Inaugural Address at the National Symposium on Bio-diversity - a Scientific Approach Agenda for the 21st Century at North-eastern Hill University

Biovision

I am indeed delighted to be in the campus of North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. My greetings to people of Megahalaya and particularly to the Scientific Community. I am equally happy to inaugurate the 72nd Session of the National Academy of Sciences India and the National Symposium on Bio-Diversity - A Scientific Approach Agenda for the 21st Century. I would like to greet the North-Eastern Hill University for bringing experts, scientists and technologists in the various fields of bio-sciences and bio technology here for this symposium to discuss about the challenges and opportunities in bio-diversity. Nature has done its abundance in filling up the North Eastern Region with bio-diversity.I have seen myself as this is my third visit to North Eastern states in this month.

The nation's strengths predominantly reside in its natural and human resources. In natural resources, India is endowed with a vast coast-line with marine resources and also oil wealth. In minerals, apart from conventional material resources, it is well-known that India has the largest deposits of titanium, beryllium and tungsten. India ranks among the top few nations having a rich bio-diversity. Particularly, in the herbal area there are potential applications for developing multiple products for nutrition, prevention and cure of diseases. Of the global herbal product market of US$ 61 billion, China has a share of around US $ 3 billion, whereas India's share is not even US $ 0.1 billion. There is tremendous opportunity for growth in this area. India has similar potential for promoting floriculture and aquaculture in a big way. Knowledge-based value addition for these natural resources would mean exporting value-added products rather than merely the raw materials. Use of IT for commercialisation and marketing can increase our outreach and speed enormously. Ancient knowledge is a unique resource of India for it has the treasure of a minimum of 5000 years of civilisation. It is essential to leverage this wealth for national well being as well as to seek global presence for the nation. I will share with you my thoughts on the need for value addition on bio-diversity products, hill agriculture and the enormous opportunities in North-Eastern region for development.

Technology Interfaces

Technology is the most nonlinear tool that can effect the most fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through manufacture. Economy and environment link Technology to society. So there is an integrated relationship between science , technology , environment, manufacturing and the society.

Bio Diversity - Technology Prosperity Matrix

One of the core competences of India is Bio Diversity. Bio Diversity and technology combined will yield value added products. In biodiversity, few countries like INDIA, CHINA, BRAZIL, INDONESIA, MEXICO, MALAYSIA ETC are very rich. Technology is needed for developing a genetically engineered seed or transforming a molecule extracted from the herb into a drug. Today tech advanced nations are in the field are USA, JAPAN, FRANCE, GERMANY, UK ETC., What is needed is in high productivity in agriculture, biodiversity material and technology integrated. There are some regions in desert nations where biodiversity and tech are poor. Today there is no nation having rich bio-diversity and high technology together. Therefore the challenge is Integration of technological best and abundant biodiversity of North Eastern States.

Value Addition

The North Eastern India is rich in herbs, germ plasm and micro organisms. Industrially developed countries are importing these bio-resources in the raw forms and add value to them for export to developing countries including India as special seeds, medicines and bio-materials, fully protecting patents of these products. Instead of allowing export of such resources and importing value added products at high cost, India must add its own technology for conversion of such resources to value added products for use in domestic requirement and also for export.

Hill Agriculture

I would like to mention that three R&D labs have been working in the area of hill agriculture. This relates to developing suitable technologies, for inaccessible and difficult terrain like cold desert of Ladakh (J&K) and high altitudes of UP hills. Major areas of research during last three decades has been development of suitable varieties of vegetable crops, fodder crops, and improved breeds of poultry, cattle, as well as their production technologies. Our scientists entered into a partnership with the local farmers so that the results of the research can reach the common man in short time for the benefit of the society and the nation. Use of these technical inputs by the farmers in areas like Leh valley and Joshimath and Pithoragarh areas of UP hills not only has increased the income level of the local farmers but also to the considerable savings to the defence forces in transportation of these perishable commodities (vegetables, milk, and poultry) besides boosting morale of the troops deployed there. In Leh valley, locally grown fresh vegetables worth one crore of rupees annual are being supplied by the local growers and farmers' cooperatives to the defence forces, even upto the Siachen Glacier, using the technologies developed by our scientists for production and storage. Development of protected cultivation of vegetable crops (solar greenhouse cultivation) made it possible to grow vegetables in Leh valley during frozen winters (at -30 degree centigrade). Technologies developed for cold desert have been successfully used and demonstrated in developing a self-sustainable village, Nang village at altitude of 13,000 feet in Ladakh. Similar experiment of developing self-sustainable village (Sil village) is in progress in Karko village in Arunachal Pradesh and it can be extended to other places of North Eastern region.

Biotechnology in Health Care

I would like to share my experiences while I was in Anna University, Chennai. One of them resulted in getting a patent for a new molecule discovered from a herb as an anti cancer drug. This came out of the fusion of two great minds, one was a bio technologist and the other was a traditional siddha medical practitioner. The traditional system of medicine like Ayurveda, Sidda etc have advocated and practiced preventive and curative medicinal recipies specific to individuals. The body, mind, food and environment were looked at holistically to suggest a preventive or curative approach to health. New technologies as evidenced by human genome sequencing, proteomics, chemogenomics, ultra high throughput screening is revolutionizing drug discovery . Medicinal plants offer enormous scope for development of drugs. We need to create database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs. North eastern states have got tremendous opportunities for herbal farming and research.

Other Experiments were to find a hardware software integrated solution to bring back a near normal life for mentally challenged children. During our preliminary studies I have seen tremendous scope for bio-medical electronics and embedded software. Also, we were exploring to indigenize the cochlear implant to revive hearing capabilities to the severe to profound damaged ear. On reviving the hearing, IT based training could be given to have normal speech. Our scientists have also successfully developed a bacteria to absorb the oil spillage on the sea bed and dis-integrate the oil into eco-friendly soluble

Conclusion

Bio-diversity is a gift of nature. It should not be allowed to get destroyed with man's greed. But bio-diversity, by its nature wants to give a lot for the benefit of human. It will give us economic strength. It will be a healer. It is essential for the Central and State government to ensure that bio-diversity is not destroyed and at the same time it is used as a friendly economic entity. We should consider North Eastern States as bio-diversity dense region and there has to be integrated mission to harness it. Scientific research and tech advancements has to go together. Researches in pharma industries have to work together to provide cost effective herbal drugs to common man, as the herbal drugs will have least side effects fortunately. I would like to congratulate the organizers of this bio-diversity national symposium for their timely action. I am sure several interesting and important subjects will be debated and discussed to evolve various actions and strategies in the field of bio-diversity.