BENGALURU: The funding of scientific research in countries such as Switzerland, Finland and Israel are continuously around 3 percent of their total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This beats even a superpower like USA that spends slightly lesser than 3 percent of its GDP. Forget such developing nations, experts say that India, that spends less than one percent of its GDP on science research does not even come close to China.
At the March for Science that took place here on Wednesday, one of the main demands of hundreds of scientists and students was for the government to pay more attention to and devote more money for science. Speaking at a program after the march, Sarbari Battacharaya from the department of physics, Bangalore University, says “There are problems across the board. More students are coming in but the number of teachers are low. State universities like ours are one of the last bastions where students can get decent science education at a reasonable price.
The government needs to do much more,” she adds. Despite PM Modi’s claims of making the country a major science power by 2022, recent policies such as cutting funding to research labs, stubborn attitudes towards releasing funds for research scholars stipends,have left the scientific community reeling. Aninditha Brahma, a research scholar at IISc says, “It is a bad situation for science and students all across the country. Things are in grave danger,” she adds. Rafeeq, a student of Kuvempu University says, “A person like me does not come from a very well to do family.
My mother is a teacher and my dad earns an income of only Rs 6000 per month. I want to pursue my research but a cut in funding severely damages my chances of researching what I want,” he adds. He further says that a situation would arise where he would have to work part time and at the same time pursue his studies and his research. “This is a situation that I do not want to be in,” he adds.