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Nothing new

Nothing new After thirty years, rural development was back as the main theme of the Indian Science Congress, this year. Held in Hyderabad between January 3-7, 2006, the meet had "Integrated Rural Development: Science and Technology' as its theme. With both the President and the prime minister making an appearance, the Congress acquired the hue of a political function. And in his speech, prime minister Manmohan Singh lauded the pet scheme of the previous government: river linking. He then went on trumpet initiatives of the present regime: employment guarantee scheme, accepting recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers (ncf) and the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas scheme.

Union science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, struck a discordant note by berating the country's development models as skewed and not useful for the rural poor. And then came his panacea: greater autonomy to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (csir) and allowing it to enter into partnerships with the private sector. This, the minister felt, would help csir become accountable to the country's needs. The institution's director general was also lavish in his praise for the private sector.

But there were critics of private sector as well. The Andhra Pradesh agriculture minister Raghuveera Reddy found the meet an appropriate forum for lambasting the multinational, Monsanto for its monopoly over Bt cottonseeds

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