NITI ayog Presentation

NITI ayog Presentation


http://pibphoto.nic.in/documents/rlink/2016/apr/p201642101.pdf

BGR-34, the country's first anti-diabetic ayurvedic drug designed for Type-2 diabetes mellitus

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, launched the "CSIR-NBRI Herbarium Online" on the CSIR-NBRI website (www.nbri.res.in), thus making One Hundred Thousand Herbarium collections accessible worldwide. He also released a flyer "CSIR-NBRI HERBARIUM ONLINE" on the occasion.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan specifically directed CSIR-NBRI to take up on an urgent basis the work of scaling up of ‘Herbi Chew’ on a priority basis as a potentially useful product to replace the cancer causing tobacco-based GUTKA currently available in the market. He was very happy to learn about the progress in the development of ‘Muktashree’, a low Arsenic uptake variety of Rice, developed by CSIR-NBRI and Department of Agriculture, West Bengal and envisaged earliest release of this variety for the benefit of citizens living in Arsenic affected areas.

The Minister appreciated the effort of scaling up of CSIR-NBRI and CSIR-CIMAP (Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow) joint product BGR-34, the country's first anti-diabetic ayurvedic drug designed for Type-2 diabetes mellitus. He noted that there is an overwhelming response to this drug among Diabetes Type-II patients throughout India.

PM exhorts civil servants to become “agents of change”; calls upon Government officers to engage with people

PM exhorts civil servants to become “agents of change”; calls upon Government officers to engage with people

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today exhorted civil servants to become “agents of change” in their respective organizations and departments. Addressing civil servants on Civil Services Day, the Prime Minister said that in the 21st century, civil servants need to redefine their role, and move beyond controlling, regulating and managerial capabilities, and think of themselves as change agents.

The Prime Minister urged civil servants to build teams. He said that his mantra of “Reform to Transform”, should be interpreted by civil servants as “Reform to Perform to Transform.” He said if civil servants were able to perform, the transformation on the ground would be evident.

The Prime Minister said that ‘Jan Bhagidari’ (public participation) is the key to success, as highlighted by the initiatives which have received awards today. He therefore urged civil servants to engage with the people, so that the Government’s schemes and initiatives can be better implemented on the ground.

The Prime Minister described Civil Services Day as an occasion to reflect and undertake a critical evaluation of the journey so far, and resolve to move ahead with fresh determination.

Congratulating the awardees for their successful initiatives, he said their success could prove inspirational for other civil servants. The Prime Minister noted that 74 success stories were shortlisted for consideration for awards this year, which represents a substantial jump over previous years. Nevertheless, he added, this represents only about 10 per cent of India’s districts. He urged all districts to become more proactive in this regard.

The Prime Minister urged civil servants to be bold enough to experiment and look at new ways of achieving objectives in the interest of the people.

Recalling the recent Committees of Secretaries which had been formed at his initiative to look into key areas of governance, he said that officers worked on these tasks voluntarily, after office hours and on holidays. He said these teams had successfully broken silos, and presented fresh ideas and suggestions. They had devoted 10,000 manhours to this work, he added. 

Prime Minister confers awards for excellence in implementation of priority programmes

Prime Minister confers awards for excellence in implementation of priority programmes

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi conferred awards for excellence in implementation of priority programmes on the occasion of 10^th Civil Services Day here today.  For the priority programme Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJSY), Nagaon, Assam was awarded in North East and Hill States category, Chandigarh in UTs and North 24 Parganas, West Bengal in Other States group. Under Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), West Sikkim and Bikaner, Rajasthan were awarded in North East & Hill states and Other States category respectively. Under Swachh Vidyalaya  programme, Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh were awarded in North East & Hill states, UTs and Other States group respectively. In the implementation of Soil Health Card Scheme, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh and Balrampur, Chhattisgarh were conferred award in North East and Hill states and Other States respectively.

The Prime Minister congratulated the awardees for their successful initiatives and said that their success could prove inspirational for other civil servants. The Prime Minister noted that 74 success stories were shortlisted for consideration for awards this year, which represents a substantial jump over previous years. Nevertheless, he added, this represents only about 10 per cent of India’s districts. He urged all districts to become more proactive in this regard. The Prime Minister urged civil servants to be bold enough to experiment and look at new ways of achieving objectives in the interest of the people.

The Prime Minister exhorted civil servants to become “agents of change” in their respective organizations and departments. Addressing civil servants on Civil Services Day, the Prime Minister said that in the 21st century, civil servants need to redefine their role, and move beyond controlling, regulating and managerial capabilities, and think of themselves as change agents.

The Prime Minister urged civil servants to build teams. He said that his mantra of “Reform to Transform”, should be interpreted by civil servants as “Reform to Perform to Transform.” He said if civil servants were able to perform, the transformation on the ground would be evident.

Recalling the recent Committees of Secretaries which had been formed at his initiative to look into key areas of governance, he said that officers worked on these tasks voluntarily, after office hours and on holidays. He said these teams had successfully broken silos, and presented fresh ideas and suggestions. They had devoted 10,000 manhours to this work, he added.

On the occasion, the Prime Minister also released two books namely: The Change Makers and Transforming India.

Speaking on the occasion, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that in the last two years the Government has become more citizen- centric towards the goal set by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi of delivering “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”.  More than 65% of India’s population is below the age of 35 years, so being citizen-centric is being youth centric, he added.  He also mentioned about the initiatives of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) which include Anubhav portal for the retiring employees to share their experiences, Bhavishya, self-attestation by citizens and abolition of interviews for the junior grade. Dr Jitendra Singh said that nearly 90 per cent of these grievances are being redressed by the Department and he has started calling the citizens to take feedback regarding redressal of their grievances. He also said that Government has taken various measures to create a work-friendly environment for the employees. These initiatives pertain to transfer policy, awards for their work, LTC facility and Yoga classes etc. He said that in future, the focus will be on achieving the goal of “governance with a difference”.

Cabinet Secretary, Shri P. K. Sinha said that this year, for the first time the awards are being given for the implementation of priority programmes of the Central Government. He said that an elaborate exercise including site visits, has been conducted to short list the awarded districts.

On the occasion, Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog made a presentation on the Status of Implementation of Reports of the Group of Secretaries. He presented the actions taken and action to be taken regarding the eight themes including Accelerated Growth with Inclusion and Equity, Employment Generation Strategies, Health and Education: Universal Access and Quality, Good Governance: Challenges, Opportunities, Farmer Centric Issues in Agriculture & Allied Sectors, Swachh Bharat and Ganga Rejuvenation, Energy Conservation and Efficiency and Innovative Budgeting and Effective Implementation. The link of detailed presentation is available at http://pibphoto.nic.in/documents/rlink/2016/apr/p201642101.pdf

The Civil Services Day was inaugurated by Union Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhu yesterday. He called upon all stakeholders like Centre, State etc., to work for the common objective of the national development.  The Civil Services Day function spread over two days included eight Sessions attended by more than 1,200 civil servants representing different States.  These sessions were chaired by Union Ministers/persons of eminence. 

Nearly half of Indians survived on less than Rs38 a day in 2011-12

The Global Consumption and Income Project suggests that official statistics might be understating the extent of poverty

How much of India is poor? And by how much has that number reduced over the years? This is an old debate and the answers to these questions vary greatly depending on the choice of the survey method and the poverty line.

According to official statistics , India’s poverty rate declined from 45% in 1993-94 to 22% in 2011-12. However, the poverty lines used to determine the above poverty figures have been criticized as being too low to allow a decent standard of living. The Planning Commission deemed anybody to be non-poor if he or she could spend Rs.27 per day in rural areas or Rs.33 per day in urban areas in 2011-12.

A new database, Global Consumption and Income Project(GCIP), suggests that the official figures might be understating the extent of poverty. Even if one adopts a slightly more charitable poverty line of around Rs.38 per day for 2011-12 (i.e. $2.5 per day in purchasing power parity terms), the poverty rate would be 47%, more than double the official statistics.

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The 22% poverty rate also appears suspect when one uses the GCIP data and adopts the $1.9 per day poverty line for 2011, which is roughly equivalent to Rs.29 per day, very similar to the official poverty line of Rs.27-33 per day. Such a comparison shows that even for India’s own official poverty line, the poverty rate might have been around 28% in 2011 as against the official figure of 22%.

The GCIP database – which is the result of research by Arjun Jayadev, Rahul Lahoti and Sanjay G. Reddy, economists at University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Goettingen and The New School for Social Research (New York) respectively – further shows that even the World Bank might have underestimated poverty in India, partially owing to differences in how purchasing power parity (PPP) indices were used.

Although the GCIP provides data till 2015, numbers after 2012 should be taken with a pinch of salt, notes Sanjay G. Reddy, himself a part of the GCIP team. That’s because the measures for the latest years have been calculated by combining growth data with an unchanged distribution.

Nevertheless, what is undeniable is that poverty has reduced substantially in recent years, irrespective of the poverty line adopted. However, while poverty might have come down, it doesn’t necessarily mean that inequality has reduced.

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Inequality worsened in the post-reform period

Data shows that inequality has worsened in the post-reform period in India, which is likely to add to the voices of those arguing against ‘neoliberal’ policies like privatisation and globalization. However, India is not alone in that aspect. Data shows that inequality did worsen in the US and UK during the 1980s under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher respectively, both of whom are often perceived to have been committed to ‘neoliberalism’ or to have harboured a preference for ‘free market’ economics over government intervention. Data from certain Latin American countries like Chile, whichallegedly adopted neoliberalism in 1970s, also shows rising inequality in that period.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean that richer countries are necessarily more unequal. Correlation does not imply causation. There are many countries, especially in Africa, which show much higher inequality than the above discussed countries, despite not being generally associated with the kind of neoliberalism that was introduced in 1970s or 80s to Latin America or the US or UK.

Moreover, the classic Kuznets curve hypothesis does not seem to hold, as inequality does not seem to rise with rising incomes. The once-popular Kuznets curve hypothesis had suggested that as poor countries experience economic growth, they are liable to witness increased inequality in the initial years before slowly moving towards a more equal society. If the hypothesis was true, then the most unequal countries should have been the middle-income ones and the plot of inequality vs. income should have yielded an inverted-U curve. However, that is not the case and the most unequal of the countries, income-wise, are also generally the poorest.

Fixing educational policy’s failure

Reforms in pedagogy and school governance structures are critical for addressing India’s learning crisis

The school education landscape in India has witnessed massive changes since the previous National Policy on Education was formulated in 1986. Speaking at the National Stocktaking Convention on the Right to Education Act recently, vice-president Hamid Ansari voiced concern that while enrolment in elementary education has increased, education outcomes have declined, with abilities in reading, writing and other comprehensive skills deteriorating among children aged 6 to 14 years. As per the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, 2014), about half of all Class V children in rural India were unable to read a simple paragraph or do basic math.

This challenge of chronically low learning levels has been articulated in the human resource development (HRD) ministry’s approach document to the New Education Policy (NEP), and multiple questions have been posed. How do we ensure that children learn basic language and numerical skills? How can technology be leveraged to provide quality school education? Are teacher performance assessments needed to build a culture of accountability? What are the ways to improve community participation in school management?

These are not new questions, and while the HRD ministry has turned to extensive grassroots consultations for solutions, rigorous field research conducted over the past decade can also help to precisely answer some of these questions. A number of randomized impact evaluations conducted by researchers affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) provide important insights on what works and what doesn’t work to improve learning outcomes of children, which can help build a robust evidence-backed NEP.

Pedagogical solutions: Evidence suggests that one area of particular promise is pedagogical interventions aimed at targeting instruction to the learning level of the child. A fundamental barrier faced by many children in India, and several other developing countries, is the wide variation in learning levels among students in the same classroom. Randomized impact evaluations conducted by researchers over the past 15 years in India, Ghana and Kenya demonstrate that restructuring classes by learning level, rather than by age or grade, can help children gain basic maths and reading skills quickly.

Different versions of Pratham’s Read India programme based on the above teaching-at-the-right-level approach have shown positive impacts on learning. In-school pull-out programmes and after-school reading classes led by community volunteers have proven to be successful, as have summer camps led jointly by government teachers and volunteers. A recent evaluation of this programme implemented in a classroom setting by government schoolteachers in rural Haryana, with monitoring and mentoring support from block officials and Pratham staff, showed significant improvements in basic Hindi skills. This has helped identify an evidence-backed scalable model for raising basic literacy and numeracy skills that can be implemented by government schoolteachers in a government school context.

Technological solutions that adapt to the level of understanding of the child may also be used to ensure that students gain basic competencies in reading and arithmetic. An evaluation of a computer-assisted learning programme in Gujarat wherein children played self-paced math games showed large improvements in student math scores. However, an important caveat, as shown by evaluations of the One Laptop per Child scheme in Peru and the Colombian government’s Computers for Education programme, is that access to technology in and of itself does not ensure learning.

School governance: In addition to pedagogy, school governance factors have also demonstrated some success in moving the needle on learning levels. Studies conducted by J-PAL affiliated researchers show that incentivizing teacher presence and effort, and putting in place properly designed monitoring and accountability structures, can lead to significant gains in learning in certain contexts.

In primary schools run by the non-governmental organization Seva Mandir in rural Udaipur, monitoring attendance through daily photos of the teachers and linking teachers’ salaries to their attendance was found to be effective in improving student test scores. Another programme in government schools in rural Andhra Pradesh that linked teachers’ pay with their students test score performance also led to test score gains. However, the design of the incentive structure is critical; when incentives are tied to student learning outcomes, there may be a danger of “teaching to the test”, as seen in an incentive programme for teachers in Kenya that raised test scores in the short-term, mainly due to an increase in test preparation rather than broader improvements in learning.

Recognizing the importance of community participation, India’s RTE Act mandates the formation of school management committees, but existing evidence on the effectiveness of community monitoring is mixed. A study in rural Uttar Pradesh saw that simply informing Village Education Committees about the quality of government schools in their village and about their role and rights did not improve education outcomes. In contrast, a programme in Kenya where school management committees were trained and empowered to oversee recruitment of teachers as well as monitor them showed positive impact on learning outcomes.

Overall, the evidence suggests that well-designed reforms in pedagogy and school governance structures are critical to address India’s learning crisis. Going ahead, as new solutions to this problem emerge, it is important to not only carefully ascertain their impact through rigorous research, but also ensure that as different models and innovations are evaluated and validated, lessons learnt from them find their way into our national policies in a timely manner.

Where are India’s female scientists?

More and more girls are taking up degrees in science, but only a few go on to pursue scientific careers

Buried in the books at the local lending library in Shankar Road, New Delhi, the little girl journeyed to the centre of the earth, sailed to the mysterious island and travelled around the world in 80 days. Mesmerized by the fantasy worlds that Jules Verne opened up in his novels, Aruna Dhathathreyan, born to a government official and a housewife, decided early on in life what she would become: A scientist.

Another daughter born a thousand years ago was Lilavati, whose mathematician father, as the legend goes, taught her science and math through poems. In 2008, Dhathathreyan was among 98 female scientists whose short biographies and autobiographies were featured inLilavati’s Daughters. She retired last year as chief scientist and head of the biophysics laboratory at the Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai; however, her experience, inspiring no doubt, is no template for the larger experience of women pursuing science in India.

The year was 1974 and Dhathathreyan had just completed her undergraduate programme in physics. In a class of 14 students at a women’s college in Chennai, Dhathathreyan and three others went on to pursue a post-graduate degree. Out of these four, only two enrolled for a PhD. But midway through the programme, one of them dropped out when she got married. That left Dhathathreyan as the only one in her class to complete her doctorate.

When she completed her PhD in 1984, it was still unusual for women in the country to think of a lifelong career then. They would rather choose a career that was, what Dhathathreyan calls, “trouble-free”.

The preference for a “trouble-free” career could be one reason why even now only 14.3% of science researchers in India are women, as mentioned in a recent World Economic Forum report. The proportion is worse than that in several West Asian countries; for e.g., in Bahrain, women account for 41.3% of researchers in science.

But there are other reasons as well.

In the three decades since Dhathathreyan got her PhD, statistics show that much hasn’t changed. What has changed, instead, is that women are no longer a minority within higher education when it comes to STEM—science, technology, engineering and math. Women make up around 40% of undergraduates in science. In fact, there has been a rise in the enrolment of women in graduate programmes in pure sciences, from 7.1 % in 1950-51 to 40% in 2009. Some 25-30% of science PhDs are women, according to a 2015 report by The Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia. But, even now, women in faculty positions only make up around 15% of the total.

Nobel laureate and biochemist Tim Hunt once said three things happen when women are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry. That makes one think of science labs as hubs of misogyny, which they aren’t, but the question remains: How come we have so few female scientists?

While even developed countries have fewer female scientists, the crisis is slightly different in India. In India, women do take up science for degrees, but few of them go on to pursue scientific careers. The reason hasn’t been performance, though.

“The crucial period after your PhD coincides with the period when some women decide to get married or have children. Naturally, you tend to lag. Unfortunately, we can’t give up on that role of motherhood. But if we want to become scientists, we have to work twice as hard as men,” Dhathathreyan says.

Because of the default role of a woman as a homemaker and society’s perception that only women are responsible for rearing a child, marriage and not career is perceived to the primary goal of a woman—no matter which profession she is in.

But “science, and research in science have peculiar issues”, Dhathathreyan says. “If you are away from research in science, particularly experimental work, even for six months, your work gets left behind and you become irrelevant soon. If you choose to have both a career and a family, you do lose out because there is initially an age limit for projects which is 35 years and later, it is 55 years. So, at both ends, you end up losing.”

Dhathathreyan’s story is a mix of family support, work-life balance, dedication and luck. She grew up in a middle-class joint family in a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) housing colony. Her father worked in DDA, and her mother was a housewife. Not exactly a house full of scientists. So, no; the choice of career wasn’t really obvious.

But Dhathathreyan had an uncle, who enrolled her in a local library, where she stumbled upon the books by French author Jules Verne—the pioneer of science fiction. Ambitions soared, and a journey to the centre of the earth and saving mankind from microbial invasion were realizable goals.

Dhathathreyan loved physics and maths and scored the most in these subjects.

When the time came to decide the subject for her bachelor’s, Dhathathreyan chose physics. However, both college options available to her in the city were more than 30km from home. Her parents asked her to pursue a humanities course at a college nearby—obviously an easier and convenient option for a woman. But Dhathathreyan had made up her mind and moved to Chennai instead, where she went on to study physics at Women’s Christian College and did an MSc at Madras Christian College.

Is it that many women choose to stay off science because the society does not want to view them as scientists? Sugra Chunawala, an associate professor at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, analysed National Council of Educational Research and Training science textbooks, around 2006-07, from Class III to Class X, and found that the majority of representations were of men. Women were also shown, but largely as onlookers or playing a passive role, while the men were invariably shown as the doers. Women were also shown in traditional roles like nursing and mothering, while men were shown as pilots, doctors, etc. Chunawala concluded that the suggestion to girl students was that some professions were not meant for them.

Dhathathreyan did not fall into that trap: After her MSc, she wanted to pursue higher studies in the US. But her father had a different suggestion: He wanted her to get married to someone living in the US and then pursue her studies. She was selected to the Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology and Institute of Mathematical Sciences, but chose to join the department of crystallography and biophysics at the University of Madras.

There are dropouts, yes. But as Dhathathreyan says, “To be accepted as a scientist who happens to be a woman is still an uphill task in areas considered a man’s world.”

It is hard to establish bias in any field and harder in science, since there are no studies to substantiate it. According to Ram Ramaswamy, professor at the school of physical sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University, gender bias in the sciences could be “quite blatant” earlier. “It is still there now, but is more subtle, and therefore more difficult to detect. Or to prove. More often than not, men don’t even realize that something they have said or done was offensive or threatening to women colleagues or students. Academic spaces need to be gender-neutral. And there is an absence of role models. Women in science need mentors that they can identify with, and that too locally,” says Ramaswamy.

On 24 September 2014, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission entered the orbit of the red planet at the successful end of a 300-day space voyage. One photo that stood out that day—apart from the grainy first pictures of Martian surface—was that of jubilant female scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), hugging and congratulating each other.

Women account for only 20% of Isro’s total workforce of 14,246, according to a report on the website Quartz. Since its founding in 1963, India’s space agency has had nine chairpersons, and none of them was a woman.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, India’s premier national science award, has been given to more than 500 scientists since its inception in 1958. Only 15 of them went to women. Why so? “Before asking why so few women get this award, you should look at how many women are nominated in the first place. If there is no water in the well, no water will come in the pail,” says a scientist, requesting anonymity.

The Inter Press Service news agency published a report in 2009 which revealed that female scientists are sidelined by male-centric selection committees for awards and for appointments to research and development positions in government-funded organizations. “Out of 744 Indian National Science Academy Fellowships, only 3.2% went to women. Out of 841 Indian Academy of Sciences Fellowships, only 4.6% went to women. Out of 395 National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Fellowships, only 4% went to women,” the report stated.

After her PhD, Dhathathreyan got married to a chemist, who was in Germany as a Humboldt Fellow. She moved to the Max Planck Institute in Gottingen, Germany for her post-doctoral fellowship, working with the best physical chemist of that institute. The struggle was easier because her husband was a scientist and she was in a different country. “My spouse was very supportive and understood my passion for science. In between, he shifted to Canada for two years and I stayed on in Germany,” she says.

According to a 2010 report by the Indian Academy of Sciences and National Institute of Advanced Studies, 14.1% of women in science research were never married, as against only 2.5% of men. While 46.8% women worked 40-60 hours a week, 66.5% men worked fewer hours. “There is a deep-seated, unspoken bias. I have not faced any bias as such probably because I am a single woman,” says Vineeta Bal, a staff scientist at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi.

Because of the perceived dual burden of home and work, and the lack of out-of-the-lab networking opportunities, female scientists say more men are sought for positions such as memberships of institute committees.

The “entrenched patriarchy in science”, as some female scientists call it, manifests itself in many ways. Hema Ramachandran, a professor at the light and matter physics group, Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, remembers a male friend’s reaction when she was selected for an MSc at IIT, Bombay: “You have spoiled the career of a man. Why do you girls want to study at IIT, especially when career has no meaning for women?”

Another female scientist, who requested anonymity, said when she was young, her adviser on seeing her work hard, remarked: “I didn’t realize you were so serious about your career.” “I was shocked to hear the underlying bias in his statement. Because I am a woman, I can’t be serious about my career?” she asks.

Dhathathreyan’s experience with bias was not as much in your face, but she remembers the experience of being the only woman in a national committee with 11 male members.

“Professionally, there was no problem when they sought my opinion. Wherever there was a one-on-one, the people inviting us invited other male scientists freely, but when it came to me, they asked me to come with my husband (who is a PhD in chemistry). I knew what that meant. They would rather have a man than me,” she says.

Biases like these are a manifestation of subtler prejudices internalized from societal stereotypes and not necessarily overt. If a female scientist wants both a career and a family, does she always have to choose between the two?

There are several return-to-work programmes for women and some institutes also provide crèches for the children. But, as Rohini Godbole, a professor at the centre for high energy physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, says, “We don’t need just the coming-back programmes. We want ways to negotiate our science careers. It should be made legally necessary to have a crèche for every science institute—not just where women are working. Some say why do we need crèches when we don’t have women workers? Don’t the men scientists have children? The need for a crèche is gender-neutral. Circumstances should be created to make working easier for a woman scientist. After all, science benefits from diversity.”

Recently, human resource development minister Smriti Irani said prejudice against female scientists “dramatically exists” and doing away with it is a fundamental challenge that needs to be addressed. Irani also claimed that no school-going child in the country in this day and age would be able to name an Indian female scientist.

During the interview, Dhathathreyan doesn’t stop mentioning how there was nothing romantic about her wanting to study physics and except for the science that she pursued with great passion and interest, she was never in the limelight. But despite this unspoken bias in the field, she managed to be one of Lilavati’s Daughters, one of the female scientists in the country we can count on our fingertips.

“Our society accepts woman in certain roles readily and in some professions, they are not that easily accepted. Things are changing. But not as fast as we would like them to,” she says.