resarch revoluationises the lifestyle f people in all sphereof life Do you agree?Explain with an example
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If the milestones of civilisation have been known by the defining material of the time stone, bronze or iron then history may classify the era that we live in as the Silicon Age. For, like poets, scientists are discovering the world in a grain of sand silicon dioxide to be precise. It is the raw material for the thumbnail-sized microchips that drive much of technology today.
Yet that classification may be imprecise. For, unlike in the past, there is not just one but several technologies that have revolutionised the way we live. The laser beam has pierced its way past industrial uses and is now a major tool in medicine. Biotechnologies such as genetic engineering have helped even poor nations like India build self-sufficiency in food. Developments in rocket technology have enabled humans break free from gravity and explore near-space. So rapid has been the change that what we read as science fiction as children has become a reality even before we turned 40.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Arthur C. Clarke, writer of science fiction, once wrote. Several members of a mega task force set up by the Union Government in 1994 to forecast the kind of technology India would need in the next 25 years confessed that at times they felt like children at a magic show. "We also realised just how far behind the times India is and the immense possibilities for change if we put our act together," says Satish Kaura, managing director of Samtel and chairperson of the task force's electronics group.
Now, after two years of crystal-ball gazing, the team will release its voluminous findings to the country this fortnight. Few exercises have been at once so representative and exhaustive. Put together by the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), an autonomous institution under the Department of Science and Technology, the task force comprised experts from industry, government, academia and research institutions.
As many as 17 key technology areas were taken up for study. Apart from setting up a mini-task force for each discipline, questionnaires were sent to over 400 specialists to elicit their opinions. Each report consisted of not just long-term visions but worked out an action plan to achieve it. "While the reports give the perspective, we didn't sacrifice on detail," says Y.S. Rajan, TIFAC's executive director.
INDIA TODAY was provided exclusive access to these documents; the 50 technologies that appear in the following pages are a selection from more than a thousand that the team had identified. In some of these areas, like superalloys, India is ahead; in others, such as sensors and displays, isolated areas of excellence exist but there is little effort to coordinate the efforts. "If we integrate the work done by various research institutions, we could set up a chain reaction that will ensure speedier development," says A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, DRDO chief and chairman of TIFAC's governing council.
The link between our laboratories and industry continues to be weak. Also, as B.D. Pradhan, former C.DoT chief and chairman of the task force on telecommunications, says, "Indians always suffer from a complex about technology. We think we are not good enough."
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The recent liberalisation of imports has seen many industries take the easy way out and import expensive technology from abroad. Investment on research and development by companies average 0.6 per cent of the revenue from sales-in advanced countries the figure stands between 5 and 10 per cent.
Many Indians distrust technology and consider it capital intensive and labour destructive. But as Leela Poonawala, vice chairperson, Alfa Laval India, who headed the agro-food processing task force, says: "There has to be a perceived benefit by society for a new technology to succeed." It is for India then, to determine which technologies would be beneficial to it and the ones to reject.