CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 872-4600 Letters to Editor:
[email protected] C&EN home page: http://pubs.acs.org/cen EDITOR: Madeleine Jacobs MANAGING EDITOR: Rudy M. Baum SENIOR CORRESPONDENTS: Lois R. Ember, Wilbert C. Lepkowski NEWS EDITOR: Janice R. Long EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Michael Heylin CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: James H. Krieger ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Patricia Oates BUSINESS William J. Storck, Assistant Managing Editor Northeast: (732) 906S300. Marc S. Reisch (Senior Editor), Elisabeth Kirschner (Associate Editor), George Peaff (Associate Editor), Rachel Eskenazi (Administrative Assistant). Houston: (281) 486-3900, Ann M. Thayer (Bureau Head), (281) 496-6382, Paige Morse (Associate Editor). Hong Kong: 852-29849072 Jean-Francois Tremblay (Associate Editor). London: 44 181 870^884. Patricia Layman (Senior Editor). GOVERNMENT David J. Hanson, Bureau Head Washington: (202) 8724495. Bette Hileman (Senior Editor), Jeffrey W. Johnson (Senior Editor), Iinda R. Raber (Associate Editor) SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION Pamela S. Zurer, Assistant Managing Editor Washington: (202) 8724505. Rebecca L. Rawls (Senior Correspondent), Stuart A. Borman (Senior Editor), Mairin B. Brennan (Senior Editor), Doron Dagani (Senior Editor), A. Maureen Rouhi (Senior Editor), Sophie L. Wilkinson (Associate Editor). Northeast (732) 9068301. Stephen C. Stinson (Senior Editor). Chicago: (773) 463-2371. Mitch Jacoby (Assistant Editor). West Coast (510) 8490575. Elizabeth K. Wilson (Associate Editor). London: 4A 1256811052. Michael Freemantle (Senior Editor). ACS NEWS William G. Schulz (ACS News Editor), Diana L. Slade (Editorial Assistant) EDITING & PRODUCTION Ernest L. Carpenter, Assistant Managing Editor Robin M. Giroux (Senior Editor), Janet S. Dodd (Associate Editor), Arlene Goldberg-Gist (Associate Editor), Julie L. Grisham (Associate Editor), Stephen K. Ritter (Associate Editor), Rita E. Johnson (Assistant Editor). GRAPHICS & PRODUCTION Alan Kahan (Head), Phillip Payette (Art Director), Iinda Mattingly (Staff Artist) Composition Systems: Vincent L. Parker (Manager), Robin L. Braverman (Assistant) CIRCULATION Circulation Manager: Scott Nathan ADVISORY BOARD Jeannene Ackerman, Steven W. Baldwin, Marvin Cassman, E. Gary Cook, Debbie C. Crans, Samuel J. Danishefsky, James E. Evans, Slayton A. Evans Jr., Michael J. Ferris, Marye Anne Fox, Mary L. Good, Carlos G. Gutierrez, Dudley R. Herschbach, J. Roger Hirl, Robert J. Huggett, Robert S. Langer, Stephen J. Lippard, Leo E. Manzer, Gary L. Mossman, Hans C. Noetzli, Jane Margaret O'Brien, Don H. Olsen, Janet G. Osteryoung, Gregory A. Petsko, Alan Schriesheim, Richard E. Smalley, Enrique J. Sosa, Peter J. Stang, Kathleen C. Taylor, David A. Tirrell, Tamae Maeda Wong Published by AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY (202) 872-4600; TDD (202) 8724432 John Kistler Crum, Executive Director Robert D. Bovenschulte, Director, Publications Division EDITORIAL BOARD Michael P. Doyle (Chair); ACS Board of Directors Chair: Joan E. Shields; ACS President: Paul S. Anderson; Ronald Breslow, Lura J. Powell, Elsa Reichmanis, Paul H. L. Walter
• EDITOR'S PAGE
Modem India Turns 50
0
ur perception of foreign cultures," one contemporary novelist has written, "is usually based not on their complex reality, but on the simplified image they project. The clearer and more sharply defined that image is, the more convinced we will be that we are intimately acquainted with it." So it must surely be with India, the vast subcontinent of some 960 million people that celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence from Britain at midnight on Aug. 14. India has perhaps given the U.S. more negative images, simplified or otherwise, in the past dozen or so years than any other nation. These range from brutal assassinations to the nightmarish deaths of thousands of people from a chemical plant accident in Bhopal. Even today, many people know India only from an occasional negative newspaper article or television program. I was privileged to see another side of India in 1985 on a seven-week, 3,000mile trip to several dozen cities, towns, and villages. The India I saw was like an abstract tapestry. Individual pieces of the tapestry were satisfying, beautiful, and enlightening, but it was only when I stepped back and viewed the country as a whole that the countless threads, skillfully woven, created a complete image. What is most remarkable about this country of contrasts is the role that science and technology have played throughout its history. One of the world's oldest civilizations, India had a flourishing scientific and technological tradition going back to at least 3000 B.C. But centuries of conquest and conflict left India bereft. Under the British Raj, valuable raw materials were exported to Britain; nearly all manufactured goods were imported. By the year of independence, 1947, one Indian scientist told me, "We didn't make one pin, a piece of chalk, a pencil." Fortunately, its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had a vision of science as a major force for social and economic change. Declared Nehru: "It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty. The future belongs to science and to those who make friends with science." Nehru established dozens of research laboratories, universities, institutes of technology, and a technology
policy for the nation. The policies were strengthened under the ministries of Indira Gandhi, his daughter, and Rajiv Gandhi, his grandson. Education was the key, and India now boasts the world's third largest number of scientific and technical personnel. Today, India is grappling to balance the pull of the past with the promises of the future. At times, its problems seem insurmountable. With a land area slightly more than one-third the size of the U.S., India will soon have to support nearly 1 billion people. And it continues to have serious religious, economic, and political conflicts. Many Indian universities lack decent scientific equipment, and the overall infrastructure needed to support a science and technology base is poor. Still, Indian scientists who come to the U.S. to study and live more than hold their own intellectually in the U.S. scientific establishment. And within India, chemistry is a highly visible choice of professions, along with medicine and engineering. Moreover, chemists are highly respected. The current president of the Indian National Science Academy is organic chemist S. Varadarajan, who was Indira Gandhi's science adviser and a founder of the science museum in New Delhi. India's chemical industry is currently one of the fastest growing segments of the country's economy. But a recent study (C&EN, March 24, page 29) shows that other Asian nations have caught up to or surpassed India, whose industrial growth has been hampered by government overregulation, policies favoring state-owned companies over large private ones, and, finally, protection of small-scale industries, which has delayed implementation of a market economy. Yet it's hard to believe that the worid can ignore investments in a market of a billion people. Virtually no area of Indian life or culture today is left untouched by the scientific renaissance of the post-independence period. The challenge for the future as India marks its 50th anniversary is how to keep this renaissance going.
Editor
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS
JULY 21, 1997 C&EN 5
