India's R&D: Reaching for the Top

Raghunath A. Mashelkar India Raghunath A. Mashelkar began life in poverty, sometimes hungry and shoeless. Now he is the director general of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), a chain of 38 publicly funded industrial R&D institutions in India, and president of the Indian National Science Academy. That personal experience of ascendance from dire circumstances, improvements in his country's infrastructure, and changing patterns of scientific emigration and immigration have convinced him that India is fated to become one of the world's greatest intellectual and economic engines. Before becoming a leading architect of his country's science and technology policies, Dr. Mashelkar did pioneering work in polymer science and engineering, which earned him many international laurels. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), and a Foreign Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Dubbed a “dangerous optimist” in India, he is deeply committed to championing the cause of the developing world. He is also known in India for several high-powered “Mashelkar Committees,” which have influenced such societal sectors as higher education, drug regulatory systems, and national automobile fuel policy. CREDIT: COURTESY OF R. MASHELKAR