Modi @ 365: State of Scientific Affairs

 

Thanks to the aspirational leadership of Prime Minister Modi foreign policy is ahead of curve but lack of visionary leadership in scientific affairs failed to make impressive gains. The enthusiasm and vitality needed to kick start STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture and Medicine) was missing. Modi, who clinched power on the vociferous commitment towards change and development, instilled a ray of hope in the scientific community too. During his first Prime Ministerial address from the ramparts of the Red fort on the eve of Independence Day with the grand announcement of ‘Make in India’ scientists believed that indigenous science and technology would be bolstered and believed that acche din would ensue. To accomplish the task of good governance and transparency too digitisation has to be stepped up. For the ease of doing business to become a reality, advanced the technical know-how has to be augured. Thus these propellers are expected to generate a needed momentum to usher the potential Indian science into a new realm of scientific exuberance.

At ground level the new regime was welcomed by the burden of discrepancies, discontinuities in implementation of various schemes and pending appointment of heads to various elite national institutions of the UPA II.  In a bid to revamp the appointment process and bring in transparency, the new government scrapped the old appointment process. Earlier appointment of heads was made by a search committee of eminent scientists who would talk to probable candidates informally or would walk in without prior notice into their work places and approve candidature.  According to the new system advertisement of the vacant posts, screening and short listing of applications, holding of interview have become mandatory to make an official appointment. This move was welcomed by a group of scientists who believed that it created an equal opportunity for the rapidly growing scientific faculty overriding the rider of familiarity and high-connections. However top-notch scientists rebuked the decision as they have to invest extra valuable man-hours to screen numerous applications before making a crucial appointment.

Consequently Modi government is mired in the quagmire of appointing heads for several elite national research institutions. Of the 38 institutions, currently only 25 have full term heads and others are managed by temporary or acting heads. Since January 2014, CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) the backbone for scientific and technological research institute is without a head. With stalling of several key appointments, the national innovation system will bear the brunt.

Meanwhile the intentions of government were severely doubted and the veracity of their commitment was blissfully lost in the cacophony of dubious arguments about ancient Indian scientific and technological prowess made during the Indian Science Congress. Scientists opined that hankering to the ancient glory is a futile exercise if we fail to attain excellence in the contemporary sciences. While the appointment of the renowned physician Dr. Harshvardhan as the Minister of Science and Technology was highly applauded, his subsequent removal for political reasons was regarded as clumsy step. The much awaited budgetary allocations made on the National Science Day, couldn’t cheer scientific community as no big-ticket initiatives or big-bang reforms were announced. With no perceptible increase in fund allocation to research and development, acche din seem to still elude Indian scientists.  Despite profusely thanking scientists for their relentless pursuits on the astounding success of Mangalyaan mission the allocation to Department of Space pegged at Rs 6000 crores wasn’t increased in the budget. Although India is located in an earthquake region the finances for Department of Earth sciences was reduced by 7%. High level of protein malnutrition is prevalent in India but central nodal agricultural research agency, Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) is tipped to experience a fund shortage of 24 crores.

Modi government flagged off several new scientific initiatives. A fund of Rs 50 Crore was allocated to a collaborative effort between the US and ISRO, for constructing and launching of a high-end satellite NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission (NISAR) by 2012. It aims to observe earth and monitoring climate change. To boost up three-stage nuclear programme, budget allocation for Department of Atomic Energy was increased by 12.6%. Interestingly allocation to Ministry of water resources was slashed by 50%. As a friendly gesture towards the SAARC nations Modi announced earlier that ISRO would develop a geostationary SAARC satellite positioned over the subcontinent. Accordingly Rs 2 crore is allotted to ISRO towards construction of the satellite.

To propel the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives a National Super Computing Facility was launched. It connects the national academic and R&D institutions with a grid over 70 high-performance computing facilities. With regards to supercomputing while China is number 1 with 500 supercomputers India is ranked 74 and has 9 such computers. The high performance computing will give a major fillip to financial services, weather forecasting, earth quake forecasting, space craft, vehicle and ship designing, oil exploration missions.

Elevation and appointment of visionary scientific leaders like Dr. Vijaya Raghavan to Department of Biotechnology and Dr. Ashutosh Sharma to Department of Science and Technology instilled new hope and scientific vigour by cutting down bureaucratic red-tape. In a major move Dr. Sharma mandated that time taken from submission of a project proposal to its analysis and scrutiny and receipt of funds be completed in four months. With trimming of funds allotted to DBT, Dr. Raghavan intends to partner with state governments under the grand “cooperative federalism” and make use of the limited resources at his dispensation.

Extension of the retirement for senior scientists used to be a norm in India. This system prevented the promotion of younger generation into higher echelons. The unceremonious sacking of former Defence and Research Organisation (DRDO) head Avinash Chander who was an extension of contract by the Defence Minister didn’t go well with senior scientists. Similarly four other senior scientists too were denied of extensions after retirement. With denial of extensions after retirement Modi government has reversed the trend of UPA where in 11 senior scientists are on extension from 2012 in premier institutions and thus new blood is infused into system.

To bride the energy deficit, Modi made strong pitch for renewable sources of energy and set an ambitious target of generating 100 gigawatts of of solar power by 2020. Currently India generates 23 gigawatts of power becoming the fourth largest producer of wind power, equalling Spain. To effectuate “gigawatt obsession” giant solar plants are to be constructed in huge stretches of land. But obtaining land from areas with dense population and infrastructure is meted with stiff opposition. Building giant solar parks in remote areas and connecting them to existing electrical grid system is cumbersome. Analysts in renewable energy field worried that specialised focus on solar power units might shadow the past successes of the wind power.

If initiatives of Digital India and Make in India have to truly succeed indigenous manufacturing sector has to be robust, economical and should be infused with advanced technology. Finally the dream of creating more jobs in the defence and manufacturing sector can be achieved by strengthening Indian Science. The grandiose plans of vibrant India are pointless until unless Indian science is fostered.

 

@ Copyrights reserved.

Attributes of Indian Science

In a piquant message to the researchers and aspiring students Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked them to “Dream, imagine and explore”. During the inauguration of 102th Annual Science Conference Modi refrained from making eloquent promise of enhanced funding but apprised scientists of crucial challenges- water, energy and health care. Almost 80% of India’s imports include energy supplies. Therefore NDA government at the helm of affairs was keen on making India self-reliant in terms of energy. It had set an ambitious goal of developing 100 gigawatts solar energy by 2020. Accordingly, it has been aggressively pushing forward the projects to jump start from the existing capacity of 3.7 gigawatt solar-capacity which is 1.4% of India’s total electricity generation. Some analysts were apprehensive about the feasibility of such ambitious approach.

Systemic Problems of Indian Science

Indian science is abetted by problems like poor-quality education, interference of bureaucracy and inadequate funding. These stifling conditions prompted numerous budding scientists to leave the country for greener pastures. Consequentially India has been conspicuously losing its intellectual treasure trove. Successive governments vouched to increase funding to research and development to 2% of GDP (gross domestic product). Unfortunately even the latest budget allocation too remained at a staggering low of less than 0.9% of GDP. Unceremoniously government officials’ quips back scientists demand saying that India on an average spends around $150,000 per scientist per year which is comparable to other countries. Unable to stem the systemic problems plaguing the system and vie with its peer nations- whose financial allocation hovers around 2% of GDP, India lags behind in BRIC group. Two decades ago the proportion of GDP allocated to research and development (GERD) in India was more than China but now it is half of China. Despite its huge population India has the lowest number of engineers and scientists in the world. In terms of absolute numbers India has four full-time researchers per 10,000 people and China has 18 researchers, in developed countries the number is 80. Another major stumbling block in Indian Universities is over-bureaucratization and entrenched red-tape leading to inordinate delays in obtaining equipment and material for research. The collaboration between universities and industry is abysmally low and consequently the most prosperous business model of Laboratory (research)-industry- Market (innovation) is failing to find its foot hold in India. Further the burden of funding the research has to borne by government as the investment of private companies in R&D is barely significant.

Deteriorating Standards of Education

While some scientists are hopeful of a bright future for Indian science others expressed great resentment over the sub-standard education. Appallingly, India is the only BRICS nation whose Universities failed to make it to the top 200 institutions of the World. There are over 700 Universities in India which include the elite institutions funded by the central government, 300 state universities and 200 private institutions. The National Scientific research Institutes and elite institutions are doing World-class research and publishing in high impact journals providing major fillip to India’s reputation. These institutes account for a major leap in India’s research output. But the State Universities which are cash-starved account for majority of the science undergraduates. Unfortunately these institutes suffer from shortage of quality faculty, libraries and equipped laboratories. While there is a sharp rise in the number of students pursuing higher education, institutions neither have the infrastructure nor financial support to harness the aspirations of the students.

Beacons of Hope

The two major areas of crowning glory for Indian Science are the meticulously designed space missions and the incredibly low-priced vaccines. The silver lining for Indian science in the recent past has been the resounding success of the ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organisation) space programmes. Established in 1969, bracing failures during early days of inception ISRO has transformed into an epitome for exceptional alacrity, precision and deftness. The organisation acclaimed international repute with its exceptionally economical MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) or Mangalyaan. With space scientists mastering the construction of formidable cryogenic engines needed to lift-off satellites of over 4 tonnes, India is poised to emerge as a super power in space research. Rejuvenated by its successful debut of the Mars Mission, with strengthened resolve ISRO scientists are now gearing for launch of ASTROSTAT satellite, Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2017, and Aditya Mission 2018. Chandrayaan-2, a follow-up of Chandrayaan-1 of 2008 has an ambitious agenda of studying of the composition of Moon and intends to send a lander, six wheeled rover and an orbiter to moon. Aditya Mission will study Sun’s corona.

Another precious feather in India’s cap is the booming Biotech industry. The entrepreneurial Indian scientists with their ingenuity achieved ground-breaking success in the field of vaccine production.  Affordable healthcare is an elixir of all ails for a hugely a populated country like India. The quintessential resources for a robust health care system are vaccines. The task of manufacturing indigenous vaccines at nominal prices was accomplished by enterprising young Indian scientists.. Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) reached this milestone by developing Revac B+ hepatitis vaccines for USD 3 a dose (currently available for 30 cents). Subsequently, several Indian biotech companies contributed enormously towards reducing the burden of public health care in India and other third world countries by developing affordable, quality vaccines against infectious diseases. India is now fondly hailed as the “Pharmacy of the developing World,” by global charity doctors without borders. Now India has attained marginal success in producing generic drugs through reverse engineering. In 2014 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued notices to some Indian companies that failed to meet the quality standards and drug efficiency. But now these are being slowly sorted out. Indian science especially the department of biotechnology is upbeat about Indian companies due to significant rise in number of small and medium sized biotech units.  

Though Indian research is not completely bogged down by the institutional deficiencies but the quality of research is not on par with advanced countries. Interestingly, in terms of output indicators like the number of research papers published per the amount of money spent in dollars, India is one of the top performers in the World. Propitiously the proportion of Indian students graduating in US   and returning back has increased considerably offering a great hope for brighter prospects for research in India. Scientific publications have quadrupled from 2000 to 2013. Indian Science with all its inherent deficiencies and exemplary accomplishments is poised to reach new horizons is in dire need of visionary leaders to embark on a new journey.

 

@ Copyrights reserved.

Complex Archaea: Missing link in evolution of Eukaryotes

From early 18^th century to a larger part of 20^th century biologists accepted Darwin’s theory of natural selection which postulated that life on earth evolved from a single cell or pre-cell. The concept described as concept of tree of life believed that diverse species descended from common ancestors. In 1962 an interesting paper submitted by Roger Stainer and C. B. Van Niel categorised living organisms into prokaryotes and Eukaryotes based on cellular organisation.  Later in 1977 Carl Woese and George E Fox experimentally disproved the universally held hypotheses of tree of life. They reported of a third kingdom Archaea bacteria defined as a new urkingdom (domain) distinct from the bacteria and eukaryotes. He redrew the phylogenetic tree with three domains- Bacteria, Archaea and Eucarya. This new hypothesis drew severe criticism from reputed scientists who refused to accept the speculation about an era of rapid evolution where considerable horizontal transfer of genes has occurred.  Often termed as extremophiles, Archaea are anaerobic and can thrive in extreme weather conditions. Now most biologists believe that they are very ancient and could exist in conditions not conducive for normal life. It is predicted that organisms similiar to Archaea could exist in other planets. Eukaryotes and Archaea were considered sister groups for their similarities in genes and metabolic pathways.

In 1996 Woese with his team of scientists published the full genome or blue print of an organism in the domain Archaea and concluded that they are more closely related to Eukaryotes than bacteria. The signature sequence of ribosomal RNA genes found in all organisms was used as a basis to assess the variations or similarities. These studies helped to confirm that Archaea constitute a separate group as it contained hundreds of genes which had no counterparts in either bacteria or eukarya. But the ribosomal proteins of Archaea were similar to those of Eukarya.

Earliest Eukaryotes came into existence 2 billion years ago. The origin of Eukaryotic cell remained a contentious puzzle for biologists for long. While cytologically bacteria and archaea are relatively simple, eukaryotic cell is complex and highly specialised it is hence hard to reconcile the popular hypothesis of prokaryote to eukaryote transition.  One of the prevalent hypotheses about the origin of complex cell is that earliest eukaryotes arose when an archaeon engulfed a bacterium and continued to exist in a symbiotic relationship with it. The engulfed bacterium eventually developed into mitochondria, the power house of cell.  Mitochondria are present in all eukaryotes and its gene sequences are clearly related to Alphaproteobacteria. During the early genomic era, analysis of eukaryotic genome indicated that it was chimaeric in nature containing both bacterial and archaeal genes besides associated eukaryotic genes. While some of the genes could be traced back to alphaproteobacteria the lineage of eukaryotic host remained obscure.

 A scientific article published in Nature by Thijis Ettema of Uppsala University uncovered the mystery of origin of eukaryotic cell. Dr. Ettema and team collected samples from the sea bed of Svalbard, few kilometres from an underwater volcano, Loki’s Castle for a microbial diversity study. A Phylogenetic analyses of Deep Sea Archaeal Group (DSAG) of the Loki Castle region named as Lokiarchaeota is believed to be the missing link between the single-celled organisms to complex living beings. Lokiarchaeota belong to the deeply-branching clade of the archaeal TACK superphylum, sans mitochondria and contains proteins not found in any other archaea but present in Eukaryotes.

Using deep metagenomics technique, 92% of composite gene sequence of Lokiarcheota is assembled. Around 175 predicted microbial proteins were found to be similar to eukaryotes proteins involved in phagocytosis, cell shape formation and membrane remodelling. Archaeal genome contained five actin homologs that are more similar to eukaryote actins than to archaeal actin-like proteins. Nearly 70 homologs of Ras-family small GTPases accounting for 2% of predicted proteins are found in archaea. Gene sequences for ESCRT proteins and proteins involved in intracellular vesicle trafficking mechanisms are also found.  The sheer size of similarities of proteins between Lokiarchaeota and Eukaryotes suggest that these might have been the primitive ancestors of Eukaryotes. They could have paved way for the development of eukaryotes. With proteins needed for phagocytosis they could have started engulfing single celled organisms (one them could have been the alphaproteobacteria). Harboured with basic machinery of cytoskeleton, it might have moved around like amoeba engulfing prey. These set of exciting revelations indicate that probably Lokiarcheaota might have been the missing link between the prokaryotes and Eukaryotes.

A. Spang et al., “Complex archaea that bridge the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes,” Nature, doi:10.1038/nature14447, 2015.