Science and technology for Integrated rural development, proceedings of the COSTED seminar, Madras, India March 7-8,-1977."

Hence this Seminar. While talking about what generally goes under the name of "modern Science and Technology" being exotic to our soil and our being guilty of not having tried to build on an indigeneous base of skills, I would like to quote from what Professor C. V. Raman appears to have once stated:

"We do not have the wherewithal to make good motor cars in this country. But we have the capacity to build good bullock-carts. Let us give up the former and concentrate our efforts on the latter".

If ungenerously interpreted and quoted out of context, one may see an advocacy to returning to a 'bullock-cart civilisation in this statement. I do not think that such an interpretation is right nor will it be fair to Professor Raman who was a great son of India. The spirit of it is that no country can afford to overlook the nature of its soil and of the native seeds that alone can sprout in it and instead, plant borrowed technology in its soil and expect it to flourish and grow. Let me repeat what I said a few days earlier

"Science and Technology too, like democratic govern ment, should in a very large measure be of the people, by the people and the people"..

I would also like to quote a relatively mild indictment of the Indian scientists delivered by no less a person than the (former) Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi