Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has won the much coveted Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this year, sharing the honor with two other outstanding scientists. Venky, as he is affectionately called by his friends and admirers, has indeed done India proud - though India has done nothing to him. We, however, rejoice at his achievement, so let it be.
Venky and the two other scientists have made a path-breaking scientific discovery which eventually will revolutionize the entire health care activities of millions of people across the globe. These three Laureates have generated 3D models that show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome. These models can now be used by scientists to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering.
Admittedly Venky was an above average student when he was in India - but verily he blossomed to his full dimension when he went abroad. He reached the pinnacle of glory primarily because the academic and research ecosystem made available in the US and UK . Had he continued in India, he would have perhaps languished as a senior professor in some academic institution or ended up as a scientist bureaucrat in one of the National Labs.
Except for Sir C V Raman and Tagore, India has never produced a single home grown Noble Laureate till today. Indians who had become expatriates have indeed excelled beyond question. . Out of 789 Noble prizes awarded as on July 2008, US bagged whooping number of 320, UK 114, Germany 102, France 57, Swiss 25, Russia 23, Italy and Austria 20 each,, Canada and Netherlands each 18,, Japan 16, Denmark 13, Poland 12, Norway and Belgium each 11, , Australia 10 and India if you include expatriate Indians 9. Tagore and C V Raman were the real Indians who remained Indians and got the prize. Mother Theresa was Albania born and was more than Indian - she belonged to the entire world.
The question that begs an answer is: How is it we have not produced a home grown Noble Laureate after C V Raman? There are three reasons:
In the first place, our research spending is minuscule as compared what is being spent in the US, UK and in other western countries. They invest mind boggling amount in all futuristic research - we do not.
Secondly this flows from the first. Our research infrastructure even in IITs is no way nearer to the facilities made available in Stanford, MIT, Yale, Georgia, Berkeley or elsewhere in the west. Without high quality infrastructure, high level research especially in frontier areas is next to impossible.
Thirdly, we need to have a band of young scholars who are highly qualified and intensely dedicated with enormous passion for scientific investigations to assist the research and academic leaders to take forward the scientific problems to their logical conclusion. The quality of research scholars that our academic institutions attract leaves very much to be desired. Higher education should encourage all high level intellectuals. But this is not done here.. Look what is happening in the US: they open out their portals to all those across the world provided they are brilliant and can take their research to greater heights . Result they get the best of the foot soldiers who can do really solid work for their academic leaders. This cumulative and combined work results in high level synergy which is the source of their success.
Will we ever learn?
