Science to maximise demographic dividend in India

According to an estimate India has nearly 2 lacs researchers, of 14% are women. In terms of per thousand researchers, India has only 4 scholars, which is far behind even from Kenya (6) and Chile (7). America and Britain have 79 scholar per thousand people.

As compared to 2001, India published four times more research papers, yet it was still far behind from Brazil and China.

These figures are grim indication of our status in scientific endeavour related investments and expenditure.

If india is to take lead in the 21 century, which is also touted as the 'Century of india' by our leadership, the fraction of GDP that goes into science education and research needs to increase consistently over a couple of decade.

The modern research infrastructure needs to be installed in the educational and training institutions. Training of the young population of the country, starting from high school to post gratuates levels, is mandatory in order to exploit the demographic dividend that the country has today.

We lost the opportunity during industrial revolution and still facing the stigma of backwardness. We are facing the danger of lost opportunity yet again lest we did enough to utilise energy of our young population for building a scintific momentum by educating and training our youths. This needs to be done sooner than later as we are already lagging far behind as evident by the information shared above.

(Information source: Patrika)

Are we an innovation society yet?

Innovation is a buzzword these days. Everywhere I go to attend any scientific meet or even in political messages which are aired to masses, this word echo on the air waves. But, I wonder that those on whose shoulders the weight of this word is put on, are they aware of the task being imposed upon them. They in fact remain largely oblivious of its meaning and significance. The youngs of this country are even today largely untrained and thus unskilled to undertake any such task which leads to innovation. Innovation requires a scientific orientation, teaching of basic concepts how natural principles operate and how that knowledge and techniques can be applied to create or construct something worthwhile to solve some of the problems humans are facing. Unfortunately, our teaching and pedagogy methods at schools are bereft any such mechanism that may motivate or open up the layers of inquisitiveness in the minds of our youngs. At present teachings are largely based on how one can garner maximum marks and be the topper in the class and school. Mugging up of the facts has been the way most students get trained, without asking questions why, what, when, and how.
Further, schools are largely devoid of basic laboratories and equipments where the ideas can be tested and constructs or models could be developed. I have seen in most of the places, if we leave some of the private schools/centres, in most of the government schools/colleges/universities, which should be the cradle of creation, they lack basic infrastructure and skilled trainers/teachers to undertake any creative task that may lead to innovation.
In government primary schools the focus is on mid-day meal and school staff remains engaged in catering task and to feed children than teaching. Students after graduating from these schools like even basic reading and writing skills, leave alone articulations and ideation skills. Our focus is clearly misplaced. Food should be provided by the family, and education and skill training by the schools! Are we doing that? So, from the school to the colleges the very minimum requirement to create an innovation- oriented environment is severely lacking. These places must be the hub of trainings for teeming youngs of this country, who we are told make major chunk of our populace at this moment. We are indeed westing this resource by not employing their energies into right direction, and this pains a lot.
A revolutionary plan needs to be created and it's implementation at every school needs to be executed with precision and focus. This should  begin with immediately improving the school infrastructure and palcement of trained teachers and skilled school staff. In placing them qualification and training should be the only criteria/eligibility.  Once we begin teaching and training at the initial ranks in our schools and colleges, we know that an environment for innovation has been created. In this manner if we channel the energy of creativity in our youngs early we can be sure that this energy will create something meaningful and something innovative. The universities and technical institutes would then start getting these skilled, energetic and productive human power and a revolution would churn in those places leading to flood of innovation.
Are we prepared for this movement. This cannot be done alone by the government or alone by the private investment, it will require participation of all the stakeholders, the whole citizenry, indeed.
We have had enough of talks, the question is 'Are we restless enough to embark on this path to revolutionise innovation in this country?'

(Image courtesy globiztec.com)

Cancer Dwindling the Population Dividend of India

With the billion plus population, India is one of the youngest country in the world with 65% population in the working age. However, this promising population dividend is also suffering from malignant life style related health issues which is silently hollowing the India’s pillar of strength, it young people. The diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular problems and lately cancer has started appearing in the young men and women of this country as early as in late thirties or early forties.

Surprisingly, the cancer has become a significant menace and concern of personal, social and economic life of our people and severely impacting the socio-economic scenario of India. According to a study, in 2004 total cancer patients were over eight lacs, which in 2014, just after a decade, has more than doubled to 18 lacs. Every year a million (10 lacs) people are being diagnosed with cancer and nearly 6-7 lacs die of it annually, while the number of oncologists and specialists to treat these patients has not increased as much in these years.

According to an estimate an average cancer therapy for an individual with lung cancer comes around Rs. 6.5 lacs which is much more than average income (Rs. 5 Lacs) of middle class family. One can imagine how a poor family would remain untreated and left to die an untimely death. Thousands of the patients who receive the costly therapy are pushed deep into poverty.

What can be done?

The individual effort to stay healthy is necessary to beat the menace of cancer and live cancer free. The balanced and simple diet, active life style, daily exercise, routine check-up to catch the disease early are a few step an individual can adopt in order to lead a healthy life.

To increase the awareness of the cancer disease the government and private corporates under their social responsibility should run awareness campaign about the cancer using the social media, television and print media to have wide reach. The campaign may include awareness for early diagnosis, annual check-ups of the prone people such as 40 year plus individuals or those having the disease in close family, promoting healthy life style, especially in urban areas.

The state governments should provide for a clear policy for the patient’s treatment and cap the cost of cancer treatment so that private hospitals or care providers do not charge the patients unreasonable and catastrophic amounts for the treatments including the surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or palliative care. The cost of treatment needs to be made realistic and affordable for the average citizen. Privately funded health insurance or publicly funded health initiatives help the people in western country to meet the excessive treatments cost, while in India insurance remains limited to middle class or upper middle class families, that most of the times not realistic to meet the cost of cancer treatments. The government initiative and funding is meagre and the majority of the people remain unaware of such schemes. Efforts and policy are urgently needed to plug these gaps so that cancer care become economically accessible.  

Enhancing the infrastructure and ensuring the availability of specialist doctors is major bottleneck in the current cancer treatments. A country of 1.25 billion population has only 27 dedicated cancer hospitals and only 1000 trained cancer specialists. These numbers suggest that situation is really serious. Sample this, India has one oncologist for nearly 2000 cancer patients while the USA has one doctor for every 100 patients. Therefore, a policy should be adopted to open more speciality care centres in the area where cancer incidence is more such as in the north-eastern states, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and some areas of Punjab.