Build World-Class Indian Universities, Take India To The Top: Govind Swarup

India, as a country, today stands at the crossroads as it tries to take the centre stage in the world economy; harness its innate strengths; gain a stronghold in the world’s political stage; and reinforce its place in the global scientific fraternity. The recent ‘Make in India’ campaign and Mangalyaan success was just a teaser for the world.

As the world wakes up to the power that lies within the sub-continent, it’s time that Indians should start focusing on education says Dr Govind Swarup, the Emeritus Professor from National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of TIFR. The well-known radio astronomer shared several insights and perspectives on how India can establish the intellectual potential and become one of the world’s best developed nations in a candid conversation with Richa Sharma, Deputy Editor-Business Insider India. Below are the excerpts:

Q. Sir, you laid the foundation of radio astrophysics in India, and built the GMRT, a lot has changed, right from technology to science governing the Physics. How do you view all these changes?
I look at them with positivity and lots of hope. But my fear is brain drain. Today, very few bright students join research institutes or Indian universities as many get attracted to software industries in lieu of handsome salary package. Many go abroad. This must change and for this we need to overcome the ‘caste system’ dividing our education system into four buckets/boxes. (He pauses and then explains) I say, we have a caste system in education because we’ve science colleges and research institutes in one box, engineering colleges in second, medical colleges in third box and humanities in fourth. In most American Universities, all are offered in one campus and students at undergraduate and postgraduate level are required to take 20 to 30 % courses outside their discipline.

Q. So, you want to say that science education should be revamped?
Yes, precisely. Almost all universities in India impart only education in science, but very little research isencouraged. Unless we combine undergraduate education with research and experiments in all disciplines (e.g in social sciences with field surveys), we cannot expect our universities to become world-class.

Q. What’s your take on Mangalyaan success? ISRO scientists have created history by successfully inserting the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) into the Martian Orbit. This makes India the first country in the world to accomplish the feat in its maiden attempt.
It’s a great achievement. Not only it has proved the technical skills of ISRO scientists but also mathematical ability by few in ISRO who calculated and mastered the gravitational variations across the solar system from the earth to mars that led to the unique success. But there’s a lesson that we should learn from this success.

(Lesson?) We should enhance mathematics teaching and learning—right from primary levels to secondary levels across India in private schools, municipal schools and rural schools. Science can’t exist without Maths, you can even say vice-versa. A group in Orissa and Pune selects undergraduate students in Degree colleges and encourages them to go to municipal schools, interact with 20 students studying in class 5th or above, and impart mathematical knowledge. Imagine the impact we can create if we implement the same rule across thousands of science and engineering degree colleges in India. How do we tell Smiriti Irani?

Q. From discovery of Type U solar radio bursts, gyro-radiation model for microwave radio emission from solar active regions; lunar occultation observations using the ORT to high angular resolution studies (about 1 to 10 arc sec) of more than 1,000 weak radio galaxies and quasars-you have done it all. Now, what’s next in your list?
Next on my list is education. I dream of India, where we’ve world-class universities. I feel that’s the only way to capture the intellectual potential we have in the country, and make India one of the world’s best developed nations as well.

From 1996 to 2004, I and Professor Bhide (former VC of the Pune University) struggled to set up a 5-year integrated Science Education and Research at the University of Pune. Our initiative was approved by the Cabinet in 2004, which later lead to the establishment of: 5 Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs); another National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER); and Center of Excellence in Basic Sciences at the Bombay University. I consider this as a bigger achievement than building the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT).

I hope that the Modi Government would select four State Universities across India on competitive basis, provide sufficient funds, ensure that faculty is selected on a national basis and thus in due course improve our ~ 250 or more universities. There’s tremendous talent going untapped in our young population. Apart from education and nurturing talents at the bottom of the pyramid, we need to take special care of the top that would contribute to innovation. At age of 85, I can’t contribute more to these dreams, but I am sure there are others who can pave us on the road to faster growth and success.

Q. That’s an intriguing thought sir, but we would still like to know what are you researching these days? We heard that you are making observations with the GMRT for problems related to cosmology.
Currently, I am closely guiding a student from VSSC (isn’t it Trivandrum??), ISRO, to analyze observations made with the GMRT of the planet Venus and to investigate any heat flow and its magnitude from its interior. Along with Dr Sandeep Sirothia of NCRA, currently in South Africa, we are also analyzing GMRT data of "Extremely Cold Spot" in the microwave background that has cosmological implications.

Q. You are probably the reason why people think of being a radio astronomer—the term however, is not known to many. Can you please explain what it’s all about in simpler words?
Radio Astronomy is a new subject. Using radio telescopes (large antennas connected to very sensitive electronics), it has been discovered that one in a million galaxy is a very powerful source of radio emission emitting trillions of power due to presence of massive black holes at the centre of certain galaxies that give rise to outflow of powerful jets of electrons and positrons as matter spirals from galaxy to the central black holes. Many other discoveries have been made in Radio Astronomy and has brought Nobel Prize to 8 radio astronomers over the last 50 years.

India has GMRT, the world's largest radio telescope operating from 130 MHz to 1430 MHz. It is being used by astronomers and students from India and 31 countries in the world including astronomers from Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Stanford. There are only a few other scientific instruments in India that has been used by international scientists and that too on a limited occasions.

Q. Any tips for our readers, who want to become a radio astronomer?
A good education background and exceptional analytical skills is all that you need. If you have completed B.Sc. and M.Sc levels in Physics and Mathematics, Or B.Tech in Electronics and telecommunications, you can sit in for competitive tests held in this field. National Centre of Radio physics of TIFR at Pune, Raman Research Institute at Bangalore and a few other places, annually select students through JEST, IUCAA-NCRA (INIAT) and TIFR entrance exams.

(Dr Govind Swarup is an internationally well known pioneer in the field of radio astronomy who is known for building ingenious, economical and powerful observational facilities for front-line research in radio astronomy, namely, the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) in South India and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, that are amongst the largest in the world.)


Image: ncra.tifr.res.in