Finance Ministry

Rhetoric and even platitudes are necessary notes of any official policy statement. But usually the notes are the overtones of a song/symphony – not though in the government’s draft science policy statement. Drafted by a group of eminent scientists/science administrators and bureaucrats the policy, the third such statement to be issued since independence, is content to construct fetching word pictures without spelling out the processes which can reverse the steadily decreasing interest in science in the country. Even the implementation strategy document that accompanies the policy statement – an innovation, to be sure – fails to grapple with the real issues.