Need more people in scientific research: Prof Ramaswamy

Eminent scientist Professor Ramakrishna Ramaswamy today said the country needs to have more people coming to scientific research and stay in the profession.
Ramaswamy, the president of Indian Academy of Science, Bengaluru, was talking to reporters after delivering the D M Bose Memorial Lecture at Bose Institute here.
"We need to have more people coming in this profession and staying in this profession, people can be interested but you have to come all the way in doing serious research. That number is going down," he said.
"This is going to be a problem for us in times to come. It is going to be a problem as we are creating lots of universities, lots of research institutes which need teachers, people who can communicate ideas," Ramaswamy, a senior professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, said.

Asked about the quality of research in the country, he said "Indian research right now is in fairly good position. There is lot of freedom to do what you want, there is certain amount of money. But we may not have the critical mass on most subjects.
"To make good advances you need to have large number of people working in the same areas, Then you can create better ideas," he said.

To a question, Ramaswamy said the situation was better in West Bengal.
"In Bengal there is not dearth in the number of people pursuing pure science research as compared to other regions," he said.

"However having said all that, still I believe even if a large part will not come, there can still be enough number of people in India who are interested in science. We need to popularise science research among them," he said.
Ramaswamy delivered lecture on the subject 'The spontaneous symmetry-breaking in dynamical systems' before an audience of senior scientists, students.
Stating that he was happy with the turnout and the post-lecture question and answer session, he said, "This is to be expected in a campus like Bose Institute. This can not happen in smaller places where people do not have much exposure to different ideas."

Debendra Mohan Bose, a.k.a D M Bose, was an Indian physicist who made contributions in the field of cosmic rays, artificial radioactivity and neutron physics and the longest serving Director of Bose Institute which holds a memorial research on his birthday every year. He was born on November 26 1885 and died on June 2, 1975.
Bose Institute, set up in 1917 by Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, is Asia's first modern research centre devoted to interdisciplinary research.