India has higher growth rate of 12% in research man power
Picture for representational purpose
Tirunelveli: The number of students taking up doctoral and post-doctoral research in basic and applied sciences is increasing at the rate of 12 per cent every year, said Dr R. Bragaspathy, advisor, department of science and technology. Inaugurating the five-day Inspire internship camp at P.S.N. Engineering College here on Monday, Dr Bragaspathy said India, though stands ninth among nations in terms of research manpower, it has a higher growth rate of 12 per cent as more students are coming forward to take up full-time research in the field of science.
“India ranks third in terms of research publications in the field of nano-science,” said Dr Bragaspathy, who added that when compared to China that stands in the second place in terms of the number of research publications, India lags far behind.The number of research publications in US and China are 10 times higher than in India, said Dr Bragaspathy. The Union ministry of science and technology has initiated Inspire (Innovation in science pursuit for inspired research) programme to tap science talent. Under the Inspire programme being implemented through the department of science and technology (DST) since 2008, around Rs1,350 crore has been spent to motivate students between the age group of 10 and 32 years.
So far, Rs10.40 lakh students between classes 6 and 10 have been given the Inspire award and around 1,000 Inspire internship camps have been conducted throughout the country since 2008, according to Dr Bragaspathy, who is a member of the Green Chemistry task force.
Around 1,000, top-ranking science candidates have been awarded monthly scholarships of Rs16,000 for a junior research fellowship and Rs18,000 for senior research fellowship every year under the Inspire programme through which so far 470 candidates have been awarded the Inspire faculty award. Purely a merit-based programme, Inspire has women as 43 per cent of its awardees during the past four years, said Dr Bragaspathy, who hopes that this number will go up further in the years to come.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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