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India Increases Science Budget By 24 Per Cent

Flooding in an Indian town, caused by the recent tsunami. Ocean Development will receive nearly US$88 million which will fund a tsunami warning system and data-collecting buoys to monitor oceans.
New Delhi, India (SPX) Mar 07, 2005
Scientists in India just received a huge 24% boost in government funding, according to the Science and Development Network website.

Government departments engaged in scientific research will now receive the rupees equivalent of US$3.8 billion in 2005-06, according to India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram. Much of it will go to making sure that the sub-continent is never again taken by surprise by a tsunami, as it was in December.

As a result, the Department of Ocean Development will get a 64 per cent increase in funds in order to meet some tight deadlines: key elements of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services are meant to be in place in Hyderabad by March next year, with the early warning system for tsunamis and storm surges operating by September 2007.

Ocean Development will receive nearly US$88 million which will fund a tsunami warning system and data-collecting buoys to monitor oceans. The plan includes upgrading India's earthquake monitoring infrastructure and setting up a network to observe the ocean in 'real-time'.

This requires instruments to record the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, gauges which constantly monitor tidal flow and a system to monitor the coast using radar technology.

Other aspects of the plans include developing statistical models of tsunamis and storm surges (water pushed toward the shore by strong winds in a storm) and mapping coastal areas at risk of flooding.

Valingaman Ramamurthy, secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, told scientists earlier that the tsunami had delivered two stark messages: "The first is that we were unprepared. The second is that we cannot remain unprepared any longer."

Chidambaram said the government would also provide a stable policy environment and the necessary incentives to help the Indian biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors become world leaders.

He allocated an additional US$34.9 million to a research and development fund for the pharmaceutical sector and said the government would increase the fund in phases to help develop new drugs.

India has the potential to become an attractive destination for outsourcing drug discovery and clinical research, and for international collaborations in drug development and manufacturing, said Chidambaram.

He added that the country could also emerge as a global leader in supplying novel agricultural and healthcare technologies and products. The budget also increases funding for the Department of Biotechnology � up by 27 per cent to US$106 million.

Two additional science-related initiatives announced by Chidambaram are in keeping with the budget's overall focus on improving rural infrastructure and alleviating poverty.

The first is a new US$11 million National Fund for Strategic Agricultural Research, aimed at reviving and diversifying agricultural research, and modernising Indian agricultural universities and research institutions.

The second initiative is the allocation of US$23 million to support an alliance of 80 organisations that pledged last year to set up a Rural Knowledge Centre, using modern information and communication technologies, in each of India's 600,000 villages by 2007.

The budget also allocated an additional US$23 million to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore as a first step in Indian plans to develop world-class universities.

Meanwhile, India's plans for a tsunami-warning system have come in for some criticism.

Tadepalli Satyanarayana Murty, vice-president of the International Tsunami Society who helped set up tsunami-warning centres in Canada and the USA believes that the warning centre is being set up in the wrong place.

He told SciDev.Net that it should be located in Visakhapatnam on India�s east coast because the city is "ideally located in the middle of the Bay of Bengal coast and has a rocky landscape that provides higher ground".

Murty also says a separate centre for tsunami research should be set up at the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa on the country's west coast.

A potential flaw in India's future plans is its insistence on its own tsunami-warning centre � which goes against international experts' calls for a regional centre covering the 36 countries in the Indian Ocean rim.

"We are open to collaboration with international agencies and sharing our data, but we will have our own centre," said Harsh Gupta, secretary of the Department of Ocean Development.

Murty, however, says that developing its own warning system could put India at a disadvantage. First, he points out, it will not have access to tide gauge data from other countries where earthquakes could generate a tsunami that hits India.

Second, there could be too many false alarms.

Murty says that even the reliable Pacific tsunami warning system in Hawaii averages two or three false alarms for every real event. This is because when an earthquake with the potential to cause a tsunami is recorded near a coast, people sometimes overreact and issue an alarm.

"You need a confirmation from at least one more tide gauge, preferably closest to the epicentre of the quake before a warning can be issued," says Murty.

"For this you need to be part of an international network."

Costas Synolakis, professor of coastal engineering at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, United States, agrees: "There is a need for a regional warning centre, otherwise efforts will be duplicated in setting up a national and regional centre."

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