COMMENTARY

DECember 14, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 50 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
10
Honours and Numbers
a Correspondent
C N R Raos repeated complaint
that the problem with Indian
science is the success of
computing and information
technology has no justication.
Computer science in India
receives little funding from the
government and the IT industry
is the countrys only example of
technological success. What is
needed is the reform of Indias
ossied scientic establishment,
transfer of funds from
underperforming departments
like atomic energy to other
scientic departments, creation
of more opportunities for
academic circulation across
India and ensuring that heads
of institutions and departments
rotate at regular intervals.
I
n the course of 24 years (a long period
for any sportsperson) one of Indias
most recent recipients of the Bharat
Ratna, Sachin Tendulkar, played in 200
test matches and scored 51 centuries, more
than anyone else in cricketing history.
As if to provide comparative data, news-
papers reported that the other recent
Bharat Ratna, C N R Rao has so far pub-
lished over 1,400 papers and 45 books in
a career that spans more than 50 years.
1
Sports achievements such as those
of Tendulkar are very specic and con-
textual: each century was scored against
a particular team in a particular match.
Comparison of one century with another
(by him or anyone else) may be fascinat-
ing but it is also very subjective: every-
thing from the weather and the state of
the pitch (among many other factors)
must be given as much importance as
the composition of the opposition. By
comparison, a scientic discovery must
be repeatable by others; a paper describ-
ing it is then timeless and the results
remain scientic facts for all time (or until
disproved by a new discovery or theory).
To ensure that the claims and results are
valid, each paper is subjected to an
important test before acceptance by a
journal or conference: it must pass what
should be rigorous and anonymous
refereeing by a few selected peers in the
eld, from across the world.
Scientic Career in India
Naturally, a scientist has great interest in
seeing how widely the results reported
in a paper are used. One measure of use-
fulness, or impact, is the citation index:
the number of publications (by other
scientists) that refer to these results. A
paper whose results have many citations
and over a long time, is very likely to be
an important contribution to the eld.
Metrics such as the H-index and the
I10- index attempt to give more detailed
measures of the impact.
Progress in a scientic career, espe-
cially in India, can be predicated on the
number of publications: a certain number
is needed to cross each threshold. The
highest credence is given to publications
in prestigious foreign journals and con-
ferences which act as clearing houses for
scientic information in the eld; Indian
journals and conferences are usually of
lower ranking. Publishing a paper abroad
is seen as an afrmation of its standing,
with publication in India taking second
place. Not surprisingly, fake journals and
conferences have been created abroad,
and in India, for those unable to publish
a paper by any other means: for a fee,
they will accept any paper submitted to
them, without any meaningful refereeing.
It is not always easy to isolate dubious
citations and publications: a paper by a
senior scientist with many students may
receive dutiful citations in all of their
publications and these can contribute to
the citation count. Though not strictly the
same as self-citation (referring to ones
own papers), it can vitiate the value of the
measures. With increasing importance
given to citations, there is greater temp-
tation to treat publication as a game and
increase the citation count by a variety
of articial means.
Playing the Game
Indian science has learnt to play this
game as well as anywhere else. Before a
paper is even submitted to a journal or
conference, the head of a group will
often insist on having his or her name
added to the list of authors, whether or
not there was any actual contribution to
the research or to writing the paper. The
top echelons of Indian scientic circles
are so small that editors of Indian journals
are well known to heads of research
groups: so are the referees (however
anonymous they may pretend to be) and
this leads to a mutual understanding
about not standing in the way of publica-
tions from known authors and groups.
With enough publications in tow, and
some cultivated support, fellowship of
one of the national academies of science
(the Delhi-based Indian National Science
Academy, the Bangalore-based Indian
COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW DECember 14, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 50
11
Academy of Sciences and the Allahabad-
based National Academy of Sciences of
India) follows fairly predictably.
There are other opportunities for
dilution in quality. When an important
new experimental scientic technique is
devised and published, it is the rst few
results that have seminal importance.
Later, anyone with the right equipment
can use the technique and mass-produce
further results (often in hundreds) that
just ll in small gaps in predictable ways.
The head of a group with a large number of
research students is well placed to exploit
this and build up an impressively large list
of publications. This is self-perpetuating:
students will ock to such group leaders
as a long list of publications will also
help them in their future hunt for jobs.
Added to this is the worry of plagiarism.
There are cases of plagiarism from many
top Indian institutions as indeed in other
parts of the world. However, in India the
scientic establishment has resisted any
penalty for those involved, who are often
at the highest levels in the institution:
2

such plagiarism has been described by
them as a lapse in judgement,
3
small
oversight
4
and having done no harm.
5

In all these cases, a research student was
blamed for the copying while the senior
authors claimed innocence. The nation-
al academies of science appear uncon-
cerned that any of their members may
be responsible for plagiarism.
The problem is part cultural and part
structural: similar manifestations can be
found elsewhere. In Japan, for instance,
research students will never argue with
or contradict the opinions of their seniors;
in China, plagiarism is even more rife.
6

There have been celebrated cases of
plagiarism in other countries, e g, in
Germany
7
and in Italy.
8
While blind
agreement may be less common in India
(pace the argumentative Indian!), what
dominates the research environment here
is the almost feudal hold that a group
head exercises over the team. Let us not
shy away from noting that this is the
same control a tribal chieftain would
exercise in less-developed societies.
Most research institutions here are
governed by a director who controls all
the important activities, and is advised
by a body of senior scientists who head
research groups. This may be offered as
evidence of internal democracy but that
claim would be more valid if leading a
group were not a virtually permanent
position. A person selected (often by the
director) to head a group keeps that posi-
tion until retirement or some other form of
termination. The head is thus often the
oldest member of a group, the patriarch
perhaps, but not necessarily the wisest:
arguably also the least likely to be inno-
vative, the keenest to resist change. It
may be impressive to read that someone
led an institution for 10 or 20 years but
this is also a clear sign of institutional
fatigue. For scientic vitality, it is essen-
tial to have constant regeneration and
revitalisation, as elsewhere in the world.
Static Institutions
There could still be mitigating circum-
stances if the composition of Indian
scientic institutions were less static, if
scientic blood circulated more among
institutions. That happens rarely: once
appointed, a scientist almost invariably
remains in the same institution, rising in
predictable steps to higher positions until
retirement. Periods of sabbatical leave,
if any, are spent abroad and never in
another Indian institution. Look through
the lists of faculty at leading institutions
like the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research, the Indian Institute of Science,
the Institute of Mathematical Sciences
and the Indian Institutes of Technology
and see how hard it is to nd anyone
who has moved from one Indian institu-
tion to another. Once in the institute of
choice, or of destiny, a scientist pitches
tent and either stays for the rest of a
working career or at some stage moves
abroad (often in frustration).
The provision of research money is not
an incentive for moving to another Indian
institution. Science in the top institutions
in India is well funded, without competi-
tion or the need for collaboration; more
research money is available than asked
for by credible grant applications. Com-
pare this with research funding in the
UK or the US, where the total research
money sought in each funding round
can be 10-15 times what is available for
disbursal. Getting a research grant there
is ercely competitive and depends also
on the quality (not just the quantity) of
the publications from previous grants.
The major providers of money for
scientic research in India do not even
insist on collaboration between institu-
tions. In the European Union, ESPRIT
grants go to support multi-institutional,
multinational teams taking up challeng-
ing research programmes and this has
facilitated the movement of scientists and
ideas across Europe. Similar provision in
India would provide some stimulus for
inter-institutional collaboration, for re-
search to rise above the subcritical levels
where it lingers today. It would also in-
crease the possibility of interdisciplinary
research, something that scientists in
India have shied away from.
There are numerous examples of what
collaboration and academic circulation can
achieve. For example, the structure of DNA
was discovered through collaboration
between James Watson and Francis Crick
of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge
and Maurice Watkins of Kings College,
London (all three shared the Nobel prize
for the discovery), with considerable
support from Rosalind Franklin. Watson
was an American who studied in Chicago
and Indiana Universities and did further
work in Copenhagen before coming to
Cambridge; he later moved to Harvard
and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Crick
moved from Cambridge to the Salk Insti-
tute in La Jolla, California. Franklin had
moved from Cambridge to Paris before
working in Kings. William Press, imme-
diate past president of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science
and member of President Obamas scien-
tic advisory council, was professor of
astronomy and physics at Harvard before
moving to the University of Texas in Austin
as professor of computer science and
integrative biology. The success stories of
Indian scientists who moved from India
to work abroad are legion.
Only Example of Success
There is a great deal for the Indian scien-
tic establishment and the bureaucracy
in scientic government departments to
do. C N R Raos repeated complaint that
the problem with Indian science is the
success of computing and IT in India
9

has no justication. Computer science in
COMMENTARY
DECember 14, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 50 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
12
India receives little funding from the
government and the Indian IT industry
is the countrys only example of techno-
logical success: it provides employment
to over three million and contributes over
7.5% of the gross domestic product. In
fact, a large part of the science and techno-
logy budget goes to atomic energy, about
six times as much as for energy from re-
newable sources, and this has resulted
in creating less than 6,000 Mw of nucle-
ar power capacity compared to over
22,300 Mw from renewable sources.
10
C N R Raos complaint of a general
shortage of funds for science in India may
have some validity, as observed in Nature,
11

but it is not far from what is available
in other developing countries. There is
less basis for his demand that the Indian IT
industry must contribute to the growth of
science in India. He fails to note that the
IT industry does make available substan-
tial funds to support computer science
research projects and students: unfortu-
nately, too few suitable candidates apply
to do research in computer science and
most prefer lucrative careers in industry.
We live in a world where, given a choice
between a well-paid job and a research
career (in any eld), young people will go
for the money. Diminishing the achieve-
ments of the IT industry will not help in
recruiting more research students to
science. William Press uses the work
of Robert Solow, Nobel Prize laureate
in economics, to show that exponential
growth in an economy comes from posi-
tive feedback: from technological progress
that arises from research and develop-
ment (R&D) investments.
12

The Indian IT industry has over the
years invested substantially in creating
the assets (a trained and mobile work-
force, high technological competence)
that led to its outstanding growth over
the last two decades; accelerated growth
will require greater investment in R&D
than made so far. The next steps for the
IT industry should be to increase its own
R&D investment, not to donate funds to
be used elsewhere.
Ossied Establishments
So perhaps the solutions to C N R Raos
repeated complaints lie closer to home,
in reforming Indias ossied scientic
establishment. In transferring funds from
the underperforming departments like
atomic energy to other scientic depart-
ments (this is surely something the
Scientic Advisory Committee to the prime
minister can recommend); create more
opportunities for academic circulation
across India; and ensure that heads of
institutions and departments rotate at
regular intervals. It should be made a
requirement for each head to groom
one or more successors. The govern-
ment is trying to enforce similar rules in
sports bodies: why not also in scientic
establishments?
Finally, each of Tedulkars centuries
was scored in full public view, with tens
of thousands watching in the stadium
and millions on television. Each stroke is
recorded, analysed, praised and criticised:
no room for a lapse in judgement, or
a small oversight. He does not have the
luxury of sending out a trainee to face
the heavy stuff and walking in at the
end to hit the nal boundary and claim
the century.
How many senior Indian scientists
can state, hand on heart, that they have
actually done the research and written
every paper for which they are author or
co-author? When a leading Indian scien-
tist claims to have written over 40 papers
and one or more books every year, on an
average, one must also ask what was
achieved by this barrage of publication.
Even Nobel laureates do not nd it
necessary to publish at that rate! The 2012
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Robert
Lefkovitz, publishes only a modest eight
to 10 papers a year, less than one a
month. C N R Raos hero, Linus Pauling,
published over 1000 papers and books in
a 70-year career; two thirds were on sci-
entic subjects,
13
or around 10 a year.
Pauling was awarded two Nobel prizes.
notes
1 India Today, 16 November 2013.
2 See http: //www.geocities.corn/physics_pla-
giarism/ for a report on plagiarism by the vice-
chancellor of an Indian university.
3 Current Science, 25 May 1995.
4 Nature, 24 February 2012.
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientic_pla-
giarism_in_India
6 The Telegraph, 2 October 2012.
7 http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/02/ac-
cused-german-science-minister-quits.html
8 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/
v471/n7337/full/471135b.html
9 See, e g, The Telegraph, 18 November 2013.
10 http://www.dianuke.org/debunking-the-
myth-necessity-of-nuclear-energy-for-india/
11 http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/03/india-
fails-to-deliver-on-promises-to-boost-science-
budget.html
12 William H Press, Whats So Special about Science
(And How Much Should We Spend on It?),
Science, 342, 15 November 2013.
13 http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/lpbio/lpbio2.html
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