The Centre has decided to raise the corpus of the country-wide Fund for Infrastructure Strengthening in Science and Technology ( FISST) in order to enable technological institutes to avail of the opportunity. | |
| Speaking to Business Standard, T Ramsami, the secretary of the Department of Science and Technology ( DST), government of India, said technological institutes throughout the country are short of research-oriented funds and proposals and applications are flooding the department. |
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| He was speaking on the sidelines of a Special Convocation 2007 organised by the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology ( KIIT), the technological institution based in Orissa. |
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| For the moment, the corpus would be around Rs 10 crore, which would go up in the future according to the needs of the technological institutions. "Funds wouldn't be a problem if there is a real need for research," he claimed. |
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| The special convocation had been organised to confer Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa) to Baba Ramdev for his recent outstanding contributions in the realm of ancient Indian medicinal systems and Yoga. |
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| Despite being caught in the vortex of controversy while picking up fights with the Union health minister Ambumani Ramdoss over the use of ancient Indian medicines in the cure of cancer and modern treatment, this is the first occasion in the country where a scientific and technological institute had come forward in conferring an honorary doctoral degree on a practitioner of non-conventional systems like Ramdev. |
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| Speaking at the occasion, Ramdev said, "I have been transformed from a Baba to a real Doctor. The ancient Indian medicinal systems and yoga recommended by me has finally received its recognition". |
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| Ramdev said that one day Indian traditional medicinal system and the practice of Yoga would also be recognised by the Nobel Prize Committee. Ramaswami said, the Centre is already funding KIIT on quite a few research programmes. |
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| DST would fund more such programmes in future. He visited the tribal school run by the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) an arm of KIIT. There, he announced that the government would provide funds for setting up a research laboratory for the school. |
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| The school presently had 3000-odd tribal students from different districts of Orissa. |
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| "The proposal for the laboratory will have to come from KIIT authorities. We are yet to get any such proposal", he said. Ramaswami said that if India were to emerge as an economic power in the knowledge economy of the world, she would need to create a new breed of innovators for economic growth. |
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| The 1991 Nobel Laureate of Chemistry Professor Richard R Ernst was also honoured at the special meeting. |
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| Ernst, on a five-day state visit as a KIIT guest, last visited in 1999 when the state was ravaged by the super cyclone that killed thousands. |
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| At a press conference, Ernst, who retired in 1998, said that there was no conflict between science and spirituality. |
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| He said, "It would be too primitive to split the two into quarters. It is as well silly and difficult to resolve the issue of existence of God." |
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| He reminisced his early years when he was taken by the family as a retarded child and finally went on to win the Nobel Prize. The chancellor of KIIT, A Samanta, and vice-chancellor S C De Sarkar also spoke. KIIT has recently set up an Institute for Rural Management (IRM) and a School for Bio-technology (SBT). |
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| SBT's foundation stone was laid on January 25. |
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