Amid the countrywide debate over seeking foreign technology in nuclear sector, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar on Thursday said India can never become a world leader with dependence on foreign technologies.
"If we remain dependent on foreign technologies, we can never become world leaders and we cannot survive the global competition unless we achieve global leadership at least in some areas where we have strength," Kakodkar said at the convocation of Pt Ravi Shankar Shukla University in Raipur.
He said building technologies out of the country's own knowledge pool was of crucial importance and it was also necessary that the orientation of students should remain India-focussed and not West-focussed.
Otherwise, there is a possibility of Indian brain contributing to western technologies with attendant higher costs in accessing them for domestic development, Kakodkar said.
He said the most important reason for success in domestic development of commercially successful nuclear power technology with all its linkages was that in the department of atomic energy, they were fortunate to inherit a structure that allowed the entire spectrum of activities to be pursued in seamless fashion.
Pointing to the importance of research, he said India should reach a situation in which an academic or a researcher is respected in industry for all his technological insight and a technologist in an academic or research environment for the academic enrichment and multidisciplinary capabilities.
