Principal Scientific advisor to the Government of India
Dr.R Chidambaram in conversation

Interviewed at Amritapuri
Transcribed by Mr.Vyas Mohan, PGDJ Student , Amrita School of Journalism.

Can you just briefly tell us about you know your visit? Can u tell us what has inspired you?

Here of course I met Dr. Venkat Rangan on Friday and he was nice enough to invite me to come here and it was a great privilege to meet Mata Amritanandamayi and hear about the various things from Her -Her great wisdom, Her great compassion. I am most impressed by the way she is looking at the problems of the poor. A tremendous education network has been set up under her leadership, starting from schools and now it has gone to engineering education, medical education and also research. And I am also very much impressed by the quality of the research scientists who are working in this organization.

How do you find the dedication of the research scientists here compared to other places like this?

See here of course I had a look at the research labs which are focusing on wireless technologies and also some aspects of information security and the work is world class. And the latest technologies are being tried out. Of course it’s not surprising, Dr. Venkat Rangan himself has –that is his area of specialization. So to look at the products that are being developed like the controlled microwave oven, which is through a cellular phone, to the remote connection of the campuses using wireless technologies. Or even for a backed wireless… using wireless technologies to connect remote seismic stations. So quite a large number of research projects have been taken up from leading oganisations like Department of Atomic Energy, Space, DRDO, and some industries, which I guess are very well for the future in this sector which is the telecom sector- the IT and Telecom sector, I would say. There are other areas, which are of course not located here, which relate to biotechnology and medical and all that, and in which very quick advances are being made.

As a scientist, how do you see Amma?

Because She is from a backward community and has studied only up to the fourth standard…
The spiritual aura about her is remarkable. In the sense, as a scientist, I am more into Advaita Vedanta- the one which is consistent, I would say, with modern science or modern physics. But one does realize that the other forms, apart from the Jnanamarg are very important. Bhakti is very important. I remember when I went to the United States in 1964, normally they call you and ask you to give lectures and they are tutored by the teachers to ask you questions. And when they ask you about the so many images of God and do you think there is God in them and all that. So I said I’ll draw a picture on the board and you tell me what it is. Of course, these are all high school students so I a put a thick dot and put a circle and put a small dot. They said hydrogen atom. I said “Are you sure its hydrogen atom?”. “Yes sir one proton and one electron”. And then I said, “But what is the size of a hydrogen atom?”. Then they knew one hamstring- but what I have drawn here is to be several feet in diameter. Then why do you call it the Hydrogen atom? Then they said “Look you can’t picturise a hydrogen atom on the board”. And I said same thing happens in our Hindu temples. Not that we don’t realize the abstract -If you have the intellect to imagine everything in the abstract. But then, her view of world, her compassion, - I am now talking about Mata Amritananda Mayi, her conciousness of the poverty in India and the need to bring back our scientists from abroad in order to develop our own country- because India can be developed only by Indians. On the one hand, the modern facilities that you see in the hospitals like in Cochin where there is no (film?) , everything is electronic and digitalized. And at the other end, knowing the importance of Ayurveda and thinking of starting a college in Ayurveda. The importance of the holistic approach, which was there in the traditional Indian medicine. She is able to synthesise these two very remarkably. And the ease with which she carries on a conversation with a high level scientist and an ordinary individual with the same kind of attitude. So those are the remarkable things I feel about Mata Amritananda Mayi.

What do you personally feel about Her?

Personally as I said, I have a concept of God as that of a physicist. Because, what is it that makes you believe about the stability of nature’s law? What makes you think that the Schroodinger equation will be valid day after tomorrow? That if you ask any scientist, he would believe- if that is the concept of god. All physicists will tend to agree. Beyond that it gets differentiated. To some extent, it depends upon the level of your intellect, to some extent, on the way you have been brought up, and your cultural surroundings. But surely for a scientist, there can be no differentiation at that level.

Harnessing innate talent: A new perspective
As you know, there was a paper a couple of years back by Subbayya Arunachalam in current science, talking about the stagnation of the research publications from India. Whereas China which was much below us has begun to go up. Now, my feeling is that this is related to the question you have asked. In fact I have proposed the theorem once. The number of research publication from a lab is independent of the number of senior scientists and is directly proportional to the quality and number of research students. Because they are the ones who do the detailed work. And the fact that they are not getting attracted to the careers in science is a matter of worry. Of course India’s development is to some extent, related to the fact that these bright young students have gone into jobs in industry or in management apart from those who went abroad. So, now, we must create an ambience to keep the most talented in science in careers in science and for that we have to do two things. One is that you must create centres of excellence in which you can provide high class undergraduate education and secondly in some fashion the most talented in science must be assured a career in science.

A career, if they take up in science, because I know people who have won gold medal in physics Olympiad, but they are taking up careers in electrical engineering. And, the same thing is happening in Chemistry and Biology and of course in Mathematics. So, in some fashion, we have to-this is my suggestion- which we are trying to see how to do that –if you are very talented in science, so that your parents or guardians or peer behaviour does not distract you from a career in science, you must assure some kind of a mean career. But actually, it is …. Game. There are some jobs in science in the country in the future and we are trying to see the right guys will go and fill it up. And if you do the selection properly, nobody has to guarantee them anything. These are the people who are the brightest in science. The only thing you have to do is to keep them in science. Of course, the others should go into engineering. Same thing you should do also to people who have finished their engineering course.

Those who are very talented in engineering, research and technology development, we must keep them there -not allow them to take up jobs. So, one of the suggestions I have made which hopefully is catching, is that the companies when they go for their placement interviews, the brightest among the young guys they hire, those who have this talent for engineering research and development, give them company salaries but let them do research, under a professor for whom they have respect, in a broad area of interest to the company. Don’t ask them to solve company problems. That becomes to some extent, may become a little uninteresting to the young fellow. This young fellow, who for a higher salary, would have gone for a company job would now be doing research with a professor and is no different from any student of the professor. An Indian industry has to realize that information exchange among academics is very free. A professor from abroad will tell you exactly what he is doing. But let a company technologist go and ask him-doors are closed because of IPR apprehensions. So, this is a thing which came out of our academia-industry interactions. For the scientist at the Plus Two level and a people with talent for engineering research at the B. Tech M. Tech level.

There are two things-teaching and research and you must give quality education and that I see happening. And Dr. Venkat Rangan told me how as long as you are affiliated to Anna University, you are rank no. one among all the colleges which were affiliated. That should continue. And in select areas - of course you cannot do research in every area along with teaching - in select areas, I think this university should try to excel. And this one area that you have selected is extremely good and is important for India. As we were discussing with Mata Amritanandamayi, while we have done Ok in IT Software, more in the service, from the company side, services and solutions, but if we take Atomic Energy and Space a very high level of software is done there, but then, that is not commercial. But we must get our industry more interested in IT hardware, Telecom hardware and increase academia - industry interactions so that India becomes a leader in this field. If you concentrate only on software, it is like building a super structure without a foundation. That is not going to help us in the long run. See, many of these companies, 95% of their services are exported abroad which really means that the hardware sector has not developed in the country. Where as it is exactly the opposite in the case of China. They provide software services almost on par with India, most of it is consumed within the country. So, we have to strike a balance between software and hardware.