Many of the greatest scientists that independent India has produced are little known, like hidden figures in their own homeland. Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri in cosmology, G.N. Ramachandran in protein crystal structures, and C.K. Majumdar and Dipan Ghosh who extended the quantum Heisenberg spin model. These are household names in the international scientific field, but are little promoted by the Indian scientific establishment, even neglected in graduate teaching.

Why the oversight?

This oversight reflects a serious problem for the sciences in India. India has numerous well-funded institutions designed to produce high-quality scientific research, but many eminent Indian scientists think the resulting research is mostly mediocre. What is worse is that the relatively small amount of world-class research produced emerges despite the national scientific establishment, and not because of it.

The physicist Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, until recently director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, is critical about the flaws that he sees: “Our research institutes, despite having far greater resources, were full of clever people who were risk-averse and eased into safe, albeit good, research, but not the ground-breaking work of the earlier, colonial times. Local rewards not subject to global competition were low-hanging fruit — [these were] temptations too hard to ignore.” An Indian citizen who achieved his reputation in the U.S., Professor Bhattacharya was recruited to run TIFR because, as C.N.R. Rao, who until recently was head of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said at the time, “There is really a crisis of leadership in the country… There is a need to get in some fresh blood.” However, the resistance to a U.S.-returned scientist who was from outside the corridors of power ensured that the system remained largely unchanged.

The system is run by scientists-turned-bureaucrats, who have absorbed the culture of government. Independent India’s project of building a national science establishment has led to internal standards of judgment: the scientists in power certify each other’s work. Dependent on political patronage for continued funding, these leaders groom loyalists and yes-men rather than cutting-edge researchers (and women are scarce). In a culture where people tend to get perceived as “smart” or not, labels can stick for life: hard work yields no rewards unless one is already defined as smart. This has led to an insider culture, reproducing privileges rather than promoting excellence. It is the little-recognised lone rangers who usually produce the best work in such a system, and not the research groups that get the major share of resources.

In last year’s Hollywood film Hidden Figures , we learnt the true story of some mathematicians who made crucial contributions to NASA’s space satellite programme, but were ignored because they were female and black. That was in 1960s America, far more patriarchal and racially biased than today. By contrast, the Indian scientists in question were usually upper-caste Hindu men who suffered no discrimination on account of their identity. But they were not insiders close to political power.India’s scientific institutions are a blind spot in the state’s modernisation project. They symbolise reason and are immune to criticism. Owing to a conscious decision at the time of independence, research institutions, which house a numerically small elite, get most of the funding while universities focus mainly on teaching and get very little, says Shobhit Mahajan, a Delhi University physicist. Research and teaching are segregated, and both suffer as a result.

Roadblocks to innovation

For Indian scientists, success has meant becoming a bureaucrat, rather than advancing research. Somendra Bhattacharjee, a senior physicist at Bhubaneswar’s Institute of Physics, lists some of the consequences of such a system. First, all the significant work produced in India is theoretical work. “At least in the theoretical sciences, money is not that much of a requirement. If you have some contacts and can do things at the international level, nobody is going to go after you. That’s how many isolated works are getting done,” he says.

Second, experimental science “is very poor in India”. To succeed, experiments require at least two conditions: guarantees of long-term funding and scientists’ collaboration with each other. Funding varies with the political climate: there will be money to buy equipment but no certainty that resources will flow for all the years needed to ensure significant results. And collaboration is a social process, not an intellectual one. It involves, among other things, physical labour together with others. But, Mr. Bhattacharjee says, “Working with hands is not encouraged among scientists. The words used in Indian labs are: one needs hands to do experiments, not brains.” Lab assistants are the hands, while scientists avoid what they regard as mere manual labour.

Third, far from creating a positive influence on society, Indian scientific institutions reflect the existing social make-up and even reinforce it. Bureaucrats no longer active in cutting-edge research regard themselves as capable of judging working scientists, dispensing with principles of peer review. And instead of creating a scientific esprit de corps and contributing to social debates, Indian scientists tend to shun public commentary, unless it is to serve as government spokespersons.

Thus claims recycling popular myths can be made by the Prime Minister or by participants at the Indian Science Congress — while leaders of the scientific establishment keep mum. Not long ago, a news release announced a high-level scientific panel headed by the Science and Technology Minister to study the therapeutic benefits of cow urine and cow dung, which ancient Indian science has long venerated. The members of the panel included a former director-general of the Council on Scientific and Industrial Research, R.A. Mashelkar, and the IIT-New Delhi director, V. Ramgopal Rao.

The existence of well-funded institutions that foster group-think, marginalise talent and generate little real innovation might not be news. But with globalisation, it is easier to notice the growing contrast between the fame diaspora scientists achieve in the West, and the challenges their counterparts face in their own countries. India’s problem is hardly unique. Durable institutions and cultures of innovation are not widespread in the Global South. But India is the most successful of all the nations in the Global South, with a more affluent diaspora than virtually any other country. Bringing to light the “hidden figures” in Indian science — without the help of a major motion picture this time — should lead to a wider discussion about the strange career of Indian science. Acknowledging internationally celebrated scientific accomplishments, and asking why they were ignored for so long, can start a useful discussion.

Date:19-12-17

For a safe cyberspace

Cybersecurity needs to be integrated in every aspect of policy and planning

Subi Chaturvedi,(Subi Chaturvedi is former member of United Nations Internet Governance Forum-Multistakeholder Advisory Group and heads public affairs, Cellular Operators Association of India)

India is one of the key players in the digital and knowledge-based economy, holding more than a 50% share of the world’s outsourcing market. Pioneering and technology-inspired programmes such as Aadhaar, MyGov, Government e-Market, DigiLocker, Bharat Net, Startup India, Skill India and Smart Cities are propelling India towards technological competence and transformation. India is already the third largest hub for technology-driven startups in the world and its Information and Communications Technology sector is estimated to reach the $225 billion landmark by 2020.

However, these achievements come with a problem: innovation in technology, enhanced connectivity, and increasing integration in commerce and governance also make India the fifth most vulnerable country in the world in terms of cybersecurity breaches, according to the Internal Security Threat Report of 2017 by Symantec. Till June 2017, 27,482 cybersecurity threats had been reported in the country, according to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team’s report. As this is a 23% increase from 2014 figures, it coincides with rapid growth and innovation in the ICT sector.

The good news, though, is that India recognises this. The second Global Cybersecurity Index, released by the International Telecommunication Union in July, which measured the commitment of nations to cybersecurity, found that India ranked 23 out of 165 nations.

Types of attacks

Of the cybersecurity attacks, Ransomware attacks have been the most common in the last few years (Ransomware is a type of software that threatens to publish a person’s data or block it unless a ransom is paid). Apart from WannaCry and Petya, other Ransomware attacks that made news globally were Locky, Cerber, Bucbi, SharkRaaS, CryptXXX and SamSam. The success of each of these inspired new attacks. The ransom demands also increased — the average mean ransom demand rose from $294 in 2015 to $1077 in 2016, according to Symantec.

In India, in May 2017, a data breach at the food delivery App, Zomato, led to personal information of about 17 million users being stolen and put for sale on the Darknet. The company had to negotiate with the hacker in order to get it taken down. Similarly, hackers stole data from 57 million Uber riders and drivers. Uber paid the hackers $100,000 to keep the data breach a secret.While Windows operating systems were the most vulnerable to cyberattacks, a number of Android threats have been reported in the last couple of years, including potent crypto-ransomware attacks on Android devices. The attacks aren’t limited to mobile phones and e-Pads. All devices, including televisions that use Android, are also potentially vulnerable. In 2016, the first known Ransomware, named KeRanger, targeting Mac users was also reported. The Mirai botnet malware affected 2.5 million home router users and other Internet of Things devices. A number of viruses, malware and cryptoworms are also being developed in the JavaScript, which gives the attackers cross-platform options.

Taking action

Given the huge number of online users and continued efforts on affordable access, cybersecurity needs to be integrated in every aspect of policy and planning. At the 15th Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team conference in Delhi, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad highlighted the need for robust cybersecurity policies and frameworks. The government is keen to fund cybersecurity research. It announced that it will award a grant worth ₹5 crore to startups working on innovations in the field of cybersecurity.

India needs to quickly frame an appropriate and updated cybersecurity policy, create adequate infrastructure, and foster closer collaboration between all those involved to ensure a safe cyberspace. Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha said at the Global Conference on Cyberspace 2017 that there must be enhanced cooperation among nations and reaffirmed a global call to action for all United Nations member nations to not attack the core of the Internet even when in a state of war. This also clearly emphasises the fact that more than ever before, there is a need for a Geneva-like Convention to agree on some high-level recommendations among nations to keep the Internet safe, open, universal and interoperable.

Date:19-12-17

India and China — Rebuild the trust

Both sides now acknowledge the problems of the relationship. Steps must be taken to address core issues, post Doklam.

C. Raja Mohan,The writer is director, Carnegie India, Delhi and contributing editor on foreign affairs for ‘The Indian Express’.

Swaraj and Wang were also truthful about a critical issue in bilateral relations — the absence of mutual trust. In the two decades that followed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China at the end of 1988, there was a slow but certain improvement in bilateral relations. But since 2008, there has been a steady accumulation of problems — tensions on the boundary, imbalance in trade, strategic competition in the region and the divergence on international issues.These problems, in turn, deepened distrust. How to restore mutual trust is the big question for the talks this week between the Special Representatives — national security adviser Ajit Doval and state councillor Yang Jiechi.

The original directive for the Special Representatives (SRs) was to find a solution to the long-standing boundary dispute. But the negotiations on the boundary dispute were stalled many years ago, and the SRs focused on maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border. The SRs set up multiple mechanisms to maintain peace and tranquillity, but stabilising the border has become hard as the frequency and intensity of the incidents has grown.The idea that the two sides must “turn to a new page” has been articulated frequently, in recent times by the Chinese ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui. One of his proposals is to sign a “treaty of good neighbourliness and friendly cooperation”. India and China have had a tradition of hoary declarations that created an illusion of mutual understanding but deepened mutual distrust. The declaratory approach was of no help in addressing the real disputes over territorial sovereignty.

Consider, for example, the idea “five principles of peaceful coexistence” that Delhi and Beijing claim to be their unique contribution to modern international relations. For all its rhetorical flourish, the Panchsheel agreement signed in 1954 was of no help in resolving the difficulties over Tibet and the boundary that emerged in the late 1950s. What we need now is not another declaration but steps that address the core problems in the relationship that generate the mistrust.Two areas of action present themselves to Doval and Yang. First is the urgent need to distil lessons from the Doklam crisis and prevent the recurrence of another such incident. Reports on Chinese military build-up in the Doklam region and India’s new commitment for vigorous responses suggest that the two sides may not be as lucky the next time.

One of the main lessons from Doklam is that more confidence building measures on the border are not going to guarantee stability. For, the context in which the CBMs were put since the 1990s has fundamentally changed.As Beijing’s comprehensive national power has grown, it has become more assertive on territorial disputes and its appetite for risk taking has increased. India, which took peace on the border for granted until recently, is ready to throw everything it has to prevent any further weakening of its position. That was the real story about Doklam. Without a renewed effort to resolve the boundary dispute, the Sino-Indian frontier is unlikely to remain tranquil.

The second area of focus is on President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. If the Chinese leadership has invested much personal and political capital on the BRI, India’s concerns have been so deep that Delhi took the unusual step of publicly criticising the BRI and staying away from it. China insists that the BRI is a win-win for both; Delhi fears it might just mean two wins for Beijing.Delhi, however, has also said it is open to a dialogue with Beijing on the BRI. China is yet to respond. Unconditional bilateral discussions on the BRI make good sense. After all, both Delhi and Beijing say they are eager to promote connectivity in their shared neighbourhood.

Talks between them could help address Delhi’s apprehensions — for example, on the implications of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for India’s territorial sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir. With political will, it should not be too difficult to disentangle the disputes over sovereignty among India, Pakistan and China in pursuit of trans-border connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir.As the stronger power today, China might think it can afford to be unilateral — on the frontier as well regional economic initiatives. Without a return to genuine bilateralism that takes into account the interests of both parties, Beijing will find the chasm with Delhi continues to deepen.