Shrines to knowledge and wealth
India is waking up to the money to be made from its burgeoning knowledge-based industry. More than 100 global companies have set up research and development centres in the past five years to exploit the country's scientific expertise.
It is a satisfying statistic for Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, the country's top scientific administrator. “I'm happy to see that Indians now see a connectivity between Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge),” he says, speaking at his offices in Delhi.
It is 30 years since Mr Mashelkar, then a junior academic at Salford University in the north of England, was enticed back to his homeland while sipping tea in London's Savoy Hotel with a distinguished courier of Indira Gandhi, the prime minister. His task was to build the country's science and technology operation.
The discovery, announced on Monday, of a tuberculosis molecule - which is being hailed as a major breakthrough in the fight against a disease that continues to ravage the world's second most populous nation - is testimony to the success of the project.
It is a sign of the new confidence sweeping through India's scientific community. But Mr Mashelkar, director-general of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the largest collection of public-sector research institutes in the world and the organisation behind the TB breakthrough, says that the campaign to promote Indian science has been a lonely one. He has faced opposition from the country's conservative research community.
Mr Mashelkar is not a typical Indian scientist. But the 61-year-old - a mix ofpopular-scientist, industry-strategist and genial propagandist for an academic community that is beginning to discover its market worth - has emerged as the leading champion of Indian R&D. “He's a bridge between researchers and the markets, which makes him the custodian of India's science brand,” says Swati Piramal, research director at Nicholas Piramal, an Indian pharmaceuticals company.
Mr Mashelkar's entrepreneurial stance has evolved at the two institutions with which he has been most closely connected: the National Chemical Laboratory and CSIR. At the NCL, he encouraged partnerships with multinational companies and cultivated an entrepreneurial view of patents and patent rights. “Earlier, academics published [papers] and perished,” he says. “Now the credo is publish, patent and prosper.” At CSIR, he gelled a disparate universe of 40 (now 38) independently-minded bodies employing 26,000 (now 21,000) experts. The aim was to turn CSIR's members towards the markets. The TB molecule was jointly developed with Lupin, a Mumbai drugs company, and 12 CSIR members.
“As the boss of the biggest body of research centres, he has encouraged his scientists to look at big ideas without worrying about technology or market risk,” says Sarath Naru, managing director of Hyderabad-based APIDC Venture Capital, which runs a bio-technology fund with CSIR.
Seyed Hasnain, director of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad, part of the CSIR group, says that the entrepreneurial ethos means that “if there's a smart idea here now, it will find its way to market - either with our backing or funding from within India orinternationally”.
This entrepreneurial culture has encouraged some big companies to establish R&D centres in India. In the past five years, the more than 100 that have done so, include General Electric - which employs 1,600 - and Microsoft, which runs its largest software centre outside of the US in south India. Moreover, some 25,000 Indian scientists and IT experts have returned home in the past 36 months, says Nasscom, which represents India's technology industry.
In an effort to protect India's knowledge industry, the government is establishing a new patent regime, which comes into force next year. This action, which will guard intellectual property and, in turn, serve to boost domestic R&D, is founded on the belief that India's abundant and competitively-priced knowledge industry can create real wealth. In Mr Mashelkar's view, the cumulative effect “could catapult India into a global knowledge production centre”.
India has already witnessed dramatic progress. Last year, CSIR filed 146 patents in the US, compared with nine in 1995. Its reserve fund of earnings from collaboration with industry has swelled from Rs500m in 1995 to Rs5bn ($107m).
All this has prompted the government to invest more heavily in its science base. CSIR's R&D budget from government has grown by a generous 19-35 per cent in each of the past three years. It now totals Rs12bn a year. If this pales besides the amount a company such as Pfizer spends on R&D, it is significant in a low-wage economy: as the biggest drugs company in the world and others have discovered, a dollar goes further in Hyderabad than in Houston.
One of the challenges ahead is to allocate this budget in a fair way, balancing the requirements of Indian science: to fund research not only in first-world areas such as aerospace but also poor-country technologies that lift the lives of, and provide jobs for, India's poor.
This will be a test, even for someone with his diplomatic skills. He says his key leadership skill is an ability to build consensus around “the maximum position”. “Anything else,” he says, “is a compromise.” His emollient manner has won him important positions at public inquiries - notably the one into the Bhopal explosion in 1984, when 2,000 people died.
A bigger challenge is to boost India's so-called “brain gain”. He is certainly a role model. His personal journey - from a poor family in the west Indian state of Maharashtra to one of the top scientific posts in India - is a powerful story.
Leadership, he says, “should be by example”. This is why he squeezes in his own academic research between public and managerial duties. In 1998, he was elected a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society in London, and, in the same year, he won the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award, a prize normally reserved for businessmen.
But he knows that it is not easy to “reach the hearts and heads” of bankers, benefactors or teenagers torn between careers in consultancy or science. And the pressure is on.
The research community is losing bright young people to the booming information technology industry. India's admired IT teaching institutes have lost sight of their research mandate and become assembly lines churning out software engineers. In Mr Mashelkar's view, “teaching without research is sterile”.
There are few world-class departments at India's 250 universities. They produce 5,000 PhDs a year “but few of global standard”.
Gesturing in the air to the US - “the land of opportunity”, as he puts it - he says that more foreign-educated Indians need to return to India - “the land of ideas and opportunity”.
The short-fall of quality doctorates has prompted some foreign investors to question whether India's bio-medical community is big enough at the upper-end to support biotechnology, microelectronics and pharmaceuticals work that is progressively science-based.
The TB success is a sign that domestic research can compete at the highest level. But it is clear that India needs to find more students.
For a man who believes that the country's status as “a global knowledge production centre” is there for the taking, Mr Mashelkar's concerns about India's “supply chain of knowledge” seem a worrying admission.
印度以知识致富
印度正不断意识到，蓬勃发展的知识型产业可以带来财富。为了利用该国的科学人力资源，在过去的5年间，超过100家国际公司在印度开设了研究和开发中心。
对于该国科学界最高级别的行政人员拉古浑纳斯?阿南特?马舍尔卡（Raghunath Anant Mashelkar）来说，这是一个让人满意的数字。他在德里的办公室中说：“我很高兴印度人现在看到了财富女神（Lakshmi）和知识女神（Saraswati）之间的联系。”
早在30年前，马舍尔卡先生是英国北部索尔福德大学的一名初级教师。当时印度总理英迪拉?甘地(Indira Gandhi)的一位特使在伦敦萨沃伊酒店（Savoy Hotel）和他一起喝下午茶，并劝说他回到祖国。他的任务是建立起该国的科学和技术支柱。
本周一，印度宣布发现了一种肺结核分子。在这个饱受肺结核蹂躏的世界第二人口大国，该发现被认为是根治肺结核的重大突破，同时，它也证明了上述科技计划的成功。
这体现出印度科学界已经有了新的自信心。本次肺结核研究取得突破的幕后指挥是印度科学与工业研究委员会，它是世界上最大的公共研究主管机构。但身为委员会主任的马舍尔卡先生认为，在推广印度科学研究时，他们只是孤军作战――他受到了国内保守的研究界的反对。
今年61岁的马舍尔卡先生并非那种典型的印度科学家，他集科普学者、工业策略家与亲切可鞠的宣传家于一身，并已成为推动印度研发的旗手。与此同时，印度学术界正开始发现自身的市场价值。印度制药公司Nicholas Piramal的研发总监斯瓦蒂?派拉梅尔（Swati Piramal）说：“他是研究人员和市场之间的桥梁。这使他成为了印度科学界的代言人。”
马舍尔卡先生的企业家取向是在与他联系最紧密的两家研究机构中发展起来的，这两家机构是国家化学实验室以及科学与工业研究委员会。在化学实验室，他鼓励与跨国公司合作，并从中培养专利和专利权的企业家意识。他说：“过去，学者们在发表论文后就没有了下文。但现在的宗旨是发表论文，取得专利，财源广进。”在科学与工业研究委员会，他把拥有2.6万名专家（现为2.1万）的总共40家（现在为38家）各自为政的研究机构整合在一起，目的是引导他们面向市场。上述肺结核分子就是由孟买Lupin制药公司和该委员会属下的12个机构共同研究出来的。
总部位于海得拉巴的APIDC风险资本公司董事总经理萨拉斯?纳鲁（Sarath Naru）说：“作为最大型的研究机构主管，马舍尔卡鼓励科学家们着眼于大想法，而不必担心技术或是市场风险。” 该公司正和科学与工业研究委员会共同管理一项生物技术基金。
科学与工业研究委员会属下的海得拉巴DNA指纹识别中心总监塞伊德?哈斯奈英（Seyed Hasnain）认为，崇尚企业家的风气意味着，“如果此时此地有一个聪明的点子，它就能通过我们的资助，或者通过印度或国际的资助进入市场。”
这种企业家文化促进了一些大公司在印度建立研发中心。在过去的5年里，超过100家大公司这样做了，其中包括雇佣1,600名研发人员的通用电气（General Electric）和在印度南部建立最大海外软件中心的微软公司（Microsoft）。另外，代表印度技术行业的印度全国软件及互联网服务企业联合会（Nasscom）的数据显示，在过去的36个月中，有2.5万名印度科学家和信息技术专家回到了祖国。
为了保护知识产业，印度政府正在制定一项新的专利制度，将于明年实行。该做法是基于这么一种信念：即印度充裕和具有价格竞争力的知识产业能够创造出真正的财富。这种保护知识产权的做法同时会反过来促进国内的研发。在马舍尔卡先生看来，这种累积效应“能够推动印度成为全球知识型制造中心。”
印度已经见证了巨大的进步。科学与工业研究委员会去年在美国申请了146项专利，而1995年只有9项。通过与产业界合作而获得的储备基金从1995年的5亿卢比增长到现在的50亿卢比（1.07亿美元）。
所有这些都促使政府加大对科学基础事业的投入。在过去3年中，政府给科学与工业研究委员会的研发基金以每年19-35%的速度大幅增长，目前为每年120亿卢比。虽然印度在研发上的投入甚至与一家辉瑞（Pfizer）之类的公司比起来都要逊色，但是这个数字对于一个低工资的经济体来说是很可观的。就像这家世界上最大的制药公司及其它公司发现的那样，一美元在海得拉巴比在休斯敦值钱得多。
当前的挑战之一是如何以公平的方式分配这笔预算，以平衡印度科学界的各种要求。不但要资助那些属于第一世界国家的研究，比如航空航天技术，也要资助属于贫困国家的技术，从而改善印度穷人的生活水平并给他们提供工作。
即使对拥有老练外交手段的人来说，这也是一项考验。马舍尔卡先生说他最关键的领导技巧是能够在“最大范围内”建立共识。他补充说：“其它的一切都是妥协。”他温文尔雅的举止为他在一些公众调查事件中获得了重要的位置。其中，最有名的是1984年导致2000人死亡的博帕尔（Bhopal）爆炸案。
更大的挑战是要推动印度所谓的“人才回流”。他本人的经历就是一个榜样，他从印度西部马哈拉施特拉邦（Maharashtra）的一个贫困家庭步入印度最高科学管理层就是一个具有很强说服力的故事。
他说，领导的真谛就是“以身作则”。所以他在公众和行政事务之余抽出时间进行学术研究。他于1998年在伦敦被选为享有盛誉的皇家科学院院士。同年，他还获得了JRD Tata公司的领导才能奖，该奖项通常只颁给商界人士。
但他明白，要赢得银行家、赞助商以及需要在顾问行业和科学界之间做出未来职业选择的青少年之“心”，实在不是件容易的事，压力也随之而来。
在印度研究界中，聪明的年青人正在流失，他们纷纷投身于蓬勃发展的信息产业。而备受印度人景仰的IT教学机构也忽略了它们的研究使命，像装配流水线一样源源不断地输出软件工程师。在马舍尔卡先生看来，“没有研究的教学只会走向贫乏。”
在印度250所大学中，达到世界级的院系寥寥无几。他们每年产出5000名博士，但是“鲜有几个达到世界标准。”
他用手在空中朝着美国的方向比划着说，“那是个充满机遇的地方。”他说，但是印度需要更多的留学生回到祖国，“这是一片充满着理念和机遇的土地。”
由于高质量博士的短缺，使一些国外投资者对印度生物医药界的实力产生疑问，他们怀疑有没有足够多的高端人才支撑起在生物技术、微电子学和制药领域的研究工作，而这些领域正日益倚重于以科学为基础。
这次肺结核分子的成功发现，证明了印度国内的研究可以在最高水平上进行竞争。但是很明显，印度需要更多的学子。
对一个坚信祖国已是“全球知识型制造中心”的人来说，马舍尔卡先生对印度“知识供应链”的忧虑也许真的令人担心。
