Hyderabad
Vice-President Hamid Ansari Thursday called for embracing and
harnessing biotechnology as it enables to address people's problems
and is more inclusive than information technology.
Stating that biotechnology was critical to economy, health, food and
biodiversity, Ansari called for international collaboration for
expanding the knowledge base and developing new expertise and
capabilities to augment and leverage ongoing research in India.
He was delivering inaugural address at the fifth edition of the
Global Bio-business Forum - BioAsia 2008.
Ansari noted that India is one of the very few among developing
countries which recognised the importance of biotechnology as an
instrument for advancing agricultural and industrial growth.
"We have set for ourselves a national objective of building a
knowledge society, an inclusive society, a humane society. The most
daunting task for our leaders is the human development of our
people. The infant and maternal mortality rates, children who are
malnourished, access to sanitation and safe water - these indeed are
some of the critical issues of today."
"Any technology that can enable us to address these problems of our
citizens needs to be embraced and harnessed. It is in this context
that one must view the efforts of the government to support the
development of the biotechnology sector."
The vice-president said biotechnology represents the new wave of
technology that could be more transformative in its impact than
information technology.
"In some ways, its impact is more immediate and humane as it seeks
to find solutions to the problems of human suffering and human want.
Furthermore, biotechnology is more inclusive in its impact than IT,
as its beneficiaries include farmers, poor persons needing public
health interventions and the like."
Noting that the growth rate in the agriculture sector was a mere 2.7
percent in the last financial year despite the fact that more than
half of the population directly depended on this sector, he said
that biotechnology is a key tool in improving productivity of
agriculture and ensuring a higher growth rate.
"Such technologies must be advanced and directed towards
resource-poor farmers and under-developed regions. We will have to
get used to an increasing role for this knowledge industry in
agricultural production and ensure both its vertical and horizontal
dispersion across the country," he said.
"With a population of over one billion and significant disparities
in the level of human development across regions and groups, the
Indian interest in biotechnology is understandable. Producing
cheaper vaccines, innovative drugs, new therapies such as those
using stem cells, bio-engineering, human genetics and genome
analysis have been areas of focus."
He said developing biotechnology was the best means to leverage the
immense biodiversity of India. "The vision of the government is to
use powerful tools of biotechnology to help convert the country's
diverse biological resources to useful products and processes that
are accessible to its masses for economic development and employment
generation."
He pointed out that biotechnology brings together entrepreneurship,
innovation, business and industry, state support, private and
venture capital funding. "It is an excellent example of
public-private partnership, thus in a sweet spot that has led to
significant growth - the industry grew at 40 percent during the last
five years and the turnover during 2005-06 was over $1.5 billion. It
is estimated that the annual turnover by 2010 would be $10 billion."
Ansari presented this year's Genome Valley excellence award to Nobel
laureate Sir Martin J. Evan, who later spoke on "Embryonic stem
cells" at the inaugural session.
The government of Andhra Pradesh is organizing BioAsia 2008 with the
assistance of Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) and
the University of Hyderabad.
Over 20 internationally renowned scientists will deliver talks on
topics related to stem cells and tissue engineering,
nano-technologies, translational research, biopharmaceuticals, food
biotechnology, and biofuels from GM crops at the three-day
conference.
Delegations form Australia, Germany, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan,
Spain, Britain and the US are attending the conference.
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