A High Power meeting under the Chairmanship of
Dr. Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State for Planning,
Science & Technology and Earth Sciences was held in Planning Commission
today to discuss the future road map for key initiatives in the frontier area
of Science in critical sectors.
The purpose of the meeting was to
explore and formulate an action plan to bridge scientific and technological
gaps in the following amongst other areas.
1.
Concrete action plan for upgrading our
super-computer capabilities.
2.
Explore steps to give further impetus to Deep Sea
Mining and acquisition of the requisite technological capabilities in this
area.
3.
To address issues/gaps with respect to our ability
and capability to translate fundamental research into innovative products and
services and commercialization/scaling of technology from Pilot Projects
onwards.
4.
Big ideas for the future like – The Super
Microscope, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Ocean
Acidification and Interstellar Chemistry.
In the areas of supercomputing, it was decided to
create the necessary internal eco-system, human resource and demand to promote
and develop high power computing/supercomputing in the country. It has been decided:
·
To identify 200 scientists and 2000 researchers
dedicated to 4 paradigm i.e. date intensive discovery. To create an ecosystem
where 25% of the eco system of the country would be connected by supercomputer activity for this purpose a
proposal has been received for establishing 200 centres across the country
connected over the National Knowledge
Network
·
To develop advanced scientific systems and
capabilities for storage of data, development of parallel processors and a
programme of hardware acquisition and indigenous development thereof. BARC will acquire by 2014 Peta
flop capability through a cluster approach connected by a fibre optic switch. This
will enable modelling and simulation of high speed nuclear process including
radiation modelling coupled with atmospheric changes.
·
CSIR will acquire and operationalize by 2013 a
360tera flop/16 terabytes shared memory processing system comparable to the
best processors in the world. The acquisition would gradually build up a peta flop capabilities in the country.
·
Ministry of Earth Sciences will be inducting
500-600 tera flops in the systems which will make it
more accurate in weather forecasting, climate change and ocean studies in
pursuance of the government’s monsoon mission.
·
Structures and processors would be put in place to
intensify indigenous research for creating domestic capability for production
of high speed switch, thermal control and power control technologies.
·
These decisions will collectively contribute to the
development of indigenous supercomputing capability at low power consumption
which could have a direct bearing on space, atomic energy, missile development
applications.
·
The other applications include: climate and atmospheric sciences, Monsoon
Mission, Discovery of new life-saving drugs, Cancer Bioinformatics, Genome
Sequencing, Discovery & Extraction of new energy sources like oil and
natural gas, CFD simulations for design, Disaster Management, National
Electronic Health Record Framework, Computational Structural Mechanics, Earthquake
Engineering, Astronomy and astrophysics, Material Science, and Geological.
Deep Sea Mining – a critical area for sub-serving critical and strategic needs
of the country, particularly in the area of access to rare earth materials like Titanium and Platinum as well as
Manganese, Copper, Cobalt and Nickel, was also discussed in the meeting.
It is also known that ocean bed could be a source for Ocean Thermal Energy
as well as drugs and food. Considering the importance of deep sea mining, the
following initiatives have been decided upon/taken:
a)
Rapid enhancement of Human Resource and skills in
this area
b)
Pooling of existing resources with NIOT, ISRO,
DRDO, DAE, GSI, Ministry of Mines and NIO
c)
The Ministry of Earth Sciences has established
capabilities through vessels such as SagarNidhi to
explore minerals at a depth of 6000 mtrs from sea surface
d)
A new vessel will be handed over to NIOT on July 31st
2012 for assisting exploration of minerals
e)
CSIR is also getting a vessel manufactured at Surat
at a cost of Rs. 200 crore
f)
GSI is
acquiring a vessel at the cost of Rs. 550 crore from
a Korean shipyard which is likely to be inducted for operations by September
2013
In the field of Translational Research Capabilities, the following
proposals were discussed:
·
It was decided to ensure a much more purposive,
active and commercially viable interface between academia, industry and R&D
institutions
·
New initiatives will be finalised to ensure that
translational capabilities are embedded in every basic research and discovery
institutions.
·
Establish a technological platform for giving easy
access to researches through connectivity and convergence of data and
facilities of different organizations and institutions
·
To encourage creation of competencies in
anticipation of future challenges.
·
Create capabilities for scaling up products and
processes through incremental innovation.
·
Deepening of pockets of science.
This exercise has been undertaken with a view
to obtain global leadership position which is critical for securing India’s
Strategic interests and over arching national
imperatives.
The meeting was attended by Dr. R. Chaidambaram, Pr. Scientific Advisor to Government of India,
Dr. Kasturirangan, Member, (S&T and E&F),
Planning Commission, Dr. T. Ramasami, Secretary,
Department of Science & Technology, Dr. S. K. Brahmchari,
Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Dr. M.K. Bhan, Secretary, Department of Bio-Technology, Shri J. Sathyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronic and
Science & Technology, Prof. S.V. Raghavan, Scientific
Secretary to PSA, Prof. Balakrishnan, Associate
Director, IISc, and Prof. Rajat
Moona, DG, CDAC.
MC/sk