KOLKATA, Aug 30: Modern India has had a strong focus on science and technology, realising that it is a key element of economic growth.
India is among the topmost countries in the world in the field of scientific research, positioned as one of the top five nations in the field of space exploration.
The expansion of scientific contemplation in modern India can be credited to the scientists of the nineteenth century. They essentially shaped the way we live now and many of the scientific research work currently in progress follows the lead of these brilliant thinkers. The inception of modern science in India and its passage has left its lasting imprint for the posterity to dwell upon the subsequent proliferation of science.
Indian scientists were not given the credits of discoveries which were passed on to British officers even if they didn’t have anything to do with the discovery.
Scientific fingerprinting was born in India but the laurels were heaped on others, the naming of Everest was not justified among many such other instances.
The Indian Independence in 1947 brought the urge to explore, indigenize and also usher in modern science and nurture sophisticated technologies. And now Indian detection of gravitational waves opens up new frontier for understanding of universe.
During the period of Independence, Particle physics in India was highly developed and the world recognition followed. Bose-Einstein collaboration and findings of Meghnad Saha are some exemplary instances. The study of natural sciences was on full swing. The Botanical Society of India and Zoological Society of India came forward with the unchartered flora and fauna of the planet. Paleobotany flourished under Birbal Sahni.
The Geological Survey of India and the Survey of India had laid its modicum of research areas that later bore results at the hands of people like D.N Wadia and Radhanath Sikdar respectively. Meghnad Saha ushered in stellar astrophysics. He started the physics department in Allahabad University and Institute of Nuclear Physics, National Academy of Science in 1930, Indian Physical Society in 1934 and the Indian Institute of Science in 1935, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in 1943, and the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata.
Saha was also the chief architect of river planning in India. He made the original plan for Damodar Valley Project. C.V. Raman excelled in astrophysics while working at the Indian Association of Cultivation of Science, the cornerstone of modern science in India founded in the earlier century by Mahendralal Sircar.
S.N.Bose became an advisor to the newly formed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He was the president of Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science. CSIR has been ranked 12th in the world, amongst the government institutions, improving its position after being at the 14th position for three consecutive years, with an overall global ranking of 99 in the world during 2016, according to the report of SCImago Institutions Rankings. (PTI)
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