Have you ever wondered how many papers are written by scientists in India! Are S&T activities progressing or declining? A lot of information to answer such questions can be gathered from a detailed analysis of the publication pattern of research papers and patents issued. The present study makes an attempt in this direction.

You may be surprised at some of the figures given here from the study National Mapping of Science conducted at NISTADS. All papers from India indexed in Science Citation Index (SCI) have been analysed for the calendar years 1990, 1994 and 1997 after extensive data cleaning and value addition. You may draw your own conclusions.

Limitations: SCI covers about 4000 Journals including 12 from India. Our study is limited to these 4000 journals. If papers from other journals especially those published from India were included the numbers could change drastically and the pattern might also change. Any conclusions therefore are subject to this limitation.

Number of Indian papers and journals in the Science Citation index

State Outputs and Change

Change in the number of scientific papers from Indian states

POLICY & PLANNING

Technological solutions based on R&D are necessary in all areas be it Health, Self sufficiency in Food or Communication and Wealth Generation. It is imperative for any country to evaluate its activity in Science and take steps to direct it to national objectives or developmental goals. Knowledge of the state of Science should form the foundation of informed decision making at any level from Nation, state, sector to institution.

As the scientific system gets larger it becomes increasingly difficult to gauge the direction in which science is moving. As in any complex system some parts will be experiencing growth – others decline. A thriving research area or institution is usually characterised by a rapid increase in output. Published papers, therefore, can indicate areas of growth in science. The citation levels of journals in which they appear (Impact Factor) can act as a surrogate measure of quality.

While keeping relevance to society as well as the cause of science in mind, basic statistics of scientific output and impact can assist expert opinion in providing direction to scientific research

To encourage the growth of the nascent information industry in the country, a broad-based scheme to promote and support public institutions and private enterprises, in information resource development and service generation will be launched. At the users end, a systematic approach to sensitise and educate users enhancing their search capabilities will be evolved.

The reach of modern information systems hardly ever extends beyond the urban areas, and literate clientele. It is necessary that people living in rural areas, illiterate and backward communities also benefit from the fruits of information technology revolution. Further, certain items of information for the public that people ought to know for their day-today living and for coping up with the emergencies, would be packaged and appropriate dissemination mechanism set up.

New Tech has already taken steps for dissemination of information on patents through its information centres. Going further, New Tech intends to run a series of workshops on patents information for industrial R & D and seminars on copyright for library, information and software personnel. It also intends to build up a compendium of case studies on patents information and copyright, besides a database of frequently asked questions.

It is also felt necessary to evolve a mechanism for capturing information on folk wisdom, biodiversity , ethnic practices etc. This will serve two fold purpose, one to take benefit of the existing knowledge and material base, and second, to help registering these against uncalled for exploitation through patents by other countries.

Given today’s high cost of travel and the opportunity cost of time spent to attend training courses, New Tech will experiment with skill-upgradation through distance education courses using modern telecommunication systems like web-based teaching/learning and teleconferencing. However, for these, New Tech would piggy-back on existing networks.

Since information sources and services in the country are disparate, an information referral system will be established together with an intelligent gateway to facilitate our users accessing domestic and foreign information and foreign users accessing Indian information services.

In view of the rapid changes in the global and domestic information and information technology scenarios, a regular mechanism to continually monitor trends, assess their relevance to our conditions and to forecast the shape of things to come will be established. New Tech also proposes to prepare the Indian Information Report in the lines of the World Information Report brought out by the UNESCO.

The potential employers like industries, national laboratories often observe that candidates knowledgeable in modern information tools and techniques are difficult to find. Since only a limited purpose could be achieved through continuing education of practising library and information scientists, it might be worthwhile to catch them young. This warrants intervention at the library Schools. For this purpose, New Tech would propose to provide support to a few selected library and information schools for introducing subjects on modern information handling techniques under the New Tech scheme.

The CD-ROM has emerged as a powerful technology for application in decentralised information system development. However, in India we are yet to make a beginning. It is therefore proposed to bring out CD-ROMs on Indian bibliographic, numeric and directory type databases and also a CD-ROM version of selected Indian periodicals.

Since it is difficult for intending users to access libraries outside their own institutions, a scheme is being designed to facilitate utilization of large libraries by outside users especially those from industries. A pilot project on the concept is being set up in the IIT Delhi.

As on date, there are about 1400 installations of CDS/ISIS and 45 installations of IDAMS in India. The implementation of CDS/ISIS is monitored regularly through exchange of information, user’s group meetings (seven such meetings have been held so far) and periodic surveys.

SANJAY is a package developed by New Tech in collaboration with DESIDOC to help the libraries and information centres in India to improve their house-keeping and service functions through automation. The package is totally menu driven and can be used even by non-professionals. The package was released for marketing in September 1995, and till now it has an installation base of 40 sites.

In collaboration with National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), New Delhi, New Tech has a package developed using the GIST Card and CDS/ISIS for handling materials in Devnagri and several other Indian scripts. This package was also distributed to ASTINFO member countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. Trishna is under beta-test in the Sahitya Academy.

These apart, NISSAT has collected several of small packages and utilities like Fangorn, CCF-MARC and vice-verse, dBASE to CDS/ISIS and vice-verse, GLOB for global replacement, NEWSDI from Indian institutions and abroad for distribution among Indian users.

New Tech has recently entered into an agreement with the MINISIS Resource Centre at the SNDT Women’s University for marketing of the package and applications development.

•     Development of national information services.
•     Promotion of existing information systems & services.
•     Introduction of modern information handling tools & techniques.
•     Promotion of international co-operation in information.
•     Development of indigenous products & services.
•     Organization of skill development programmes.
•     Promotion of R & D in Information Science & Technology.

Subject Coverage

The New Tech programme has the mandate to cover the entire spectrum of science and technology. However, during the process of programme implementation, special care is taken not to dwell upon subjects already being handled by other national programme like the BTIS, ENVIS or an agency like the ICAR. New Tech solicits the views of other programmes/agencies which are responsible for a subject under the allocation of their business. For example, New Tech had to consult the ICMR before adopting a project on the development of a database on Virology. Similarly, New Tech requests for the expert views of institutions/individuals working on a given subject or its allied areas when required. For instance, the expert views of both the National Mission on Sugar Technology, TIFAC, New Delhi and the National Sugar Institute, Kanpur were sought on a project proposal for the creation of a database on Indian Sugar at the Vasantdada Sugar Research Institute, Manjari, Pune.

The New Tech Executive Committee consists of officials and experts from the various government agencies and institutions. Similarly, New Tech officials are involved in various information programmes around the country. The EC members and the New Tech secretariat are thus well equipped to apply their country-wide experiences in picking up good proposals for support and filtering out those which may be of low priority or feasibility.

Though there has been no specific official mandate, as a proactive and progressive step, New Tech has taken the onus on itself to strengthen the library movement in the country through the introduction of modern information technology, tools and techniques.

As the boundaries between science and technology, social sciences, arts and humanities are fast disappearing, emphasis on activities on one area can not subsist without the support for the other. Therefore, in due course, New Tech would need to adopt the non-S & T subjects as well. Already, New Tech does not differentiate between the S & T and non-S & T areas in the implementation of the library networks and manpower development programmes. Similarly, New Tech centres now deal with a variety of non-bibliographic and factual information.

UNDERLYING CONCEPTS

Building on existing facilities

It is the shorn strategy of New Tech to make the maximum utilization of the available infrastructure and resource base. In pursuance of this strategy, New Tech uses public telecom facility for networking and service generation; organizes training workshops through professional bodies and institutions; adopts database development projects in institutions with significant information resources and expertise on the specific subjects.

In setting up the various sectoral information centres, New Tech has always chosen to build around existing nuclei instead of creating de novo. Even today, most of the institutional facilities are meant for in-house clientele only. When New Tech decides to set up a centre on a subject, an effort is first made to locate a suitable institution having significant information base, considerable professional expertise and a large enough user population. The Host Institution is then enabled to build up, with New Tech’s support, facilities which help them serve the national community of users better.

Thrust on contents

Since inception, New Tech’s emphasis has been on the Information Content — its development and utilization. This is a tedious activity very few information systems would want to get involved in. Most of them invest their monetary and knowledge resources in creating infrastructure like networks — without bothering about organizing information that has to flow through. As a result, large number of networks remain grossly under-utilized.

Apart from developing the information centres, networks, database projects etc., New Tech utilizes its various training programmes, workshops, seminars and the annual Information Today and Tomorrow meets, to propagate the importance of development of contents.

Commercialization of information services

Information services, cost a lot to acquire, create and distribute. Further, revenue is a direct reflection of the users’ real needs and also the efficiency of providers of the information services. Recognizing this since the mid-80′s, New Tech has made it mandatory that all the products created and services rendered by its information centres are fee-based. It is expected that revenue earned would help the centres sustain on their own in due course.

New Tech had to struggle a great deal to overcome the cultural inertia of information scientists in the country who were hitherto accustomed to provide free-library services. In this context it may be mentioned that a priced service, in contrast to a free service, has to meet users specifications of time and quality. Once this is observed, users do not hesitate to pay for information.