have brilliantly covered many subjects in your interventions.
  • Most of you highlighted the importance of greater collaboration between Indian academic and research ecosystem with their foreign counterparts. Indeed, that is the fundamental aim of this Summit.
  • You correctly point towards the need of driving scientific research, towards the needs of society. You also made some good suggestions, for improving the research ecosystem in India.
  • I would like to thank all of you, for your views. Listening to your words, I could see that this Vaibhav Summit is going to be a rich and productive exchange.
  • Friends, Science has remained at the core of the progress of human-kind. When we look back, at the centuries of human existence, how do we divide the time periods?
  • Stone age, Bronze age, Iron age, Industrial age, Space age and Digital age. These are some of the terms used. Clearly, each phase has been shaped by some significant technological advance. Changes in technology have brought changes in our life-styles. It also increased scientific curiosity.
  • Friends, The Government of India has taken numerous measures to boost science, research and innovation. Science is at the core of our efforts towards socio-economic change.
  • We broke inertia in the system. The long break in vaccine introduction was broken. In 2014, four new vaccines were introduced into our immunisation programme.
  • This included an indigenously developed Rota-virus vaccine. We encourage indigenous vaccine production. Recently, we also gave market authorisation for an indigenously developed Pneumococcal vaccine.
  • These vaccination programmes and our POSHAN mission take the health and nutrition of our children to the level of importance it deserves.
  • Our vaccine developers are active and globally competitive during this pandemic. We understand that time is of the essence.
  • We have launched an ambitious mission to remove TB in India by 2025. This is five years before the global target.
  • Friends, There are other on-going efforts as well. We have launched major missions on supercomputing and on cyber-physical systems. These have expanded on fundamental research and application in areas such as: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Sensors and Big Data Analytics.
  • This will provide a great boost to Indian manufacturing. It will help create skilled young human resource. The start-up sector will prosper. 25 Technology Innovation Hubs have already been launched under the mission.
  • Friends, We want top class scientific research to help our farmers. Our agricultural research scientists have worked hard to ramp up our production of pulses.
  • Today we import only a very small fraction of our pulses. Our food-grain production has hit a record high. Friends, Recently, India got a National Education Policy. After over three decades, India has such a policy.
  • The making of this policy involved wide-spread consultations for several months. This National Education Policy, राष्ट्रीय शिक्षा नीति, aims to boost curiosity  towards sciences.
  • It gives much needed boost to research and innovation. I am particularly optimistic about the focus on multidisciplinary  The open and broad based academic environment will nurture young talent.