WHY IN NEWS?
- India participated at the Science & Technology Ministerial Roundtable, organized in the 17th annual Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum.
KEY POINTS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY MINISTERIAL ROUNDTABLE:
- Hosted by Japan
- Science and Technology Ministers’ Roundtable is held along with the STS forum every year.
- Major highlights:
- Deliberated on the role of international R&D collaboration,
- Social sciences & humanities,
- Open science.
- Participation: S&T heads from about 50 countries around the world participated and explored the opportunities arising from international collaborations at the Roundtable to address the challenges posed by Covid 19.
- India highlighted initiatives by India regarding sharing of scientific data- National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy and an open government data portal.
NATIONAL DATA SHARING AND ACCESSIBILITY POLICY
- The NDSA was adopted in 2012.
- It was a step towards making non-sensitive government data accessible online.
- The main thrust of the policy is to “promote data sharing and enable access to Government of India owned data for national planning, development and awareness”.
- It aims to facilitate “access to Government of India shareable data in machine-readable form”.
- Open Government Data Portal: As part of the Open Government Data (OGD) initiative, data.gov.in was launched in 2012.
INDIA’S ROLE IN GLOBAL S&T
- Scientific data sharing with partner nations is being considered for inclusion in the Science Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020) being framed.
- International Cooperation: India gives extraordinary importance to international cooperation in S&T for development and for addressing challenges of health, water, energy, environment, climate change, communication, and natural disasters. Example:
- India’s active S&T participation in international mega-science projects such as International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER, Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT).
- Mission Innovation:
- Mission Innovation (MI) was announced in 2015 due to pioneering efforts by India, France, and the USA to combat climate changes.
- MI is a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Union to dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation.
- As part of the initiative, participating countries have committed to double their governments’ clean energy Research and Development (R&D) investments over five years.
- Encouraging private sector investment in transformative clean energy technologies.
- The Innovation Challenges cover the entire spectrum of RD&D; from early-stage research needs assessments to technology demonstration projects.
- India’s Global Initiatives:
- Coalitions for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) – An international knowledge platform where countries can collaborate to make their existing and new infrastructure strong enough to withstand natural disasters.
- International Solar Alliance – An Indian initiative that was launched in 2015 in Paris, France with the objective to collectively address key common challenges to the scaling up of solar energy in ISA member countries.
- For Covid-19: Vaccines for coronavirus are in advanced phases of trial, and India has the capacity to supply the vaccine to a major part of humanity.
- This is in addition to other medicine requirements that global pharmacy(India) has provided during the pandemic.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY (STS) FORUM
- The Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum was inaugurated in 2004.
- The STS forum aims:
- To provide a new mechanism for open discussions on an informal basis.
- To build a human network that would timely resolve the new types of problems stemming from the application of science and technology.
- It holds an annual meeting starting on the first Sunday of October every year, in Kyoto, Japan.