Ravi: State needs a science policy

Union Minister of Science and Technology Vayalar Ravi has said that the state should formulate a science and technology policy and align it with the national policy.

He was delivering the inaugural address at the sectoral session ‘Science and Technology: Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Life Sciences’ at the ‘Emerging Kerala 2012’ meet  here on Thursday.

He said that the three national autonomous research centres are functioning well. The Centre has approved a new and fourth centre for molecular material research. This is a new addition to the Department of Science and Technology and the autonomous research and development institutions. More students from the state should opt for science subjects. The students from the state have been highly successful in gaining admission to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, he said.  A slew of projects have been proposed under  science and technology. Establishing an agro biotechnology park would be given priority as the state has an edge in the production of  marine products, spices and vegetables, said Minister for Panchayats and Social Welfare M K Muneer in his welcome address.

The other project is oncology biomarker for cancer prevention and research. The country as well as the state are both in a position to obtain new technology. Both the projects should be taken up on a public-private-participation mode. The other project is the commercialisation of the herbal medicine kit with products made from spirulina algae, a project under Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, which should be undertaken on  the PPP mode.

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