Ghaziabad, May 31: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Dr. Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s scientific prowess was universally acknowledged in the last nine years.
The minister said that during the last nine years under the stewardship of PM Modi, India’s scientific temper catapulted India to the select league of leading nations with emerging technologies.
Addressing the 46th Induction Programme for the newly recruited scientists of the Ministry of Science and Technology at the Human Resource Development Centre, Ghaziabad of CSIR, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “Despite skepticism and doubts raised in some unscrupulous quarters, the country successfully fought back the Covid19 pandemic. Under the able guidance and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian pharmaceutical companies developed vaccines in a short time and the Government not only combatted the spread of Covid19 but also exported the vaccine to the developed world and WHO commitments.”
Dr Jitendra Singh added, “Under the Rs. 900 Crore ‘Mission COVID Suraksha’, announced by Government of India as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 package, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) delivered four vaccines, augmented the manufacturing of Covaxin, The four vaccines are- ZyCoV-D- world’s 1st and India’s indigenously developed DNA Vaccine, CORBEVAXTM – India’s first protein subunit vaccine, GEMCOVAC™-19 – world’s 1st and India’s indigenously developed mRNA vaccine and iNCOVACC-World’s 1st and India’s indigenously developed intranasal COVID-19 vaccine.”
The union minister said India created a massive jump in its global ranking of the Global Innovation Index (GII) from 81st in the year 2015 to 40th in 2022 among 130 economies of the world. “The Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) has increased more than three times in the last 10 years. India is ranked 9th in terms of resident patent filing while Women’s participation in extramural R&D has also doubled in the last 9 years,” he said.
Dr Singh said India ranks 3rd globally in terms of the number of Startups (77,000) and in terms of no of UNICORNs (107) in the world. India ranks third among the most attractive investment destinations for technology transactions in the world. “India’s significant rise in terms of the number of publications in SCI journals – globally ranked 3rd now from 6th in 2013. Besides, India occupies 3rd rank in terms of the number of PhDs awarded in Science and Engineering (S&E) (nearly 25,000) after the USA and China,” he said.
In line with the Prime Minister’s announcement at COP26, India is working towards achieving 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, he said. “So far, more than 170 GW of capacity from non-fossil fuel sources has been installed in the country. India stands 4th globally in Renewable Energy Installed Capacity (including Large Hydro), 4th in Wind Power capacity and 4th in Solar Power capacity,” he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said Space reforms have unleashed innovative potentials of StartUps and within a short span of time, from a couple of Space Start-ups three to four years back. “Today we have 102 start-ups working in cutting-edge areas of space debris management, nano-satellite, launch vehicle, ground systems, research, etc,” he said.
