Despite its large scientific and technical manpower pool, India has experienced a steady decline in its standing in international scientific circles. The country's research and development facilities particularly in the universities and scientific teaching and curricula at the school level are sub-standard and continue to deteriorate. There is a regular emigration of its best brains.

India's backwardness in scientific and technological progress can be squarely blamed on the role of the state. It has imposed itself in areas where it should not function and done poorly in the areas where it can claim a more legitimate role. This backwardness was entirely avoidable considering the vast reservoir of scientific manpower available within the country. The level of human development particularly in the rural and semi- urban areas is appalling. We have failed to harness technology to enable our people to get better educated, receive better health care and be provided with better infrastructure facilities in terms of the availability of electric power and most important of all - clean drinking water. This state of affairs resulted from the fact that neither did the State give these the priority they deserved nor allowed private organisations, whether they were voluntary organisations or private companies, entry into these areas. Until very recently, successive governments followed a dog in the manger policy.

India's science and technology is marked by the following:

• R&D is almost solely in the public sphere. This means bureaucratic or even political perceptions, rather than those of the market, direct much research. Technology is clearly beyond the ability of any government to handle, it moves too quickly and changes too rapidly. State R&D often directs resources into scientific dead-ends and misses new technology altogether. India is particularly weak in the practical side of technology.
  
  
• The private sector's incentive to invest in R&D is minimal. Lack of economic competition in the external front has allowed Indian companies to get away with investing less than 0.5% of turnover on R&D. The preferred method of gaining know- how is through technology transfer. This is generally accepted by economists to be the worst way to gain technology - technology that is normally obsolete and there is minimal spin- off in the domestic economy. Foreign direct investment, where the overseas company has a controlling stake, is the best means to bring state of the art private sector science and technology to India.
  
  
• There is almost no protection of an inventor' s intellectual property rights. This is a major disincentive for indigenous innovation. Indian corporations prefer to pirate products. Indian inventors take their inventions out of the country and patent them. Patent illiteracy is rampant in the country. India, at present, legalises squatters' rights on ideas. Since 1920 patents have remained static at about 3,000 of which about 70% are to overseas companies.
  
  
• Finally, India has a weak educational structure that does everything other than imbue an up-to-date scientific knowledge and temperament. Education by rote allows no room for questioning minds; a product of ill-trained teachers who are a burden rather than benefit the student; there is little or no scientific equipment, and even if equipment is there, it is often not used as a consequence of inflexible regulations.

Part II : The Liberal Position

The gap between developed and developing countries is most striking in the field of science and technology. It is a gap that many believe is growing exponentially. Yet it is science and technological progress that perhaps offer the best opportunity for a developing country to bridge this gap. Progress in this field contributes to the country's development in many areas:

• It is among the major factors that contribute to economic growth and competitiveness.
  
  
• Its disciplines imbue a skeptical, rational and enlightened mindset to people.

Advances in communication and information technology empower individuals in politics and economics and promote transparency. Information technology also allows countries to leapfrog ahead skipping intermediate phases of development.

World leaders in science and technology are characterised by the following:

• The bulk of non-defence scientific and technological development is done in the private sector. The market drives research.
  
  
• Public scientific and technological research is concentrated in pure science and defence. Even here there is a large component of private sector financing and involvement.
  
  
• Strong intellectual property rights ensure that indigenous innovators are guaranteed property rights giving them the incentive to innovate and derive economic benefits from their work.
  
  
• Large scale and extensive stress on scientific education from the primary level onwards. Education that recognises creativity, laboratory training and of manpower needed to sustain a country's scientific and technology endowments.
  
  
• Market-driven scientific and technology environment allows greater interface between scientific research, defence, the financial sector and industry, enhancing science's direct contribution to the economy. Flexible private financing like capital gains, venture capital and labour plays a crucial role.

In the present state of its development, India needs the State to play a role - not a monopolist one as in the past, but as a supplementary one to provide the infrastructure in the areas of primary education and primary health. It has to encourage, in a positive manner, those who are prepared to provide technology and modern equipment - teaching aids and primary health care equipment. The latter includes inputs for improved nutrition; access to pre and postnatal care; and to prevent water-borne diseases.

For India to catch up with the developed world in science and technology some of the steps to be taken are:

• Restricting the role of the State to pure science research and defence. The government's regulatory sphere should be restricted to the setting up of standards for telecom and other commercial technological spheres. Even here private corporate initiatives in R&D in pure science research and defence should not be discouraged.
  
  
• The introduction of a strict patents regime to provide incentives and protection to indigenous inventors. This would encourage foreign companies to establish R&D facilities and bring newer technology into the country.
  
  
• Enhancing the role of the private sector in R&D with a proper environment. Foreign Direct Investment needs to be encouraged and technology transfer recognised for the mediocre system that it is. Increased economic competition, especially from overseas, needs to be encouraged if India's private sector is to be given an incentive to spend money in this field.
  
  
• The need for major reforms in the field of education - in curricula, uses of funding and in decision-making authority. The curricula and methods of education are far out of date - methods that date back to the pre-World War I era. Educational spending must be performance linked and more result oriented. And decision making in matters relating to education decentralised.

The key issue is that technology is a fast-moving and fickle river, its course, speed and very nature, beyond anyone's ability to predict. In our information-based economic era, its importance in every sphere of economic activity is growing by leaps and bounds.

While private companies struggle to keep up with changes in technology, governments are wholly unequipped to handle R&D except at the pure science level. It needs to create an environment where private investment in science and technology needs to be encouraged. This includes a competitive economy, strict patents regulation and human inputs in the way of education.

[Based on a discussion and general acceptance of Part II of this Paper by a National Workshop on Liberalism held in Mangalore from March 26 to 28, 1999]