S&T ADVISER TO SECSTATE ENGAGES PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000967

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR G, OES/PCI, OES/STC, OES/SAT, OES/EGC, AND SCA/INS
STATE FOR STAS
STATE PASS TO NSF FOR INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SENV ENRG TSPL TRGY KSCA KGHG IN
SUBJECT: S&T ADVISER TO SECSTATE ENGAGES PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC
ADVISER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ON ENHANCING INDO-US SCIENTIFIC
COLLABORATIONS

NEW DELHI 00000967 001.2 OF 003



1. SUMMARY: Dr. Nina Fedoroff, S&T Adviser to the US Secretary of
State and the AID Administrator, met with Dr. Rajagopala
Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of
India (GOI) during her recent visit to India and discussed the scope
and status of Indo - U.S. S&T collaborations. Dr. Chidambaram
elaborated on GOI's plans for enhancement in S&T funding and
capacity building with a focus on attracting the best talent towards
research. He highlighted the unique challenges of innovation in
India, as it has to address the needs of the industrial as well as
the rural sectors and strive for inclusive growth. He also
reiterated the need for a broader engagement in S&T between the two
countries and for simplifying the visa process for scientists
traveling from India to USA. Some of the areas he suggested for
collaborative programs include closing the nuclear fuel cycle for
power, biofuels, renewable energies, supercomputers, climate
modeling, biotechnology and nanotechnology. END SUMMARY.

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Enhancement in Science and Technology Funding with a Long
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Term Vision of Inclusive Growth
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2. Dr. Chidambaram who was also the former Chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC),started the meeting by welcoming Dr.
Fedoroff (SciCouns and SCI FSN were also present) and mentioning how
most young Indian scientists have a strong affinity for research in
the US and hence is their most favorite destination. Looking at
India's aspiration to be a developed nation by 2020 and the relative
slow growth in S&T in the past two decades, funding for S&T R&D has
been increased three fold from $5.9 billion in the tenth plan period
(2001 - 2006) to $18.7 billion in the eleventh plan period (2007 -
2012). He further added that if one looks at the history of any
nation, progress coincided with enhanced investment in S&T.


3. When Dr. Fedoroff asked him what were the key challenges for
India, Dr. Chidambaram said it was joint planning for the rural and
the urban India. Innovation needs for the industrial and rural
sectors of India were very different. No single formula could
address both. He added that his views on approaches to innovation
were recently published by the US National Academy of Sciences in
their quarterly magazine "Issues on Science and Technology", Fall

2007. The article entitled "India's Changing Innovation System:
Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities for Cooperation" was
submitted to the US Board on Science, Technology, and Economic
Policy for it's project on "Comparative Innovation Policy: Best
Practice for the 21st Century".


4. Dr. Chidambaram further added that funding during the eleventh
plan period has been enhanced for different GOI agencies including
Department of Science and Technology (DST),Department of
Biotechnology (DBT),Department of Information Technology (DIT),
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) in order to address India's diverse
needs. Further, to ensure focused and time bound output, all
agencies and institutions have been strongly encouraged to work as
interdisciplinary teams and partner with the private sector. Also,
several agencies in India have modeled some of their activities
after the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program in USA
as it has spawned innovation and entrepreneurship.


5. He expressed happiness that some success has already been
achieved by DBT with the introduction of a similar program. The
program is called the Small Business Innovation and Research
Initiative (SBIRI) which has led to new drugs and food crops being
introduced in the market. Other agencies hope to implement similar
programs. When asked about the level of industry-academic
collaborations , Dr. Chidambaram accepted that unlike the US, there
is a huge disconnect between academia and industry in India. Though
the new funding schemes encouraged cooperation, they are slow to
take off. The transformation of the academic professor to an
entrepreneur is taking time. Hence an effort is also on to help the
two to work together, with provision for fast track funding of up to
90% to academia and R&D institutions who have industrial partners,
with at least 10% contribution from the industry.

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NEW DELHI 00000967 002.2 OF 003


Strategies for Capacity Building and Attracting the Best
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Talent for S&T R&D
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6. Further commenting on the need for trained human resources, Dr.
Chidambaram elaborated on the problems faced in India. He said the
continued high rate of growth in India in the last few years, and
especially in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT),
had led to a situation where most science and engineering graduates
take up ICT jobs which are relatively well paid as compared to those
in academia and research labs. So in spite of enhanced funding,
there are no takers for positions in S&T R&D. Hence with the
objective of building capacity and attracting the best talent
towards scientific research, many new schemes are being introduced.
One such scheme starts with scholarships for school children from
age 10 through their university education over a 12 year period.
The program also has provision for mentors from a very early stage.
Another program provides support for graduate studies and guaranteed
employment with assurance of funding upto age 32 if the student
pursues a career in research.


7. This latter research program model has been successfully tried
out at the University of Bombay. Graduate students of the
University worked with mentors from two leading research institutes
namely the Bhabha Atomic Research Institute (BARC) and Tata
Institute for fundamental Research (TIFR). This has led to enhanced
R&D output and better trained personnel from the University.
Leading Indian industries are being persuaded to permit some of
their bright young engineers and scientists to work in academic
institutions or national labs with corporate-level salaries.
Companies like Tatas and Mahindra & Mahindra have already shown
interest. (Note: The Sixth Pay Commission, set up after a gap of 12
years by the GOI to reduce the huge disparity in wages between the
employees of the public and the private sectors, submitted its
report on 24th March, 2008. Now employees of government and
publicly-funded organizations including academics and researchers
can expect to receive average pay increases of 40%. This should
help in attracting and retaining talent. End Note.)

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Research to be Focused and India-Centric
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8. When Dr. Fedoroff enquired about the focus of the research, Dr.
Chidambaram said that the three fold increase in R&D budget has been
done with a multi pronged strategy. This included supporting
open-ended basic research, directed basic-cum-applied research and
focused technology development with public-private partnership. All
research was to be interdisciplinary and focus on issues which are
relevant to India. He said that unfortunately if one were to go by
the citation index, Indian research is predominantly incremental in
nature rather than original and generally guided by developments in
the west and mostly irrelevant to the needs of the country. The
exceptions are in Indian space and atomic energy research and to a
limited extent in defense applications. One example of
India-centric study, which could draw upon the huge knowledge base
in the country and also lead to immediate returns, is the study of
Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine). India plans to develop
drugs in an accelerated fashion in areas were Ayurveda has already
proven to be very effective. One example is the cure for arthritis
being developed by the CSIR under it's Ayurveda based program called
"Reverse Pharmacology". The drug is expected to reach the market in
two to three years time.


9. Dr. Chidambaram further elaborated that some of the other
focused areas of R&D include automobile industry, bio medical
instrumentation/devices, precision machine tools and optical
instrumentation. In these sectors it has been observed that there
are clusters of companies who have not moved up the value chain. He
said the task has been given to Technology Information Forecasting &
Assessment Council (TIFAC),a technology think tank which he heads.
TIFAC is involved in transforming these traditional sectors of
industries by facilitating interaction with other knowledge partners
and in some cases even directing technology development from concept
to prototype development.


NEW DELHI 00000967 003.2 OF 003


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Accelerating Indo - US Cooperation
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10. When Dr. Fedoroff enquired about what he thought was the way
forward to enhance interaction between the two countries, Dr.
Chidambaram said that India would like to work more closely with the
USA on big science projects. These projects could be those for the
public good or could lead to advances in S&T. He further added that
many countries wanted to collaborate with India due to its continued
growth in the areas like ICT, biotechnology and manufacturing, and
its large talent pool. One example of how India and USA could
interact is Indian participation in the EU Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) program. He said India is investing cash and providing
in-kind support for this project, which includes USD 30 million and
many scientists and engineers participating in the building of a sub
systems for the LHC. Indian scientists and engineers travel to the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Centre at Geneva
for installation, testing and conducting experiments of interest to
them.(Note: Similar collaborations are ongoing for the seven-country
ITER project in which both India and US are partners and in support
of the proposed International Linear Collider where the Department
of Atomic Energy in India is working closely with Fermi National
Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the US. End
Note.)


11. Dr. Chidambaram added that the areas of cooperation could also
include closing the nuclear fuel cycle for power, bio fuels,
renewable energies, supercomputers, issues related to climate change
& modeling, biotechnology and nanotechnology. He said that India
needs the US in the short term for upgrading its S&T infrastructure
and even hand-holding in a wide range of technologies. The US, he
suggested, would need India as a long term partner in many of the
above areas to develop sustainable technologies. Thus, this could
be a mutually beneficial partnership meeting the aspirations of the
people of both countries.


12. He observed that in general there was a very positive climate
in Indo - US relations. The few issues which hinder cooperation are
the well known Visa Mantis checks, nuclear non-proliferation
concerns and high technology restrictions. There are huge benefits
in India and US working together and as the level of engagement has
been raised to a strategic partnership, these issues need to be
resolved. Dr. Fedoroff agreed to look at ways and means in which
she could facilitate removing some of these obstacles. She said her
interactions during her visit gave her a good insight of the wide
range of Indian initiatives in S&T and that she foresees enhancement
in the level of engagement between the two countries.


13. This cable has been cleared by Dr. Fedoroff.


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