Page 12 - 8th Convocation

our National Knowledge Network is connected to the Sun Grid. National Knowledge Network connects now 1600
universities. It is connected to all major international optical fibre grids, including the Sun Grid. And it stays afar
of the collaborators and this detector is called CMS – Compact Muon Solenoid. All the data comes here. So, they
participate in the analysis of the data. Another detector in some of the groups in Calcutta are collaborating.

Fission is when you break up a heavy nucleus like Uranium 235. But we have come to the other end of
the periodic table. You take Hydrogen isotopes. Hydrogen has got three isotopes. Heavy hydrogen in which you
put one more neutron, Tritium, in which you put two more neutrons. It doesn’t like to have too many neutrons.
So, tritium throws away an electron. That is what the Beta particle. That’s why tritium is radioactive. So, you do
the best fusion: deuterium and tritium. And for fusion reaction should take place because there is electrostatic
repulsion between shade particles. You have to raise the temperature, so high that the thermal energy overcomes
the electrostatic repulsion, and that temperature is 100 million degrees. And that kind of temperature, of course,
there is no particle, no material which can contain. So it has to be confined by a magnetic field. We call it magnetic
confinement fusion. There is a big 500-megawatt experimental reactor built in France. India is a partner in that.
The main partner is in your nearby city Gandhinagar – Institute of Plasma Research. And because this plasma has
to be maintained at a very low outside temperature, cryogenic temperature. You have to build a huge cryostat, 30
meters in diameter and 30 meters in height, which is whole is called Tocomarquiz Locater and that is being built
in Gandhinagar, actually by L&T in Hazira under the guidance of Institute of Plasma Research and going extremely
well. It is massive. I have seen only in pictures. 4000 tons of stainless steel, requires heavy precision engineering,
complicated welding, assembly and integration. This gives you an idea of the capabilities Indian engineering
industry has provided it is directed.

Of course, then we mention - ISRO, which has made very proud with our space programme, Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicles. One of the most robust launch vehicles in the world. Now they have also started doing
geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle. I was very happy to learn that a Space Research and Technology Centre
has been established at CHARUSAT and that you are taking advantage of the fortunate proximity of the SAC
Centre of ISRO in Ahmedabad. Now I am sure that in this collaboration, as we go forward, that we are going for
a manned space program and CHARUSAT can make important contributions, astronomy, high energy physics
and cosmology are not very far from each other, strongly linked. And Dr Pankaj Joshi is a leading internationally
known scientist in Cosmology. I wish you well with your plan of building an International Centre for Cosmology.
Because as he has mentioned that you want both: a university system and a national lab system together to go
up. In fact, the Prime Minister wants a very close interaction between national labs and universities.

We started an exercise, before I gave up my thing, in ten cities. All the vice-chancellors of the universities
in those ten cities – Chandigarh, Pune, Lucknow – just as a model, how scientists from national labs can be
brought over at adjunct position to teach courses here, in the university, maybe become a co-guide for the Ph. D
student here, if the rules allow, I think the rules allow, there shouldn’t be a problem over there. And if a scientist
with very excellent experimental facilities, is a co-guide for a student in a university, all the facilities of that national
lab are naturally open to the student. That is going to be an advantage of that. You can give short courses. It has
to be a proximate university because we would like that they should give complete courses in universities, select
topics in which they have the specialization. Of course, you can do vice versa also, from the universities into the
national lab.

Now, we all want India to be, this is my pet theme - a knowledge-driven economy, not just a developed
country. You want to become a knowledge-driven economy, you must be generators of knowledge, and also be
able to appropriate knowledge generated all around the world. Many of us, not me, want only proven technologies.
You wait for somebody to prove it then I will introduce it here - playing too safe. If you go on waiting for proven
technologies, you can always be a follower, you can’t be a leader. If you want to become a leader and I am sure
all the young eyes, not only in technology, engineering and all these areas, you want India to be a leader. Not all
fields, you make the selection of the field through technology foresight as it is called. And you have to take some
risks, not foolhardy risks, but risks based on careful analysis, after techno-economic viability study and all that.
And then, because you see, if you go only for proven technologies, I always say proven technologies are often a
synonym for obsolete technologies. The more you prove a technology the more obsolete it becomes. So if you
want to be a leader, you have to do it for the first time. The same thing in fact in, we were discussing just before
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