'Go abroad but learn, earn and return'

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today made a passionate appeal to youngsters who have gone abroad seeking greener pastures, to return home and contribute to nation-building, thereby giving back to the society.

"Nothing is wrong in going out...go...no problem but learn, earn and return. At the end of the day you have to come back and serve your motherland. Then only you will be happy. You must be back to your motherland so that society also recognises you and your near ones feel happy and you also get immense satisfaction out of it," he said at an event in Hyderabad.

Such is the greatness of this soil and land, we have inherent knowledge and talent in everybody in this country and in every field. "Everybody has got skill because of the land and water...People born in this country have gone to the US and other western countries. If you go to America and talk to 10 doctors, half of them will be Indians," Naidu said.

What is required is we have to tap it. We have to give them (those who left India) encouragement and make them move forward (by welcoming them back into the country), the Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister said at the closing ceremony of year long CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) 70th anniversary celebrations here.

Highlighting that India had great traditions of knowledge in different fields, he noted that, in fact, works of the country's ancient mathematicians, doctors and even philosophers stimulated thought processes across the world over centuries. Knowledge, science, technology, research they are the lifeline for the future and betterment of the society, Naidu said. India was 'Vishwaguru' once upon a time. But, now we are looking at west and they are looking towards us because in between we lost the self-confidence and self-esteem because of the slavery of hundreds of years, he said. Otherwise, what the scientists are talking about including weapons, they are all there in our 'Puranas'. For various reasons, we have lost the momentum and flow and have come to depend on other countries even for basic research outcomes and attendant technologies, the Minister said.

All those countries that have nourished and nurtured strong research and technology base have surged miles ahead of us. Our neighbour China which lagged behind us only a few decades back is now far ahead of us. Why is it so...I feel, as a nation, we lacked focus and sense of purpose.

To a great extent our leadership is to be blamed for this state of affairs, Naidu said. According to him, India produced great individual scientists. Somehow, such people in different walks of life like academics and research failed in providing effective leadership and creating an enabling and motivating environment for education and research to flourish as it should have been.

"We have to make up for the time lost. We as a nation need to reinvent and place ourselves in the forefront of right education and research and technology and development. I would like all the scientists to bear in mind this nation is rich with lots of knowledge, though we lost the momentum in between and now again we have to reinvent it and move forward," Naidu added.

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said, We have to encourage young scientists. We don't have dearth of minds... we should try to catch them young for making better quality of scientists.
-PTI