From rxpgnews.com
Indian villages can produce Michael Faradays: Scientist
By IANS,
Feb 8, 2007 - 6:56:17 PM
New Delhi, Feb 8 - Exhorting the youth to take up science as a career, renowned scientist C.N.R. Rao Thursday said Indian villages can produce scientists like Michael Faraday.
'The 700 million people in Indian villages do not lack talent. We need to give them proper opportunities and many Faradays and Aryabhattas can come out of them,' said Rao, who is also the head of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
'India needs to improve its rural areas and schooling facilities. Unless we train our teachers well and provide our youngsters with quality teachers, we should not expect result,' he told science icons and nearly 1,000 students at the first India-EU science meet here.
Rao, who has over 1,000 research papers and 40 books to his credit, admitted that currently the science scenario in India is not very bright.
'Science and equity are almost synonymous. Let's empower our people with knowledge. The lack of knowledge and opportunities is a great hindrance and we need to work on this front.
'We only produce 2.7 percent of the world science literature as against over 10 percent by China. We should at least produce 10 percent of world's science literature,' said the scientist, who has guided 125 doctorate scholars.
The chemist, who has been associated with the Indian Institute of Science - and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Research, both based in Bangalore, also said that India should have 20,000 PhD scholars a year against the 7,000 now.
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