Union Science and Technology Minister Dr Jitendra Singh urged citizens to abide by the 7 powerful appeals made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the people of the country amid the global crisis. Prime Minister Modi had made seven appeals to citizens yesterday, including prioritising work from home wherever possible, reducing fuel consumption, avoiding foreign travel for a year, and adopting Swadeshi products. He had also urged the citizens to cut down on cooking oil consumption, move towards natural farming, and avoid unnecessary gold purchases. Addressing a programme on the occasion of National Technology Day in New Delhi, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the day recalls the achievements of the Pokhran explosion that happened in 1998. Dr Singh highlighted that in the last one decade India’s defence production has gone up by 174 times to 1.54 lakh crore and defence exports have gone up 34 times in just one decade. He also emphasized the need to further strengthen public-private relationships. The Minister noted that in 2014, the country had just around 350-startups but today the country has more than two lakh start-ups and stands at the 3rd position in the world start-up ecosystem.
Principal Scientific Adviser, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood said that on this day in 1998, India announced itself to the world as a self-reliant scientific power at Pokhran. He noted that it was not merely about strategic capability but was a statement highlighting the depth of Indian science, the courage of Indian institutions. Mr Sood said that National Technology Day serves as a reaffirmation of that conviction that research in this country delivers outcomes of the highest order. He mentioned that this time around, 14 ministries and departments are celebrating the occasion under the theme Building India’s Innovation Ecosystem for Viksit Bharat. He stressed that grand challenges like climate change, water security, healthcare, energy transition, frontier technologies in AI, and semiconductors demand technological convergence.
Exemplifying the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, deeptech and AI missions, and quantum and semiconductor missions, Mr Sood said that the country is developing an architecture for innovation that only a few countries can match.
