Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the first meeting of’ Anusandhan-National Research foundation’(ANRF) governing body meeting’. In his deliberations in this meeting, the PM presented his vision of associating research with development of the nation. We usually see research and development as two separate domains. We have failed so far in forging productive interaction in these two domain. PM Narendra Modi gave a direction of how and why these two domains may work together. He also asserted the requirement for engaging research with development. In similar way we see state and academics as separate and sometime binary to each other. Such a perspective in fact weakens the prospect of development of the country. These both domains require to work together at least for developmental mission of the country.
’Anusandhan- National Research Foundation (ANRF) is working to bridge the gap between research and development and forging creative engagement with academics, state, private sectors, lok udyam(people initiative together). ANRF has also proposed to bring together scattered research initiatives and orient them towards development. As we know enormous research initiatives have been taken by institutions, public and other innovative agencies. These initiatives are yet unplanned and non-interactive with each other.
ANRF is aimed to bring them together and also plan them in direction to create cumulative research capital for the development of the nation. It has proposed to bring science, technology, liberals’ studies and social science at one forum to share their innovations and idea resources for the cause of’ Vikasit Bharat’ mission which PM Narendra Modi has envisioned and conceptualised.
ANRF as a funding, idea-sharing and innovative platform may bring more than thousands of our research institutions, universities and public initiatives together for facilitating their innovativeness and using them for the development of the country.
During the meeting, Prime Minister said that today a new beginning has been made with the first meeting of the Governing Body of Anusandhan National Research Foundation.
Prime Minister has emphasised the need to identify and remove obstacles in the research ecosystem of the country.
His appeal to researchers to set big targets and attain them for the cause of the development of the nation. He suggested to the academic and research community of the country to focus on finding new solutions to existing problems. He also reiterated on the need to find local solutions to the problems even of global problem.
In this meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the need for upgradation and standardisation of institutions to do innovative research. PM Narendra Modi during his deliberation gave a valuable advice to prepare a directory of domain experts on the basis of their expertise. In this process he reiterated the need for developing a dashboard where information related to research and development happening in the country can be easily tracked. These methods may certainly help us to plan and organise Indian researches for getting appropriate solutions for local as well as global problems.
To organise and plan of research domain of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also opined that there is the need for Scientific monitoring of utilisation of resources for research and innovation. It is indeed an ‘ambitious beginning’ as rightly explained by PM Narendra Modi, said the scientific community of the country should have faith that there will be no dearth of resources for their endeavours. Discussing the positive impacts of Atal Tinkering Labs, Prime Minister suggested that grading of these labs can be done. He also highlighted that the various local scientific researches also require support.
Bringing ’Anusandhan – NRF ‘in action may be documented as one of the achievements in his 100 days of third term. In fact, ‘Anusandhan-NRF’ came in to existence by a parliamentary act, 2023. But it an outcome of consistent efforts done by ministry, experts and other research administrators since many years.
By the beginning of Anusandhan- National Research foundation (NRF), there is a hope that Indian research communities and various kinds of people initiatives are going to get more sophisticated and resource support to make their research dream real. Only caution, we need to pose with this ‘Anusandhan- NRF initiatives’ that social science and liberal study research verticals may also get proper attention in this futuristic planning of India research.
Every mega and meta development of any society or country has its social as well human context. These social, developmental and human contexts need to be properly documented, archived and analysed. It is believed that the ’Anusandhan-NRF initiatives may also social science research in India.