New Delhi

“We have to stop aping the West”

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: “We have to stop aping the West in the realm of science because if we want to innovate and progress ahead, we have to be original,” said former Union Science and Technology Minister Murli Manohar Joshi at the launch of a compilation of his speeches titled “Science Sustainability and Indian National Resurgence” here on Wednesday. The book was released by the veteran scientist, Prof M. G. K. Menon, in the presence of several distinguished scientists, academicians and environmentalists. The book features a selection of Prof. Joshi’s speeches delivered during his tenure as the Union Science and Technology Minister from 1998 to 2002 and tackles wide-ranging issues including global warming, sustainable consumption and use of science and technology in nation-building among others.

Emphasising the need for understanding our own science, Prof. Joshi said: “It is a myth that knowledge and inventions only originate from the West. By toeing their line of thinking, we have debunked our own thinking which is most unfortunate. We need to know our own scientific traditions first. If we want to understand science we have to consider them as a whole. Unlike the West, we cannot divide them to understand them. ”

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