Bharat Ratna awardee and eminent scientist CNR Rao on Sunday called polticians “idiots” for giving scientists “so little”.
He was referring to the “inadequate” government funding to the scientific community.
Addressing a press conference a day after the award was announced, Rao, who is the chairman of the prime minister’s scientific advisory council, stressed the need for providing more resources for research.
“Why the hell have these idiots (politicians) given so little to us despite what we have done. For the money that the government has given us we have done much more,” he said.
Rao was unhappy with the progress India has made when compared to China saying Indians are complacent. “Indian researchers need to work harder; we don’t work as hard as the Chinese.
Starting next year, China will top the world with 16.5% of world research publications, overtaking even the US. The quantity of publication of research papers from India have remained at 2-3%,” he said.
“India is the worst. China is doing exascale and petascale computing. I am fighting with the government to invest money in computing,” he said.
Rao was also unhappy over the focus given to the IT sector in Karnataka. “The state is not doing well as our people are unfortunately going behind the money in IT sector. The IT sector has a whole bunch of unhappy people working in it,” he said.
When asked for his comments on the state government’s proposed anti-superstition law, Rao said superstitious people could not be godly.
(With agency inputs)
