A Letter To Govt of India Requesting Hike In Research Fellowship
Dear Government of India,
Your annual turnover maybe trillions of dollars. Your monthly income also touches billions of dollars. But do you know how it is so? It is because your citizens did something great and a fraction of those citizens were researchers.
If ISRO stands tall today on a world stage it’s because of its researchers and scientists working under it. Development of the powerful Agni or Prithvi missile to protect our country was also possible because of our eminent researchers and scientists.
Each time you buy a Raffaele from France, you spend even more dollars. Instead, if you would have empowered your own country researchers to develop the same you would have saved that huge chunk of money draining out of India. So here is a good chance for you to grow your revenue even bigger and if you want to do that you need to empower your researchers and rest assured they will empower you back.
Researchers are humble creators who selflessly work day & night in labs, fields just to develop solutions for you, for the country, and for our fellow countrymen. Researchers stay at
the forefront of India’s innovative landscape, and if you don’t empower them if you don’t support them, they are not going to be able to support you back.You complain about brain drain, you complain about people studying in IITs & IISC and then moving abroad to get attractive high salaried jobs. These humble researchers would not have done that if you would have honored their talent with the right kind of fellowship, right kind of honorarium on time.
Throughout the country right now there is demonstration & protests going on by our researchers demanding a hike in their fellowship and you are putting a blind eye to it, happily amassing trillions of dollars, but you are not realizing that you could be actually earning quadrillions of dollars if you start supporting your researchers.
Foreign countries today shoot their satellites using ISRO rockets, who made those rockets? No politician made it! No general public made it! It was done by a specialized scientist. So Why ignore them? Why downplay their efforts? Why not support them? They have supported you all through their lifetime. In fact, many of them lost their lives supporting India and its cause.
If today India is great. If today, India is what it is with distinguished capabilities, it’s all because of its scientists. If India is a nuclear country today, it is all because of the efforts by the BARC scientists. India today is able to feed billions of its people, it’s because of its agricultural scientists. If today India has to buy technologies from abroad, it is because India is not honoring its researchers and scientists.
So if you are someone reading this article, as a minister, or as an empowered thought leader of this country, support the cause of giving better fellowship to these few selected researchers who empower you back with their research. They have done everything for this country. Just like our army men, fighting at the border. They fight the battle every day in the research lab. Why delay My dear government of India? Why delay?
Americans, Russians, Chinese snatch these talented individuals from our country and you will again go and buy the same technology we wish you could have helped it developed in India.
So if you are an informed individual of this country, support the cause, support researchers! Support them with timely fellowship and hiked fellowship as per the market or as else except the fact that we going to lose the battle of technology in the 21st century to Americans, Chinese, Russians, and French.
Thanking You!
Researchers of India
NB: If you are an Indian Researcher and agree to the above letter, do help us make it reach the Prime Ministers office by sharing this letter and making it reach every individual researcher & scientists working for India.
I wonder why nobody is as prompt about revising fellowship schemes as they are about increasing prices everywhere. Didn’t we have a right to justice or has that right completely been denied to us now? #hikeresearchfellowship #HikeFellowship
— Shreyasi (@Rheatweets) December 4, 2018
We put our best, work day and night to illuminate the humanity despite the fact of financial insecurity in future.
We deserve best treatment.#HikeFellowship
# Hike research fellowship@MHRD— Saurabh Kaushik (@Saurabh29418116) December 5, 2018
Our govt. talks about SABKA VIKAAS. It needs to realise that VIKAAS isnt really possible in a country where researchers are financially insecure and are deprived of basic facilities#HikeFellowship@HRDMinistry @PrakashJavdekar @PMOIndia @HikeFellowship
— Manish Dutta (@manish__dutta) December 4, 2018
#hikeresearchfellowship Working day and night in lab and given only 25k kills our motivation towards research..we are demanding what we deserve… Just a decent fellowship….#kvijayraghavan #IndiaDST #arunjaitley #PMOindia #HikeFellowship #arunjaitley
— Priyanka Verma (@Priyank70819830) December 5, 2018
It’s quite a realistic article. Govt. of India has implemented rules which probably are not found in any other nation worldwide, which prevent researchers to continue their passion in their homeland and give away the precious science and technology to others. Of course, science is not anyone’s property. In India, yes, science has been sidelined for a long time. As a researcher, I have been working not giving up despite the hardships and delay in PhD registration when my fellow researchers have moved way ahead of me. Govt. of India needs to understand one thing. Remarkable research does not happen only in IISc, IISERs or IITs. It could as well be happening in any other state or a central university. When the students at these universities or institutes are ignored so much, they would naturally go to a place where their talents are recognized and at least their basic needs are taken care of. Researchers spend so much of their time and energy for what they do, and when they are done with their degree, they would be left with nothing other than their knowledge and experience. If they are still interested to study, they wouldn’t have any financial back up except for the fellowship they are given. The highest level of education is being least paid in India. It’s high time things started changing. Last time the fellowships were hiked, even the exam fees were increased ruthlessly. Especially general category students have been made pay much higher fees which is simply not acceptable because their fellowship amount is the same as everyone’s. But do we have a choice? Why make researchers suffer so much and finally blame them for pursuing their passion? I feel whoever is doing research in India at any level, be it a PhD student or a project fellow, should be decently paid irrespective of the institute they are working in, and at least they should be able to afford their basic requirements. It’s time the Indian Govt. started thinking ahead of mere qualifying exams to assess the talented researchers.
Very True Bhavana, Totally agree with your point. I invite all of you to comment here and share your thoughts and also tweet this article tagging DST & Our PM Shri Narendra Modi. Together We can & we will get Justice
Thank you for this wonderful article.
Respected sir you have totally forgotten to mention the name of agricultural science and their contribution in Indian agricultural landscape. For example we have several basmati varieties developed by our scientist with immense student contribution which is giving a total export earning of 30000 crore to Indian farmer, but the fellowship of all of us including institute fellowship in ICAR-deemed university is very less. Hence I request you to kindly add agricultural science into this article.
There is no doubt about it Nitish, Agricultural research is very important and must also be looked at. This article is aimed at everyone in the R & D sector.
Every time, we the research fraternity have to go through the same pain and anguish !!! I am waiting for the day when these norms are brought into practicality and each researcher is first valued as the important citizen/individual of the country INDIA!!
The article has mentioned everything leaving the agricultural science and the research contributions. Please mention agriculture too.All research scholars except ICAR fellows, will not get a penny of fellowship,some of us get merit scholarship which is ₹3000 per month and we are PhD scholar.
Perfectly agree with the letter and where researchers stand in India right now. A suggestion that the letter can be directly sent to PM Office via mail. Kindly do it on behalf of researchers community to see a better positive change in upcoming year sir. Thank you
Dear sir, Indian science and technology has to be supported through research grants, research fellowships, appreciation awards, etc., so that great science and technology is done in the Indian soil. It should even attract foreigners to come and contribute. The amount of money marked for the purpose is very meagre compared to developed countries and this needs to be enhanced several folds so that R & D picks up in India at a still higher scale. When the avenues in terms of increased funding, higher salary, improved facilities creation, many bright students may not go abroad to contribute to the field. The government may select priority areas and provide funds. Release of fellowship amounts, funds for projects and facility creation should be done 6 months in advance so that right candidates get selected and wait for joining to take up projects and execute to completion. Thanks,
Our University so called Central University pays us only 8k per month for 3 years and we have to pay a hefty fee inreturn 20k for tuition fee only along with it mess fee more than 25k per year and medical fee and other expenses.This is indeed pathetic for a Research scholar to balance the things and fulfill financial needs.
I AM TRULY ACCEPT ABOVE COMMENT, IN INDIA NO RESEARCH VALUE,STATUS & RIGHT PLATFORM. ONLY MONOPOLY OF SPECIFIC RESEARCH PERSON LIKE POST GRADUATE,PHD. WHY NOT FOR OPEN HOUSE IN RESEARCH FIELD? INDIAN GOVERNMENT ONLY CONCENTRATION ON EDUCATION,MARKS,MEDICAL,ENGINEERING SO ON.I THINK POLICY MAKERS IS WRONG ATTITUDE. I THINK RESEARCH & EDUCATION BOTH ARE DIFFERENT THINGS, IN EDUCATION IS LEARNING,READING.WRITING,MEMORIES CRACK THE EXAMS,BUT IN RESEARCH IMPORTANT IN OUTBOX THINKING,INNOVATIVE MIND,IDEAS,INNOVATIONS.
COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT DEPENDS TO BE CONCENTRATE ON RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT,TECHNOLOGY NOT ON POLITICS,ADMINISTRATION SERVICE.
WHY AMERICA IS SUPERPOWER ? THINK ABOUT.
Yes really its true. Research student are the backbone of a country for which India is only spending less than 2 % of GDP while western country like US, Germany etc. spending more than 5 % of GDP.
Now the government is talking about the direct recruitment of Assistant professor post who had done their PhD from top 500 university from foreign University. But the government is neglecting its own University and organization for direct recruitment to the assistant professor post. Government should need to strengthen its own University or organization of India by spending more money among which first spend should be towards encouragment by hiking the fellowship for researcher so that that researcher should get security (economic). Otherwise one more H. Govind Khorana would get Noble Prize after going away from India.