Role of Money in Indian Science
Gajendra P.S. Raghava
Saturday, 05 January 2008 18:56 UTC
I am a scientist working in India from last 20 years (see http://www.imtech.res.in/raghava/ ). I read lot of postings on poor performance of India in science so I thought I should also share my views with other colleagues. These are my personal views, please forgive me if you do not like them. Their are number of reasons why India is not doing well in Science. This is a complex issue and no single reason is sufficient to justify the reason. Though most of us do no accept that money is major reason for poor performance but I feel money plays a major role in science. In order to perform scientific experiment one need costly equipment and infrastructure; talent alone is not sufficient. This is the reason we always perform well in theortical science as one can perform even in absance of infrastructure. I have work in different countries and different groups and found Indian are as intellegent and knowledgable as anybody. I do not found any fault in education system, even I feel that our student are more comptitive. In order to prove any idea you need to perform experiment using costly and latest equipment; without that you are handicap. These scientific equipments are costly partcularly equipment used in biological sciences. Most of our universty have subscription to very limitted number of journals, how one can do research in absence of access to literature. In simple words we do not have adequate infrastructure due to lack of money at most of places.
An average fresh postdoctoral fellow in US got five times salary than senior scientist in India. My salary in USA is more than 12 times than my salary in India (during my short visits to USA). Now some people will say why money is important for a scientis. It is beacuse they have family, they also live in society, they also need all facilities, above of all they work hard. This is one of the reason our scientist visit foriegn countries. Its difficult to attract tallent with present salary system. Due to salary system science profession is not popular in India, kids wants to become manager, civil servent, engineer or doctor but not scientist. It is because, we do not see any crorepati scientist, where it is common in other profession. Most of us we expect that other will sacrifies for country why we should sacrifice at end of day nobody sacrifice. It is not India but it is all over world the research output is propotion to budget spend on research. This is the reason USA is able to attract more talent than other countries. I believe per dollor research output is very high in India. The question is whether situation in India is improving our not. It is improving because we have lot of grants nowadys for scientific research. Today, we may afford to costly equipment in India as Govt. is giving good funds. Only problem is salary, though getting grant in India is easy than getting grant in USA but it is not linked with salary. It means your salary will be same whether you got grant or not, perform or not, which is a major problem. I can easily get grant of few crores but I can not pay more than fifteen thousand to my Postdoc. Our institute produce more than 20 PhD every year most of them are working abroad other side we are not able to fill our scientific positions. Some time we feel that we are simply training them to work abroad. We can not retain our PhD as we can not offer attractive salary. We may also produce good research if we got money and freedom to spend money the way we wish to spend. In that case we may pay high salary to our work force (PDF or other staff) in order to attract best tallent in the world. In my view money is major factor behind science other factors are associated with it. It is not that all our scientific work force is happy abroad but they are their because they are getting more salary.
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Moreover, lack of money and low salary does not justify, in any way, the present sorry state of affairs in Indian science.
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Moreover, lack of money does not justify, in any way, the present sorry state of affairs in Indian science.
We all knew what would be my salary and other parks when we decided to join a job. If you do not like that salary, then do not join. Search something better, do something else if you can. Your value will be deiced by market in a open society, not by you. It’s useless excuse for not doing your duties as an employee when you willingly agreed to join that job.
Almost everyone in India think that they are paid less. And it’s true for many, but that does not give them the right for not doing their jobs properly. -
Dear Jayanta,
It seems you are different than others. Initially, I thought you are against Indian system but reading your emails it seems you are against everything, against US education, europe education etc. You are writing against everything, your references are also based on articles which are also view of peoples. I showed india ranking based on scientific literature. If you do not mind may I ask you why are you have negative attitude (I explain in my previous email why I am pro-positive thinking). I mean why you feel negative attitude is important for growth. Please do not take personal, here I am trying to understand why different peoples have different views.Your view salary vs profession is completely impractical. You expect their is no need of money for a scientist, in real life it is not possible. This is major reason we are unable to attract talent (for detail read my previous emails). Even if you are ready to devote your life to science in India your performance will be limited due to shortage of trained manpower. Your views seems to be hypothetical rather than realistic.
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Why u think that money is bad thing. Science is also like other knowledge intensive job. Is there anyone here who can do science or any job without money or at the salary of 4000 – 5000 rupees per month? 4000 is enough in India to live happily. If we earn more, we should donate it to some M.Sc students who want to do PhD but not having any fellowships.
In science, don’t think we are doing very great or unusual job and there is no one like us. Other people in economics, business, arts etc. are also applying their brain with same intensity as we do in science. They are also intellectual and contribute to our society like scientists do. They don’t leave money for doing great things.
After getting a good intellectual base and sophistication, you need some money to sustain your sophistication, family need and your personal needs. Society has evolved in same way as science evolved. Today’s environment is different from 50 years back environment. Doing science without money or less money is conventional and unrealistic idea. We have to adapt ourselves with modern world otherwise modern world will adapt us forcefully after some time.
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You seem to paying more attention now and opening up.
Yes, I do criticize whenever I find limitations in any system. I have no obligation to praise any country or system blindly. I like to judge anything on its on merit. Anything from US or Swiss or India is not inherently bad or good. We need to find out the bad aspect to change that for betterment.
I never told, “Money is not needed for a scientist”. Money is important for everyone, from a scientist to a dentist, to a industrialist, to Ricksha-puller or a tea stall owner at the street corner. Scientists do not deserve any special treatment as compared to other professionals. We are paid depending on many factors; the major one is the market force. If you think Indian scientist do not get proper/sufficient salary, then you should start thinking whether they deserve that or not. At least according to market force and many other parameters, they do not.
And moreover you joined the job very well knowing your salary. There is no point on creeping and nagging on that. In that sense Indian president can also say that I get only 0.1 million rupees (INR) while US president get 0.4 million USD, so why my work will be evaluated as per US president’s standard!!!! The same logic can be sited for legislators or almost any employee, in almost every sector in India. It’s ridiculous.
My dear, I am much more realistic and try to speak the naked truth. Think about what I said and reply back. -
First, we the scientist are to be blamed for our less salary, worldwide. Here in US, average post-doc work for 50 hrs per week, while they are paid about average 30,000 USD per annum. While reporting to university or salary giving agencies, we are not allowed to report more than 40 hours/week. If we are not paid, why we work 10-12 hours more per week? There is almost no proper holiday, weekends for postdocs here in US. Scientists force almost everyone around them to work more without being paid. Many of us “happily” do it for their own career while many others reluctantly agree to keep up. Researchers are much less professional. We pay much less attention to real productivity and more attention to how many hours the candidate (PhD, postdoc etc) spent in labs. We are much less accountable to the society for our own productivity (for spending tax payers’ money).
Majority of us hardly know the value of family, spending time for hobbies and so on. That pressure is more in countries like US, where manly the immigrant labor force drives the engine of research.
We ourselves are to be blamed for deteriorating work culture and degrading our own values. -
There is no end of logical explanations of what I am saying and what you are saying. We live in a developing country. No system in our country or in any developing country is perfect because we are going thorough transition phase to improve the systems. Science system is an example. We can not compare our science system with the science system of a developed nation but we are trying our best to improve it. We have to face many transitions before we claim that we are a developed nation.
India is like this or that – you can see people keep on taking. See any developing nation, its societal systems are imperfect but thinkers and policy makers are trying their best to improve them. Of course, there must be lacking in Indian science system as we are not a developed society- we are passing though development.
It is not my view but the view of many Indian thinkers and policy makers to increase the salary if Indian researchers. If something is coming up to surface, then it must be sign of evolution of our societal system.
And we are helpless when a system evolves – we can’t stop it. We can talk, we can argue, we can blog but we can’t stop because it is the need of the system.
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You are partly right. Here we need to remember that we are trying to improve the “system” since independence. But after 60 years of such effort, report indicate that we are going backward. That’s the main worry. It also indicate that either we are not honest in our efforts or we totally missed the direction.
I am not against rise in salary of scientists/researchers. But I demand a higher accountability and productivity from that lot to sustain and justify that rise in the long run. -
We are improving and going in right direction. Good example I may give India have average age 31 years of human in 1947 and it is around 65 years in 2007. In few years we will have average age more than 70 years equal to average age of human in developed nations. Average age shows progress of a country in all aspects prosperity, science, medical facilities and standard of life. This is based on data not based on reports
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No one is denying India is progressing. But the rate of progress is too slow and not at all enough for its own population growth, its potential and mainly in comparison with its rival countries like China, South Korea etc. India is also faltering in almost all the targets for human development fixed by itself.
Your current reference does not prove overall progress of Indian science. If you are more interested in data, then check the data in these reports.
India’s score on the progress indicator of the Global Hunger Index is 0.496. "*The country managed to reduce hunger by 8.7 since 1990 whereas the reduction target is 17.6 for the period from 1990-2015*, says the ReportTHE SECRET OF INDIA’S UNHAPPINESS
“The newly constructed human development index used the yardstick of GDP per capita together with the supplements of life expectancy and a composite measure of education, including literacy and school enrolment. With this revised approach, India climbed from the rank of 132 out of 174 countries in 1999 to 127 out of 177 in 2005. It fared slightly poorly even by the old measurement of GDP per capita by being ranked 131 out of 177 in the United Nations Human Development Report of 2005. …. According to the Happy Planet Index, the country is ranked as low as 14 in Asia, behind Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Thus, India, a country that designs software for some of the world’s fastest and technologically advanced railway systems, is apparently unable to produce an adhesive that will stick down Indian postage stamps and envelopes, leading to the ubiquitous, but distinctly environmentally unfriendly, use of staples. Indian citizens are accustomed to such paradoxes and most of us are content to live with them”.
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