Interviews (by Mashelkar)

Mashelkar Committee Report on India’s National Auto Fuel Policy


The Government had formed a high powered Mashelkar Committee to decide about the National Auto Fuel Policy in the year 2003. This interview was given by RAM after the Government had accepted the Report.

Q1: With the Centre having okayed the Auto Fuel Policy, what is your view is its most important recommendations?
Mashelkar:
 I believe the most important recommendation is really the proposed ‘balanced’ road map for implementation of vehicular emission norms and corresponding Auto Fuel Policy in phases till the year 2010, for new vehicles, as well as for the in-use vehicles. I use the word ‘balanced’ deliberately since we have taken due care to see that while reducing the vehicular pollution, we minimize the social cost, provide time for adjustments for auto industry as well as fuel suppliers and also look at the issue of fuel security.

Q2: The Government has not accepted the proposal of a National Automobile Pollution and Fuel Authority. Would this affect the overall implementation of your recommendation?
Mashelkar: 
Setting automobile emission norms and fuel quality standards and ensuring their enforcement and monitoring are multi-level and mulit-sectoral activities in India. That is why NAPFA was proposed. I would have been personally happy to see in NAPFA in place. But in the absence of this, the Government will have to devise a mechanism for close integration of various activities at both the Central as well as the State level.

Q3: In the terms of reference of your report, you mention the policy is designed to set in motion economic instruments to bring better quality air? How would you suggest this be implemented given the reluctance to pay user charges?
Mashelkar:
 The recommendations are for improved vehicle technology and adequate quality and quantity of fuel at affordable price as well as economic instruments for abatement of pollution to provide better quality of air. The fiscal concessions and waivers suggested are for ensuring security of supplies at affordable cost to support economic and social development. However, it is up to the Government to decide on the fiscal measures and other support systems.

Q4: In your report, you mention that bus transport should be promoted in order to keep in check the growth of private transport. Yet, a higher GDP and increasing disposable incomes and rising aspirations, more and more people want a car? How, therefore, can public transport improvements be brought about?
Mashelkar : I agree with you that more and more people want to buy cars. When I used to go to CSIR’s National Chemical Laboratory five years ago, there were hardly two to three private cars. Today, there are more than 50 cars! You are right there.

However, a good public transport system is a necessity. People will take to it for going to work if they find that they can reach the place of work faster, the service is top class and the life for them is more hassle free. Therefore, improving speed, service and the convenience of public transport system simultaneously through proper political will, planning support and efficient implementation will definitely make public transport more attractive to the commuters.

Q5: Among those who will benefit from the new policy are car makers who find no representation on the committee, can one, therefore, expect their wholehearted cooperation?
Mashelkar: The private car makers were fully consulted. The representatives of private car makers were part of the Working Group constituted by the Committee for in depth examination of the specific issues. All the prominent car makers and SIAM have also made detailed presentation to the Committee. In fact, I myself spent a full day at TELCO to see their preparedness to deliver in the future.

To be frank, I was extremely happy to see Auto industry leaders like, Rahul Bajaj, Venu Srinivasn, Brij Mohan Munjal, etc. personally come and depose before the Committee. In addition, we had many written communications received from leaders such as Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, C.K. Birla, etc. Whenever I have chaired a Committee, I have made absolutely sure that all the stakeholders are fully consulted.

Q6: The transformation of the entire bus and public transport to CNG was long drawn and fraught with uncertainty.  Yet the firmness of the court was crucial.  Do we lack the political will to clean up the air?
Mashelkar : There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the firmness of the court was critical in implementation of the transformation of the entire public transport to CNG. I cannot say that there is no political will, otherwise, they would not have formed this Committee on Auto Fuel Policy and accepted its report. And now they have got busy with its implementation too.

Q7: Critics say that a specific recommendation of a clean fuel would provide a better road map for fuel use yet your report preferred to provide overall standards?
Mashelkar: I do not believe that the specific recommendations of a single clean fuel is necessarily a good idea. You then automatically reduce your choices and also eliminate the scope for innovation.

Q8: The report of the Auto Fuel Policy makes several suggestions regarding the imposition of penalties. How can we ensure compliance given the state of our law enforcement agencies?
Mashelkar : I do not think we should just live with the present state of law enforcement agencies. We need to be dissatisfied and there has to be people’s movement to demand better quality of air and, therefore, of life. Public awareness and certain amount of activism can most certainly help in building the pressure. We have seen this happen again and again.

As regards the imposition of penalty, it is upto the Government to put in a system that will provide for swift, sure and severe penalty for the offenders.

Q9: Some months ago, the CSIR signed a MoU with Daimler Chrysler for a project on biodiesel. What does the CSIR as an organization hope to gain by its involvement and how can this process bring in more stakeholder?
Mashelkar : CSIR hopes to bring in a market pull to this project on biodesel through its collaboration with Daimler Chrysler. Daimler Chrysler had made a commitment to rigorously evaluate the biodiesel from Jatrohpha oil both analytically and through automobile testing. This would help in drawing up appropriate specifications for this biodiesel, besides environmental gains for the purpose of sustainable mobility.

The MoU with Damler Chrysler puts no restrictions on collaboration with others in its national interest. CSIR has already initiated discussions with oil major such IOC and HPCL and interest has been expressed by Reliance as well. Additionally, CSIR has written to various automobile companies about their involvement.

Q 10: A lot of crucial decision should necessarily be data driven. Yet reliable data has been a huge constraint. How does one handle this key issue?
Mashelkar : As a said earlier, our decisions have to be really information based and, therefore, data based rather than emotion based. Unfortunately, that does not happen in our country.

The Committee commissioned special studies thru CRRI, NEERI, IIP, ITRC, NIPFP in respect of Urban road traffic and air pollution, ambient air quality and source apportionment, appraisal of health impact of air pollution due to vehicular emissions, incentive system for replacing old vehicles, rationalisation of road tax, savings on health cost from implementation of Euro norms in India. We did something like 22,000 mandays of work to collect the data. But we need to continue with this process. With Scientific Advisory Council on Hydrocarbons for Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, we have already launched further serious and quantitative studies. This should continue with vigour!

Q 11: Experts say that a huge limiting factor in our economic progress is the lack of adequate human capital. What do you feel about this?
Mashelkar: The economic progress for different countries was based on different triggers in different times of history. It was roads and railways for USA, milk and milk products for Denmark, textiles for Britain and oil for Middle East. But to me the oil for India in the 21st Century is going to be the Indian mind, the Indian talent and the Indian human capital. We have demonstrated how valuable this human capital can be. For example, 0.05% of Indian population comprising computer software engineers produces 20% of our export! We need to improve the quality and the extent of this qualified human capital.

In fact, one of India’s greatest advantage by the year 2020 is 55% of our population in the working group from 15 to 59. We have submitted a Report to the Prime Minister of India 4 months ago about how 50 million jobs can be created with 200 billion dollars economic turn over, simply based on the  strength of this human capital.

Dr. Mashelkar interviewed by Manthan (IISER magazine) on his life, career and message to the youth


Manthan Interviews the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IISER Mohali – Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar.
Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar(FRS), He served for over eleven years as the Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, world’s largest chain of publicly funded industrial R&D institutions, with thirty-eight laboratories and about 20,000 employees.

Dr. Mashelkar is the former President of the Indian National Science Academy and the UK Institution of Chemical Engineers (2007-8). He is the third Indian engineer to have been elected as Fellow of Royal Society (FRS), London. He was elected foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2005. He was elected as the foreign associate of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is the first Indian to have received this honour. He was elected foreign fellow of US National Academy of Engineering (2003), Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, UK (1996), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Fellow of American Associatoin of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of World Academy of Art & Science, USA (2000). Twenty-six universities have honoured him with honorary doctorates, which include University of London, University of Salford, University of Pretoria, University of Wisconsinand Delhi University. Dr. Mashelkar was honoured with the Padmashri (1991) and Padmabhushan (2000) by the President of India. Dr. Mashelkar is presently the president of Global Research Alliance, a network of publicly funded research and development institutes from Asia-Pacific, South Africa, Europe and USA with over 60,000 scientists. He is also the President of India’s National Innovation Foundation.

Q. From Mashel to Raghunath Mashelkar tell us something about your journey, any particular incidents that you would like everybody to know.
A: I was born in Mashel, that is how I draw my name Mashelkar. I was born into a very poor family. My father died when I was six and my mother moved to Girgaon, Prarthanasamaj, in south Bombay. I went to a municipal school where I studied in Marathi, until the 11th standard, which used to be the SSC. Getting two meals a day was a big challenge for me. I couldn’t get admission to a good school because I could not pay the admission fees on time. So I had to go to an ordinary school; but it had really great teachers, very enlightened teachers. One of them changed my life, Principal Bhave, who taught us physics.
In my SSC, I stood 11th among 35000 students, but I was about to leave school because my mother could not afford it, but I got  Rs. 60 per month, for 6 yrs from Sir Dorabji Tata’s trust. That was how I could study. I used to go to that Bombay House in Bombay, Tatas had all their offices there. Today, I go there as a member of Board of Directors of Tata Motors, so the wheel has turned a full circle. But that happened because of the Rs. 60 they gave me at that time. I think there is a lesson there, that there are hundreds of thousands of Mashelkars; if they are given the support, then they can definitely do something. Later on I went to Jai Hind College, and then went for Chemical Engineering in UDCT. I did my PhD with Dr. M. M. Sharma, who became the first Indian Engineering Scientist to become the fellow of the Royal Society, which as you know is one of the highest honours in science.

Q. You have been DG of CSIR for about 11 years;  that too during a period widely regarded as transformation phase of CSIR. How challenging was it?
A: The challenge with CSIR is that there were forty laboratories scattered all over  India. There was diversity not only in the geography but in culture, languages they speak and so on. It was a big challenge to bring unity in this diversity. In my first year as CSIR DG, I visited all the 40 laborato-ries, went  to the work floors, and interacted with the staff. In order to bring entire CSIR together we created CSIR  vision strategy, to be achieved by 2003. Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam  asked me ” Mashelkar why 2003 why not 2020”. I replied ”I won’t be DG in 2020 and I would like to be judged when I am in the position”. The vision of creating the TEAM CSIR became possible because of vision document. This transformation of CSIR in the 90’s is listed among the top 10 scientific achievements of India in Jayant Narlikar’s book.

Q. India before independence saw a lot of individual achievement but after
independence it was more of collective effort by organisations like CSIR, CSIO etc. Is  this because of changes in policy?
A: I think there are a number of factors responsible for it. When people like  Sir C V Raman, J C Bose, S N Bose were involved in scientific research, the world was different. Then it started to change, technologies, access to knowledge everything changed. Today a great man like Prof. C N R Rao has to send samples abroad. We don’t have a level playing field. As we moved along, struggling with poverty, our ability to interact became very poor. To stay cutting edge you not only require tools and techniques but access; access to knowledge, information, events, I would say we failed to get a Nobel prize, but how many Nobel laureates have been produced by developing world so far? 3 – 3 as in I am counting C V Raman for the work done in India not Chandrashekhar for his work in US, in which our contribution is not bad. With more funding and establishment of new brand institutes like IISERs we can expect to have path breaking individual efforts in near future.

Q. You were associated with the whole Intellectual Property Rights movement bringing the patent of turmeric back to India. How important is it for scientists to be aware of something like IPR in India?
A: It is very important. Knowledge should be monitisable;  since at some point of time you would want to make profit out it. It is essential that you own that knowledge legally. One should own knowledge legally; otherwise anyone can make money out of it. Society gives us the right to use that knowledge exclusively. Indian ideas should create wealth within India, not in Europe, US and Japan and in order to do that we must have ownership and in order to have ownership we must have patents. In IISER you do science and some of that science  should  potentially be convertible to technology, not all.
So wherever you find that you have a breakthrough which can create wealth you must go for patents so that  you own it. Through that ownership you can create  money for yourself, for the institute, or give it away;
”this issue had not been addressed for a long time 1898 to 1998; from Bose to Basmati”
that’s your own choice. India has lost quite a bit because we did not patent. Story goes that Sir J C Bose was the originator of the iron-mercury ion  platform technology which is used today for wireless communication. He was the one who propounded this idea not Marconi but he refused to patent it, now our textbooks say that Marconi was the inventor and not JC Bose; that was 1898. Again in 1998, Basmati rice was  patented by the US I fought in bringing that back to India. So this issue had not been addressed for a long time 1898 to 1998; from Bose to Basmati. We cannot continue like that. We have to be smart.
Knowledge – buy it or create it. IISERs are an example for recent developments in the direction of creating knowledge within our nation. What more must India do  to make it’s base stronger?
Yes. IISERs, as we all know, are Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research; it has two integral components one being  education and the  other research.
In Education,  what you do is, you look at the existing knowledge and disseminate it. Research creates new knowledge and  we have said education and  research because we expect you to not only to disseminate the existing knowledge but also in creating new knowledge. Now in creating new knowledge and by new I mean new to the world, India’s share is very small, which is actually very sad.
If you look at research papers from all over the world India’s contribution  will not even  count for 2-3 %. This cannot be. If you look at America, they are a big superpower because they are big knowledge creators but also having created that knowledge they know how to create wealth out of it; so IISERs will have to continue to elevate India’s position in the formation of novel, innovative ideas across all scientific communities.
Secondly  the world’s knowledge economy has come to stake. More than 50% of the world’s GDP  today is contributed through  knowledge economy. Production of knowledge, distribution of knowledge, privatization of knowledge, etc. When you buy a CD you buy knowledge not plastic and your paying for it. When you buy a software, you are buying knowledge and your are paying for it; and that constitutes a rich significant fraction of the economy. Partly we got into the software services, but we have not created products of our own; we have been providing services using our large manpower. More than 600000 software engineers whose average age is 26.5 years are contributing to 1/3rd of our export and this is just  the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more that  we can achieve. Here IISERs will have to play a major role in formulating this trend of generating scientific innovation.

Q. Your message to young aspiring students.
I would like IISERs to be among the top 100 institutes in the world. Sadly none of the Indian institutes and universities figure in the world rankings today. Harvard will always be No.1. No matter what happens; there are other universities as well Princeton, Oxford, MIT, Cambridge, Cal tech, Yale, etc. Even Singapore University, other Asian universities like Tokyo University, Universities from China, Institutes from  Korea even have started figuring among  the top listed colleges. There is nothing from  India. IISERs should come  first in the top hundred and then aim to be in the top twenty. That’s the clear message.
“IISERs should come  first in the top hundred and then aim to be in the top twenty in world”
By 2050 I will not be there but I would like to see IISERs  bringing  Nobel prizes for science and research. And in any institution  two things are important, there has to be excellence and relevance. What I talked about previously was excellence. Your brilliance should be such that you  bring the highest honour to the country. But thats not enough; your contribution to science  must have relevance to the country.
USSR was ahead of USA in the space race. SPUTNIK is a classic example. But when they were doing that, there were queues for bread on the streets, that means there was something missing. They were creating knowledge, but they were creating something that was not relevant to the society.I don’t want India to be like that. It shouldn’t be like while we are winning Nobel prizes and Olympic  medals our people go hungry.
I think we have to worry about the fact that today 800 million people  have an income less than hundred rupees a day. We have to worry about the fact that there are poor people who  do not have access to education and health. These are things that no one else is going to work on. These are our very own problems. Why should someone else worry about these things? Why can’t we do cutting edge science that would deal with such issues – cutting edge science to drive away poverty and bring about equitable distribution of wealth among the masses. India matters to us but we want to matter to India more. Something that we should never lose sight of.
(We are grateful to Prof. N. Sathyamurthy (Director IISER Mohali) and Prof. K.S Viswanathan (Faculty in Charge – Manthan) for timely advices and support.)
Prof . Mashelkar delivering 5th foundation day lecture – More from Less for Many at  IISER Mohali

Original Article: https://iisermmag.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/interview-with-dr-r-a-mashelkar/

Interview with MoneyLIFE on Dr. Mashelkar’s life and career in NCL and CSIR


August 25, 2008

We will no longer talk of the history of science, we will talk of the geography of science, the emergence of India and China
It is not for nothing that he is called the ‘Warrior of Haldighati’. India is emerging as a global platform for R&D and it started in Pune in a government lab called National Chemical Laboratories. The man who started the wave was RA Mashelkar. How did a boy, who lost his father at six and went barefoot till 12, go on to become India’s best-known scientist in promoting and defending India’s scientific interests at a global level? Here is that inspiring story told in a conversation with Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu of MoneyLIFE at NCL on a Sunday morning. Excerpts from the interview

ML: We gather that you had a difficult childhood. Can you take us through your formative years?
Mashelkar: I was born in a place called Mashel in Goa. My father died when I was six and my mother came to Mumbai in search of a livelihood. She was an illiterate woman and I was the only child. She did practically menial work or stitched clothes to bring me up. It was a tough childhood. Getting two meals a day was a problem. I call my mother the greatest food technologist. She had mastered the art of cooking one meal in a way that I did not feel hungry at night.
I went to a municipal school (Upper Khetwadi Primary School) and I remember, the school itself was so poor that they could not afford to buy question papers. A test was held every Saturday and we had to buy the question papers ourselves. One day, I remember, we did not have three paise that were needed to buy them. When I had to go from primary to secondary standard, we needed Rs 21 as the admission fees.

ML: And your mother was determined to put you through schools?
Mashelkar: Absolutely. I will tell you something special about her little later, which I discovered when I myself turned 60. Coming back to my school days, a housemaid at Chowpatty came forward and offered those Rs 21. It was her life savings. She gave it to my mother saying, “Your son should study.” In my SSC examination, I stood 11th among 1,35,000 students – without any guides or any classes.

ML: During your school days, were you always a good student?
Mashelkar: I always topped the class. And the interesting part was that I took a great interest in all sorts of activities. For instance, I used to write in Marathi. When I was in the sixth standard, I wrote for a magazine called Manthan. There was a prize for the best idea called Ek Rupaiya Ani Ek Anka (1 rupee and one magazine) and I won that. Can you imagine what the topic was? It was on love (laughs). I used to write for all sorts for magazines. In fact, I was very fond of seeing my name in print, I must admit. I wrote not just for children’s magazines but also for a farmers’ magazine on bananas by going to the library and researching on bananas. Nobody taught me, how to do it? I did it on my own.

I used to write out the pieces on a foolscap paper and to save on postage, I would deliver it myself. The problem was that I was too young and could not let anyone know that I was the writer. And so I would actually lie. I would say, “Raghunath Mashelkar has sent me with these articles.” I missed the Ram Ganesh Gadkari prize (that is supposed to be the highest prize) by just two marks for a play, which I wrote, acted and directed in the ninth standard. But the funny thing is that I was so focused on directing that I actually forgot my own lines (laughs). So, even though I was poor, I lived a full childhood.

ML: And there was never any pressure on you to earn.
Mashelkar: My mother was determined to make me study. She even used to walk miles to get some stitching work. In fact, after I did my SSC, I said, “Enough now, let me look for a job.” But because I had stood 11th, a lot of my friends came forward and supported me. They pooled together the Rs 200 needed and I went to Jai Hind College. Then I got Sir Dorab Tata Scholarship of Rs 60 a month for six years. I often say to Ratan (Tata), who is a good friend of mine, that you may not even have noticed the Rs 60 a month, but it made my life. After I did my SSC, my mother insisted that I go to college. When I finished my Inter-Science, I went to the University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT). There again I stood first and went on to do chemical engineering.

ML: Why did you choose engineering and that too chemical engineering, when you could have chosen anything?
Mashelkar: My life was an unguided missile. In fact, we are now sitting in NCL, where I was a director for six years and I am supposed to love chemistry. Let me share something with you – I hated chemistry!

Chemistry is something you have to mug as opposed to physics and mathematics. So, I wanted to leave chemistry at the first available opportunity. I had actually registered for mechanical engineering after being second in the university in 1962 in Inter-Science. Arun Dravid stood first. But Arun went to do chemical engineering in IIT and therefore I became the first. So, when the list came up for VJTI admission, my name was on the top of the list. But the story of my life is that of accidents. One day, I was standing at the bus stop and Arun was passing by. His father was an officer in the ICS. The year was 1962 and mechanical engineering was most favoured, while chemical engineering was among the least favoured. Arun told me, “Look, what I understand is that chemical engineering is going to be the big thing.” He took me home and his father said, “You should never go by what is current. Look at the future.” It was practically on the last day that I went to UDCT and filled up the form. And, that is how I became a chemical engineer.
After that, I had a number of fellowship offers from the US and Canada, but I did something different. I had been very impressed with one of our professors, MM Sharma. He was just 28 and was extremely inspiring. One day, it suddenly dawned on me, “Here is my guru. I must work under him. Why should I go anywhere else?” So, I registered to do a PhD under him. Nobody would normally do that. The peer pressure was huge. Everybody was going to the top US universities. I finished my PhD in three years, which was a kind of record. This was during 1966-69. When I finished my college, my mother insisted that I do engineering. When I finished engineering, she insisted I do my doctorate. When I got my doctorate, she had found out that there is something more: post-doctorate.

I had often wondered from where she got this kind of drive and vision to make me educated. And then, it came out during my 60th birthday. There was a symposium here in Pune and a big felicitation. During the celebrations, a reporter from Marathi daily Sakaal interviewed my mother. Normally she never comes out and speaks publicly. But the tape recorder was on and my mother just opened up to this reporter. She told her a story, which even I did not know. When she was young, she had gone to the Congress House for a job. She stood in the queue for almost a day and when her turn came, she was rejected. That was because she did not have the minimum educational qualification and do you know what that was? It was passing the third standard. She could have easily lied. There are no certificates for the third standard exam. But she has never done that. That was one of the values she gave me. While returning, she suddenly thought, “Today, I am in this state mainly because I am not educated. I will make sure that my son gets the highest degree possible.” She did not know what that was but she wanted me to go as far as possible. That’s how she had figured out about post-doc. She is a remarkable lady, an unbelievable influence on my life.

ML: So, where did you do your post-doctoral work?
Mashelkar: Here again, there were choices. It was fashionable to go to the US. I was somehow fascinated by the UK, where I had a choice to continue in my own area at the University of Manchester Institute of Science. I also had Leverhume Research Fellowship, but it was for a field I knew nothing about. But, somehow, I felt I should go for this. I should not continue with what I know. I moved to the University of Salford, which was not very well known. I was there from 1969 to 1976. In 1974, something interesting happened. Dr Y Nayudamma was then the Director General of CSIR. He was sent to the UK by Mrs Indira Gandhi, who asked him to go abroad, pick up the brightest and the best and offer them jobs on the spot. I remember, I got a telex from Dr Tilak of NCL, “Go and meet Dr Nayudamma.” He did not tell me the reason. But this was a big turning point in my life. I had made a name for myself and had offers from three US universities and Imperial College. I was going to make a career decision. Dr Nayudamma talked to me about emerging India, the challenges and how that new India could only be built by young people. I was only 31. I was really inspired. I agreed to join him without even consulting Vaishali, my wife, who always stood by me. The story of my life is a story of these two determined ladies. My wife said, “If the nation is calling you, let us go back.” I came to this laboratory, on November 15,1976 on a princely salary of Rs 2100. The conditions were very hard. My wife had to cook on a kerosene stove because gas cylinders were scarce.

ML: It was a shortage economy, caused by the policies of Mrs Gandhi – which was another side to her.
Mashelkar: Yes, telephone connections took five years and Bajaj Auto scooters even more. And only last month, we added five million cell phone connections. It is unbelievable. Anyway, we had a small computer here with a memory of 32k. Journals used to come by sea mail and took four months. So, even before the students read them, these were old. Today, I have subscribed to some 4000 e-journals for CSIR. The students can read them, the day the journals are out. There was a shortage of dollars and I discovered that the organometer I needed would take two years to be imported because of the various certifications and foreign exchange. And things used to go in circles.

ML: But you were never tempted to go back?
Mashelkar: This was the interesting part. My passport was stamped in a way that I would get a permanent residence in the UK if I went back in two years. I ensured that I did not go back in two years. I had made up my mind that this is where I would work. It was tough. But I was not in two minds. Then, of course, I gradually built a reputation in polymer engineering and became the director of this lab in 1989 and that is where another interesting phase started. I remember every time we did something that was ahead of the rest of the world and tried to offer it to Indian industry, they said, “But have they (meaning the West) done it?” This was a challenge to us.

We had been doing reverse engineering till then, copying their discoveries and we said, this is not on. But the context decides the content. Since the national priorities were import substitution, that is what Indian industry was doing. But I said, “I am the master of the local context. National Chemical Laboratory will become the International Chemical Laboratory in scope. What is the business I am in? Knowledge is my product and it has a world market. I am going to sell it to the US, Europe, etc.” This was in 1989, two years before the economic reforms started. This was a paradigm shift and few things became very clear.

One, if I want to sell anything to GE or Du Pont and if I had copied it from them, they would kick me out and therefore, I had to be ahead of them. So, the benchmark for research in the lab went up. Two, I cannot sell it to them if I have not patented it there.
Otherwise, they would be scared of an infringement suit. So, patenting was important. Can you believe it, though this lab was established in 1950, even after 39 years we did not have a single patent! Nobody had bothered. So I said, “Not publish or perish but patent, publish and prosper, in that order.” This has always been the problem with India. Sir JC Bose was the discoverer of wireless, but when Sister Nivedita came to him he did not want to patent it, whereas a smart Marconi did, and that’s what mattered. Today, nobody knows that it was Bose who discovered the iron-mercury-iron coherer, which is the basis of wireless technology. So, patenting started in 1988 and I fought the basmati patent that year. From Bose to basmati, it was a 100-year journey in realising how to create and protect knowledge in national interest. It led to an unbelievable change in mindset.

ML: NCL became a catalyst and you became a crusader on patenting that is why you are called ‘The warrior of Haldighati’ !
Mashelkar: My field is polymer science and engineering. I used to be so passionate about it that they used to call me ‘Polymerkar’, and later when I became a crusader about patents, they started calling me ‘Patentkar’.

ML: Tell us a memorable incident of your ability to patent and prosper.
Mashelkar: Polycarbonate, a substitute of glass, was patented by General Electric of the US. We made a breakthrough in the process, which was called solid-state polycondensation. It was unique and when the breakthrough came, we did not publish it but patented it in the US. This was like putting a flag on GE’s territory. So, in 1991, I went to the GE headquarters to sell. I used to do the selling myself, by the way. I saw no point in sending a business development guy. He will not even be entertained. This was a scientific presentation in a meeting of scientists and I slipped in a 10-minute commercial about NCL. By afternoon, the composition around the table had changed. There were business executives who had joined. The word had spread that here is a guy who had something interesting to sell and by evening the senior VP met me. He made me postpone my flight to have an extensive chat. That is where a new journey began. They sent four people to visit us because they could not believe that we could offer them something new. When they came, they were surprised by the talent pool available. They wanted to start with some contract research. We were an unknown entity. Yes, we had an important patent and it could have been one of the lucky breaks. They wanted to test us out and wanted me to quote our fees. They knew the Indian salaries. Besides, they had also been to the crumbling USSR, which badly needed dollars. I remember one of the GE team members said, “For this price, we can buy a whole Russian institute.” I said, “Go ahead and buy it. You will not get what I have to offer you.”

ML: Even though Russia had as good or probably better talent?
Mashelkar: That was true, but I was arrogant. What I told them is I am offering brain hours, not man hours. So, don’t count. They love aggression; they like if you talk like them. We delivered the project – in quality and on time. One of the projects we did was creating an intermediate for polycarbonate: THPE, as it is called. It is made in India now, and who produces it? Excel. It is something like a Rs 50 crore business for them. So, jobs were created and wealth too with NCL research in India. I am particularly proud of the forward linkage being in India. Then the new journey picked up speed. After GE, Du Pont came, then Ciba Giegy, Genencore and so on. It did a number of things for us. One, the benchmarks were lifted. Second, if I held their hands, I had to run at their pace. If not, I would fall. GE was a fantastic partner. They trained a lot of NCL staff in Six Sigma (GE’s approach to quality), which became available to the Indian industry. These were the spin-off benefits. One consequence of that fruitful partnership was that it reached chairman Jack Welch, who remarked that if we were doing so well, why weren’t we there ourselves, and the idea of Jack Welch R&D Centre came up. I remember, Jean Heuschen and I were sitting in Maurya Sheraton in Delhi about 8-9 years ago, drawing the first blueprint of an R&D centre in Bangalore. It was a small plan for about a 100 people. When it reached Welch, he said, “Not 100, plan for 1000.” Today, the centre has about 3000 people, about 1000 plus with PhDs. If today, India has emerged as global innovation platform, some of the seeds were sown here in NCL, Pune, 15 years ago. I remember in March 1995, I gave the Thapar Memorial Lecture titled ‘India’s Emergence as a Global R&D: New Challenges and Opportunities,’ presided over by the then finance minister and the current prime minister. Nobody believed then that it was possible to do R&D and innovation in India.

ML: Even though NCL was already doing a great job!
Mashelkar: Yes, nobody believed it was possible. I had a theory. It is called ‘skill-based competition’. Everyday products are transient in the marketplace. The company derives value from the market. But the critical part in competition is what skills you have, from what sources and how quickly you can put it all together to create a new product. This skill will not be permanent in a given company, they will be available all over the world, including research labs. My theory was that we can aggregate our technical skills and large manpower to create pools of resource and talent. Today, there are more than 150 such R&D centres in India and they are not small. If GE has 3000 employees, Intel has around 2800.

ML: So, Pune is emerging as a major hub for this, from where you started it all.
Mashelkar: Yes. Dow Chemicals wants to come here. Novartis is already here. A big team from Glaxo SmithKline was here a few weeks ago. The global interest is immense. Everybody wants to come through CSIR. In the last few months, we had Owens Corning, Dow, Du Pont, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Eli Lily, Glaxo, Shell, Carnegie Mellon, you name it and they have come to explore. I feel very pleased that here in NCL, we created the first ripples of this change. Recently, I had the audacity to lecture at MIT under the title: ‘India’s Emergence as a Global Innovation Hub: Phenomenon and the Consequences’. I said, we will no longer talk of the history of science, we will talk of the geography of science, the emergence of India and China and how this will be the centre of gravity. It has strategic consequences too – economic, political, social consequences. Once, when someone asked me to speak about strategic issues and what science & technology could do for them, I said, “Allow them to set up R&D centres here.” They were surprised. I remarked that if India becomes a knowledge production centre with global linkages, they cannot hurt us. It has strategic along with social and cultural implications. Last year, when I went to GE’s R&D Centre in India, I found that out of 2600 people, 700 were young Indians, who had come back. In fact, around 30,000 people have come back in the last three years.

ML: The reverse brain drain has begun indeed.
Mashelkar: Yes. It has started for a number of reasons. Now, people are not looking only at physical incomes but also at psychic incomes. If the latest Intel chip is designed in Bangalore, if the latest aero engine is designed in India, if the latest tuberculosis drug is being designed in Hyderabad and so on, they will come. Secondly, when I spoke in MIT, it was an exciting lecture, people were charged and three Indians came and said, “We want to come back.” I said, “Look, you are in an artificially energised state after hearing me. So, please send me a mail after a month when you have cooled off a bit and I will believe it.” Two of them did. One of them said something interesting. He said, “At $250 a month, we will be able to buy a car and hire a chauffeur in India.” They know all the numbers – monthly installments, salary of a driver, etc. Coming back to India is not such a bad deal anymore. It is not only new opportunities and challenges but living conditions have changed. This is a new India.

ML: What you have done is created a change. You have changed the whole CSIR. It was like managing a large enterprise with many divisions. It needed leadership and management skills. Would you like to say something about that?
Mashelkar: In 1995, I became the Director General of CSIR. I remember in the very first interview, I was asked, “What is your dream for yourself and for CSIR?” I told them that I would like to be the CEO of CSIR Inc. and I wanted to do research in a businesslike manner. I did not want to warm up that chair as a Secretary to the Government of India. There were apprehensions in CSIR – ‘Oh my god, this fellow will turn it into a business entity.’ In 1989, when I became the director here, I had created a business development division and hired the first management guy in CSIR. I remember some top scientists telling me “you have brought the word ‘business’ here, that is going to corrupt things.” But that has not been the case. This year has been the best for CSIR in terms of both revenues and academic progress. In terms of business, we have done more than Rs 350 crore of which earnings from the private sector were Rs 100 crore, which is more than three times of what we had three years ago.
In terms of academic work, we have crossed 3000 international papers in peer-reviewed journals. The Average Impact Factor, which signifies quality, has crossed 2, which is almost the same as that of Indian Institute of Science, our top institution. The same organisation was the best in science and one of the best in business. In 1998, I became a Fellow of Royal Society it is one of the highest academic achievements. The same year, I won the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award, a very high business achievement award from the business community. CSIR is the only institution that figures as a case study in Sumantra Ghoshal’s book Managing Radical Age, where all the other examples are companies like Infosys.

ML: How did you achieve this? What were the steps?
Mashelkar: I created a white paper called CSIR Vision 2001 through wide consultation. It became our roadmap. It created five goals and quantified them. I remember one staffer telling me that this will create problems because the government auditors will look at the targets and if we have not matched them, we will get hauled up. I said, “Wonderful. Let us be accountable.” Dr A P J Abdul Kalam was a member of the advisory board. He said, “Make it Vision 2020, not 2001.” I said, “Sorry, I retire in 2003 and would like to be judged before I retire.”

ML: How many targets did you achieve?
Mashelkar: I will be honest with you, I missed four of them. We really aimed high. I always believed in diving and stretching. The process definitely did something to CSIR. We had a total of 38 needles, all pointing in different directions. My vision document was like a magnet. Everybody was oriented towards one direction. I did another thing. In my first year, I had visited all 40 CSIR labs. This was a record. No other director had done this. Everywhere I used to gather all the people and speak to them. It was a charging exercise for all directors and people down the line. I did not go to any management school. It was common sense and drive.

ML: What are your future plans?
Mashelkar: I will be coming back to NCL as a CSIR-Bhatnagar Fellow which is the highest award this country gives to a scientist. I will take up research fulltime. I will continue to be the president of Indian Science Academy and also of Global Research Alliance which is a forum for CSIR like institutions around the world.

ML: You have made so many changes. Is there anything you regret?
Mashelkar: CSIR is only in its third gear. The change has been too slow. What it has accomplished should have been done five years ago. I wish things moved faster.

Original Article:http://suchetadalal.com/?id=a9de1651-2f26-63f8-492e8bb59d95&base=sections&f&t=RA+Mashelkar+-+A+rare+interview+to+MoneyLIFE

 

“India can be a biotech superpower in the 21st century” – Interview with Rediff Money


At the Wellspring Hospital in south Bombay on November 8, invitees to the launch of the GenoMed programme, listened in rapt attention as the chief guest, a bureaucrat, shared his vision of India as a potential superpower in the 21st century.

“If the US had Silicon Valley in the 20th century, we will have Genetic Valleys in the 21st century.
Ours should be a ‘bio-click economy’, not a brick-and-mortar economy or a brick-and-click economy,” he said. The applauding audience seemed to enjoy every word of his anecdotal, masterly, incisive, peppy address.

But describing the speaker, Dr Raghunath A Mashelkar, 57, secretary of India’s department of scientific and industrial research, as a bureaucrat is bad form. Sorry.

His achievements in science and research, and activism in intellectual property rights issues, have won him global recognition and honours. (Click the links at the end of the interview). He has endeared himself so much to the government that not only has it honoured him with Padma Bhushan, but retained him as the director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research since 1995.

The legendary status of this medium-built man makes even giants such as industrialist Ajay Piramal behave like obedient students in his presence.

In an exclusive interview with Y Siva Sankar, Dr Mashelkar delineated his understanding of the emerging biotech industry, “the next Big Opportunity after infotech for India”.

It is now universally agreed that governments should not be in business. Now you say genomics is the next big business opportunity for India. And the government is seeking to actively engage in this business. Isn’t this a contradiction of sorts?

Not at all. The reason I’m saying ‘There’s no contradiction at all’ is that, this entire genomics industry is going to be based on knowledge.

And that particular knowledge at this point in time is not with the private sector. It is with the public sector because it was government of India which understood the importance of biotechnology, and made huge investments in creating diverse schools and diverse laboratories to create that knowledge base. We are reaping the benefits today.

For example, the kind of knowledge base the Centre for Biochemical Technology has created on its own premises… it just does not exist with any private sector company. And that is where the partnership comes in from.

What Nicholas Piramal is trying to do is to source that knowledge.So, rather than keeping that knowledge closeted in a publicly funded laboratory, what we are doing is opening up those doors to private companies so that together we can make rapid strides.

Although genomics is said to offer huge business potential for the Indian software industry, there doesn’t seem to be enthusiasm of the kind witnessed for Y2K projects. Is this a cause for concern?

Let me put it this way. As far as the current development of our information technology-based economy is concerned, it has not been really based on creating new products.

We have done lot of work for foreign companies which is not linked to generation of new knowledge. On the other hand, this new opportunity (genomics) that is coming up would mean that companies, in case they want to get into this, will have to invest in knowledge and innovation.

For example, in this area, if one wants to move in, then you will have to have people who understand not only, let us say, the information that keeps on coming on genome sequences, but basically genetics and issues associated with that.

That means, there is a need for creation of a special manpower that can be an interface between biology and information technology. It is only then that we will be able to advance.

You’ve said that Corporate India, which generally tends to ignore global-scale scientific breakthroughs, has for the first time reacted positively to the human genome sequencing news of June 26, and its implications. Please elaborate. Have corporates interacted with you on this?

As far as this advance is concerned, we did sign an agreement with Biological Advance. It was signed by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad. The agreement has to do with gene chip and so on, but in the same knowledge domain.

In addition, there have been serious discussions with Satyam, NIIT, Infosys, Reliance. This means that those with interests in the information technology industry, have also moved in to this biotech field.

There are other pharma companies which have also evinced interest in forging tie-ups with us. GenoMed with Nicholas Piramal is the first collaborative venture we have signed.

I’m sure, as time passes by, there will be more such ventures.

The Indian ethos accords godly status to doctors and everything that has to do with healthcare. Pursuit of profit, if any, is frowned upon. Now healthcare is being increasingly talked of as much in terms of business and bottomlines as in terms of welfare. Genomics is an example. What does all this signify?

I look at it this way. Seventy per cent of Indian population does depend on our traditional systems of medicine like ayurveda, unani, homoeopathy. What is likely to happen in time to come is affluence will increase — this country is not going to remain perennially poor.

Today, we’ve 40 per cent of the people below the poverty line. But, I’ve a simple hypothesis — take two factors together.
One is that in 1980s, we had a 5.6 per cent GDP growth. And that was without reforms. With reforms, that 5.6 per cent could easily change to 8 to 9 per cent. I see no difficulty in that with reforms.

Along with that, if you consider the factor that the population growth has declined from 2.2 per cent to 1.7 per cent, you would realise that population is going to stablise by 2020 or 2025.

If you put these two together, economists will tell you that the number of people below the poverty line will shrink from 40 per cent to less than 15 per cent. Which means, to repeat, India is not going to remain perennially poor.

Similarly, the size of the middle class is also growing. Therefore, the affordability of medicine is not going to be what it is today; it is going to change. That is one issue.

The second issue is, there are also efforts to bring the old and the new together. Which means, we are trying to pick up clues from ayurveda to develop new drugs at different levels.

For example, the CSIR and Ayurveda Vaidhyashala have worked together to develop new molecules. We’ve got some spectacular clues in ulcer, diabetes and so on.

What does this mean? This means, the cost of development of new drugs, because of this new business-like approach to healthcare, is going to be much lower than the traditional western model which takes ten to 12 years and takes 400 to 500 million dollars.

If this cost is going to be low, then the advantage will be passed on to the consumer.

You mean modern pharma companies will increasingly harness traditional Indian health systems?

Indeed. In fact, you will find that the old mindset is changing for a number of reasons. The first factor is that because of the new intellectual property rights laws, which allow product patents latest by January 2005, the drugs and pharmaceutical industry is intensifying its research.

If you see the R&D spending of Nicholas Piramal, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Labs and others, you will find that it is going up from 1 per cent to 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Many companies have set the targets of reaching within the next five years at least 5 per cent.

So there is this growing awareness that in order to remain competitive, we can’t be copycats but we must also discover something.

Secondly, there is the scent of success also, because we always thought that it is only those people (foreigners) who will develop new molecules, we can’t.

But, suddenly, people are finding that we can do too, like Dr Reddy’s Labs which has developed an antibiotic technology. It has been licensing out the technology for a few million dollars to Novo Nordisk. More such examples are coming.

So, with confidence rising, companies feel that, ‘yes, there are possibilities of returns’. And, therefore, the new scenario is going to be essentially knowledge-based, innovation-based, research-based and development-based, rather than just reverse engineering because reverse engineering is not just going to pay.

How genuine or serious do you think are the concerns in India about the imminent WTO regime, biopiracy, patents?

We need to understand the whole thing in proper perspective. Look at biopiracy. It was the issue of turmeric patent and wound healing that the CSIR, my organisation, fought in 1996. We said then that this is our known knowledge. ‘You cannot patent it,’ we told the US patent office. That patent was revoked.

After that, the neem patent was revoked in the European patent office. After that, the Basmati patent, certain claims in that patent application of RiceTec. So, one after the other, you have seen successes. The net result of that has been that the US patent office itself has taken a note of the fact that their non-patent databases are weak.

In fact, I was the chairman of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)’s SCIT, the Standing Committee on Information Technology. There are 171 nations in it. So I had a chance to interact With, both, the developing as well as the developed world.

It became very clear… the US patent office told me that when somebody applies for a turmeric patent, they go to their computerised databases, and key in *turmeric, wound, healing, powder*. The search doesn’t throw up any information. Nothing is shown on the computer screen because your knowledge is either in your head or is buried in some book.

The trick is to create electronic databases. What we are now doing is tackle the real disease because this is what happens otherwise — the lack of non-patent databases. The government is launching a major programme called Additional Knowledge Digital Library where all this knowledge will be retrieved, stored and made accessible.

So that next time the US patent officer gets an application for, say, a turmeric patent, he will consult our database and realise that knowledge belongs to India, that is an IPR, and, therefore, not patentable.

I believe that this fear of biopiracy must be converted into an adventure of biopartnership. Let’s not forget that bioresource-rich we may be, traditional knowledge-rich we may be, but the capital and technology exist in the West. They cannot do without us, we cannot do without them.

I believe the breaking of these barriers and clarity that has come are extremely important. Let me add that since I fought the turmeric battle, I look at it as a kind of a drop of a small stone in the pool and the kind of ripples it created, the waves that resulted, have helped focus attention on this issue.

Now the US patent office is saying, ‘We’ll treat traditional knowledge on par with industrial property systems as far as patents are concerned.’ Five years ago, that was not the case.

Genomics as a sunrise industry may be capital-intensive. Do you think financial institutions should adopt a proactive approach and fund such ventures?

Indeed. I feel that venture capital is going to be a key issue. If you see the growth of these companies in the US, you will find that it has been spectacular. Why has it been impressive? It all goes back to fundamentals and the presence of venture capitalists.

I’d say Apple, Intel, Microsoft or the knowledge-based industries would not have made it big but for the initial support of venture capitalists. So we can’t expect traditional banks with conventional thinking and no-risk attitude to support research of this particular kind.

Massive venture capital financing both from the domestic private sector and foreign institutional investors will make the difference. Let’s not forget that even the US, for example, was also slow till mid-70s until the mutual funds, insurance funds ploughed back a certain fraction of their money into this kind of industries. From millions, the figure quickly rose to billions.

I feel that kind of support is necessary in India today.

Do you think genomics will generate jobs?

I don’t think genome-based drugs and pharmaceutical industry will generate large employment. I look at it the other way round. If it is able to reach out to the Indian population in the manner that is proposed (by tackling areas like diabetes, hypertension, schizophrenia, etc), I do believe that medicine at an affordable cost will improve the productivity of the workforce.

If you look at other aspects like… based on ayurvedic practices, and the plant that has been used in experiments, we are getting clues to new molecules. That will generate employment. How? The medicinal plants will have to be grown in very large numbers. That sector has to be organised. They have to become the suppliers of these plants.

Based on that, the downstream industry extracts these molecules, creates new compositions, and new drugs, and then does the compounding, etc. So the whole range then becomes different. So in that area, there is an employment opportunity. Not in genomics per se.

You think it’s all right for India, which has been for long labeled an emerging market, a Third World country, to focus on genomics in a big way?

I think so. This is not only capital-intensive, but knowledge-intensive. And that knowledge comes in two forms. One, the knowledge and innovation that reside in the creativity of our researchers (whose levels are very high); two, the knowledge that arises from the huge genetic diversity and information that is available.

So when we talk in terms of the bio-click economy — that is a term I coined — then the content of knowledge is extraordinarily high although it may also be capital-intensive.

There may be certain sophisticated sequences that may be necessary. That is fine. Eventually, if you look at the final product, it is the content of knowledge that is going to dominate the final price and not what the contribution of that sequence is going to be.

To sum up, can genomics add to India’s riches?

Genomics won’t make India rich. But it will make India a healthier country, because the Indian problems of health will be addressed in the GenoMed programme. And the programme will be designed for the benefit of Indians.

For example, there is a drug that is banned in the US. There is a query as to whether it can work in India or not. It is genomics which is going to give that particular answer. These would be the more subtle issues that a programme like this will be able to address.

All that I would say is, there are several landmark achievements. The first one is that GeneQuest will be the first genomics-based company. Secondly, for the first time, I’m seeing a proactive approach and daring in the corporate world about scientific breakthroughs.

This (foray into genomics) is really an arrow into the future and based entirely on knowledge. Yet, the Piramals have taken this very bold step ahead of the rest of them (industrialists).

If this spirit of technology, entrepreneurship, daring, innovation is multiplied across the country, I see no reason why India should remain a rich country where poor people live. It will become a rich country where rich people live.

“A Gandhian Approach to R&D” – Interview with Strategy+Business magazine


Scientist and scholar Raghunath Mashelkar explains a new model of innovation from India that benefits the world’s poor.
by Abhishek Malhotra, Art Kleiner and Laura W. Geller

When it comes to India’s future, Raghunath Mashelkar admits he’s an optimist. Although millions of Indians are still living below the poverty line and many will continue to do so for decades to come, Mashelkar, an accomplished polymer scientist who has held a wide variety of leadership positions at prominent research and scientific institutions, believes that India has the raw materials — the talent and drive — to overcome its challenges and become a nation of innovators.

These advances, Mashelkar argues, should be developed to help the poor at a price they can afford; not just in India, but in emerging nations around the world. He calls this concept Gandhian engineering, citing examples such as the Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world at a cost of about US$2,200; a hepatitis B vaccine that is 1/40th the cost of traditional vaccines but meets UNICEF’s quality requirements; and Aravind Eye Care’s cataract surgeries, performed on 300,000 patients annually, which cost 1/100th the fee charged in other countries but meet global quality standards.

Mashelkar, currently the Bhatnagar Fellow at India’s National Chemical Laboratory (of which he was formerly the director) and the president of the Global Research Alliance, a network of publicly funded R&D institutes from the U.S., Europe, and the Asia/Pacific region, sat down with strategy+business in Mumbai in January 2010 to discuss his views on innovation and creating breakthroughs, and his belief in the power of inexpensive and accessible technology to change lives.

S+B: What is Gandhian engineering?
MASHELKAR: It’s a term I coined for getting more from less for more people, a new way of expressing one of Gandhi’s teachings: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” In other words, Gandhian engineering is inclusive innovation: developing products and services that improve life for everyone, innovation that doesn’t leave out the poor. We are talking about 4 billion people whose income levels are less than $2 a day. To raise their standard of living and quality of life — which is critical for India, China, and every other emerging nation to fully join the global economy as equals — we have to make goods and services that are ultra-low-cost; not only affordable, but extremely affordable; not “low performance, low price,” but “high performance, low price.” That’s what Ratan Tata [chairman of Tata Motors] did with the Nano. He set out to make a car with safety, comfort, and fuel efficiency available at a cost that was affordable to somebody who was driving a two-wheeler. [See “Too Good to Fail,” by Ann Graham, s+b, Spring 2010.]

S+B: Can you provide another example of Gandhian engineering at work in India today?
MASHELKAR: For the millions of people along India’s coastline who depend on fishing for their livelihood, a new system of satellite-based potential fishing zone (PFZ) forecasting has raised productivity levels and thus incomes. Before this technology was accessible, fishermen often returned home in the evening without any catch. Today, scientists can see the chlorophyll — the green coloration of water created by the activity of the fish — and can also measure the sea surface temperature, which changes due to the activity of the fish. The PFZ information is disseminated to the fishermen in two ways: first, through electronic message boards, where the information is posted. Second, some service providers are supplied with the information, which they then send by SMS text messages to the fishermen’s mobile phones, which can be purchased very inexpensively in India today. When the fisherman goes to these regions where the fish density is higher, his income level will rise. And, also significant, when he used to come back after catching the fish, the fisherman’s catch might rot because he wouldn’t be able to secure buyers quickly enough. Today, using his mobile phone even before he comes ashore, he has fixed where he’s going to sell.

So all of this technology is being developed and used to enhance prosperity, both for the provider of the low-cost product (in this case, for example, Bharti Airtel, one of Asia’s largest telecom service providers) and also for the user (in this case, the fisherman). Technology is going to be a game changer. If you provide people with high innovation at low cost, they will become more productive and efficient, and their earning potential will increase. We can keep improving lives in India and around the world just by making this technology affordable and accessible.

S+B: For the private sector to fully embrace the idea of innovating in emerging nations, won’t there have to be a system in place to protect intellectual property [IP]? Has there been progress made in this area?
MASHELKAR: Certainly, to turn knowledge into wealth, protection is required. Without it, investments will not come in. I’m a strong believer in establishing benefits for those who create ideas; at the same time, I’m a believer in sharing ideas with society. There needs to be a balance. But so far our track record hasn’t been good. The World Intellectual Property Organization, a U.N. agency charged with developing an effective global IP system, has held assemblies on IP protection during which the developed world and the developing world end up on opposite sides, and the meetings end without resolution.

We had an opportunity at a conference held in New Delhi in October 2009, called “Climate Change: Technology Development and Transfer,” which brought together governments, experts, industry representatives, and civil society. We said that 70 percent of the technologies needed to combat climate change exist today. We don’t have to create them; it’s just a question of sharing. At this conference, it was suggested that we create a global fund to help poorer countries license innovative climate change technologies for use in less-developed areas. This would give everyone access to critical intellectual property and pay the inventors for their work. It would be similar to the Global Health Fund [a public–private partnership created in 2002 to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria]. But this idea was not adopted. Unfortunately, sharing of and access to technologies for the global good are not yet close at hand.

S+B: Where are the next breakthroughs going to come from?
MASHELKAR: We have to be willing to invest in research that is highly risky. When I was director of India’s National Chemical Laboratory, I dedicated 1 percent of my budget to run a “crazy idea fund” — a fund to support ideas with a one in 1,000 chance of success. It was only 1 percent; otherwise I would have lost my job. But it made a difference, because people started asking crazy questions, trying to find solutions in areas we would typically dare not visit.

Similarly, I think if we identify 10 grand challenges, let the best minds in the world create ideas, and then fund them, we’ll find the breakthroughs we need. Two models exist for this. The first is the foundation approach, in which global inventor competitions are set up, with the winner receiving a monetary award to carry the idea forward. The second is the open source model, in which there’s no money involved, but the best and brightest get involved for the fun of it. For example, India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research now has a brilliant director-general, Dr. Samir Brahmachari, who created an open source drug discovery (OSDD) initiative to help find new drugs to combat tropical diseases that are traditionally neglected.

The strength of the model is that anyone can contribute via computer, adding to the research that already exists on the website: biologists, chemists, mathematicians, doctors, industry experts, management professionals, software engineers, university and college students, and established scientists. The incentive for contributors is the joy of science and seeing things happen. In addition, the project gives awards to those who solve important challenges. For example, project leaders awarded 120 Acer netbooks to the best contributors to OSDD’s Connect to Decode 2010 project, which expanded our understanding of the tuberculosis genome through the online collaboration of about 800 participants. Today, more than 2,000 partners in more than 75 countries are studying tuberculosis through the OSDD model, working together to create breakthroughs.