Impediments to Science and Technology in Sri Lanka

Proceedings of the NASSL Workshop held at SLFI on 30 October 2004

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Publications

I. INTRODUCTION

Impediments to Science and Technology - 

Introduction

by Dr. U. Pethiyagoda

II. PAPER 1

Science and Technology Development in South and Southeast Asia - A Review

by Dr. K. A. de Alwis

III. PAPER 2

Politicians and Bureaucrats, Scientists and Technicians
by Dr. W. W. D.  Modder

IV. PAPER 3
A Direction ... for Development
by Dr. R. Wijewardene

V. DISCUSSION

Dr. Wester Modder : What Dr. de Alwis has given us is crucial to this workshop in the sense that he has given us facts and figures and extremely well reasoned account of what the current ground situation is, not only in this country but in the adjoining countries as well. He has given us reasons why S & T is not being drawn on by government and the private sector more than it is.

I like to mention one thing. He made the clear point that we ought to be focused and I agree completely with that. We must not think in airy fairy terms about globalization etc but I think at the back of our minds we must have this concept of concern for the underprivileged and the poor of this country. If that is not at least at the back of our minds then we cannot focus on S & T, to borrow a phase from Prof. Vitharana, as the Engine of Growth for this country, by which we mean that national development has to be driven by S & T and it has to be directed towards alleviating poverty, raising standards, improving education, improving health standards etc.

So that is I think at the back of all our minds, should be at the back of all our minds as we go into this discussion. But obviously, as Dr. Kingsley de Alwis has said, we have to be more focused on what we ourselves as a scientific community can do to bring this about. Now we are having a discussion at this point on Dr. De Alwis’ paper.

Dr. Douglas Nethsinghe – I must congratulate Dr. Kingsley de Alwis on his presentation. It was very important to me. I learnt a few things from that paper. And also particularly the figures from the UN or WB published figures in 2001 putting only India and China within the category of S & T people in the world. I would like to know, what are the parameters they use, the criteria they have used, to identify the development of S & T because to my mind S & T developed fast in the NICs Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Korea so on. India was there with a political input by Indian leaders long ago, Nehru and Baba and Tata and so on.

China developed fast. Despite their closing to the world during the communist regime, they were learning everything I can tell you. Through Hong Kong they got the development that they were doing under the communist regime. Malaysia and so on also went very fast. Now what is it that drove them, while we stagnated, though as far back as in the ‘30s I felt we were well advanced? I remember going to Malaysia in the early ‘60s. I turned up my nose at them and thought how far we were advanced. Today they are well ahead. What is it that made them go? A system. Now we’ve had one man one vote from 1932. I would say, why doesn’t the government have a political set up on S&T - because it does not bring in the votes in 4 years time. That’s what I see. That system was not there in Taiwan, in Malaysia, Singapore and so on and that’s one of the reasons – the human need of the people in government – the first step is – why do I want to get into politics? I want power and I want money. Then next step is – how do I get my votes in the next vote bank? I give things which are visible to the people. S & T is not visible. That is the basic point we have.

One other question on globalization - I think I would disagree with the President’s comment that we should not think of globalization. Whether we like it or not, like the rest of the world today we are committed to globalization. S&T have been the basic building blocks for social development, whether we like it or not. For globalization we’ve got to be producing competitively. We cannot be competitive either in our products or services without the push of S&T in our work. And if we don’t do that we will keep on importing, becoming big consumers, production will be poorer and poorer. Finding markets for our produce and our services will be more difficult without S&T applications. And we will become a nation of shop keepers and consumers with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer - the ultimate situation for an explosion in the country. So that is what I would like to say and we haven’t still identified the problems – what has made our scientists poor in this country.

??? – What has been outlined are the problems that are commonly known to all of us. I think in this forum we must come up with some recommendations and how we can implement those. Because we know that political systems and all this are to be blamed for the less development that we have at the moment. But all of us know about this. But what we want is based on this topic, we would like to identify some important items and see how the National Academy of Science can contribute.

President – Yes, I agree, but just to come in quickly, while we accept that the blame lies with the external people also particularly with the government. But then we have to try and get round that. How do we cure that system? Why is it that government is not helping S&T? I think we have to find the reasons for that and probably try to address them.

Dr. Thabrew – Shouldn’t we first of all have a national policy for S&T ? As the NAS can’t we push to develop a policy, because in India and so on – all the developments are – the government is giving money to whatever is being done within that framework of the policy. So I think we should have a say in that and somehow push it in that direction.

President – Yes, I think, you were not here at the beginning. What we are trying to do here is to build a base from which we can go ahead to government and then one of our recommendations would obviously be that we have a viable and vibrant S&T policy – that of course is also basic. But I think what we are trying to do here is set the foundation – identify some factors that are militating against the setting of that policy and some of the stands that should go into the policy.

Dr. Douglas Nethsinghe – Although we know about this problem we have not spelt it out clearly as a body. Individuals have written but we have not spelt it out. The second point is that unless we put that down as our focal point – why? We will not get anywhere near. We can ask for more money but unless the systems are in place, again this will come in Dr. Modder’s paper on the bureaucratic process, that money will go into pockets of people.

President – I think some valid things have emerged.

Dr. Christopher Panabokke – I was given a window of opportunity when Douglas spoke of what the situation was soon after independence. I think if we take Dr. Kingsley’s paper, the situation as it is now it is a pretty dismal position. If we can push it back to the situation during the ‘50s or ‘60s then we might be able to get to a better position to see what is lost for ever and all those things that are remaining on which we could build. If you can do that exercise – otherwise we will become very pessimistic - I am certain that there are yet a few areas that are left.

But the most important as you stressed somewhere is a lack of a scientific culture that is deteriorating very fast, that doesn’t exist any more. As you say, in the Agriculture Department the research now is not geared to solving problems. It is geared to writing papers, to go for interviews to get promotions. The whole culture has changed and one is not rewarded for solving problems like in the past. Of course if we breed a new variety of rice you get recognition but that’s not it. So those two points I would like to make – first, the complete absence of a research culture now – it is almost vanished now.

Secondly, try and identify what good things existed in the ‘50s and ‘60s or even up to the ‘70s and see how much of those we can retrieve and build on and at least identify the ones that are gone for good for which we have no hope of building afresh or laying new foundations. I would take that approach, rather than being despondent about everything.

President – This question of science culture – Dr. Alwis also suggested – the reason why we don’t have a science culture in this country is because we are pushing on a string. He was talking of the private sector. From my own experience I know that the private sector in this country has a huge demand for R &D. But what do they do, they don’t draw up on our own indigenous scientists here, they outsource. I know this in the Tea industry. Their R&D is outsourced, they are huge multinationals and they don’t depend on our local expertise in this country. They outsource all their R &D. They have the need. But they don’t use us.

Prof. H. D. Gunawardene I would like to stress one point which Dr. Nethsinghe mentioned. Since the last 50 years we have been transferring technology – technology transfer – may be for 5 years and after that it dies off. That has happened all these years. Without the scientific input the technology cannot survive. But we have been doing this because the politicians are very much in favour of – they can produce new employment and after 5 years they are not worried about what happens. Obviously what has happened earlier, I am very sorry to say – one of our educationalists one day mentioned – in ancient times we had technology only, no science. But we must not forget there was unwritten science that existed in the ancient times and technology survived for 2000 years because of the unwritten science – that science doesn’t exist today. We are talking about the modern science which is not more than 500 years old. We had science in a different form. So we cannot have the survival of any technology without the scientific base. Even at the last BICOST 3, somebody was talking about transfer of technology only – no science. This is what I want to stress: technology cannot survive without science.

President - The a point was made by the gentleman from Pakistan – they built their science and technology on 4 pillars, which are the basic sciences as we know it – Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology and so on. So that they think that is essential and government gives a huge sum of money, something like 60% of the total funding for basic research – fundamental research.

Dr. Nissanka Seneviratne – You mention this question of S&T for improving the quality of life of people. Now in this country the vast majority of the people are engaged in agricultural pursuits – farming, processing and so on and so forth. The thinking is directed a little too much to industry. We have to get a balance between agriculture as offering a means of improvement of life and what goes in from the science sector to do this.

Now Dr. Panabokke mentioned that in the ‘50s and ‘60s we have something to remember and look back with some pride too. The current state of the dept of Agriculture which has to focus on this huge population still engaged in agriculture. I also believe that the Agriculture Department has literally aborted some of the papers is not the question. A lot of the papers that is produced is muck. The important aspect is what are the scientific innovations or things that are done that will improve the quality of agriculture. What are the problems that we face? For instance, somewhere in the 1960s our production of paddy dropped to 35m bushels for the entire year and we could get no excess from elsewhere, even for our own needs. That is the time Mr. Banda – this brings in the policy and the motivation and the objective - brought out this issue. We cannot expect other countries to provide our food. We have to do this ourselves. A massive programme got into operation on improving our rice productivity. And within a matter of 10-15 years we trebled that production. And we had much less of the fuss that we have now about research or about the lighting of the traditional oil lamps and so on. Much less foreign trips etc. But the work was done with commitment. Now that has gone. So that area is something without which no progress in S&T will happen - the commitment, the identification of where we are going, and addressing which plans. In the Agriculture Dept one of the key things – for instance if you take a town – a supply of clean water is absolutely important. And if you destroy that capability you are in grave danger. I worked in the Department of Agriculture and we recognized that for agriculture we need good quality seed, free of disease and contaminants and so on. And we built up a superb programme and a lab as well- that is in total decay. And the persons who have the best expertise on that matter were thrown out from their places of work because of sheer jealousy etc.

President – Nissanka has made some good points. The question of barefoot science for agriculture vis a vis science for industry. Now I believe that we ought to strike a balance obviously. We can’t ignore industry while supporting agriculture. I would also like to point out to Nissanka that in recent times there has been a move towards agri-based industry. Is there a marriage between agriculture and industry – I suspect it is. We are moving towards a more rational balanced approach to S&T.

Prof. Kshanika Hirimburegama – I want to raise a few points – Every time we tend to blame politicians but I think in every sector we are to be blamed – Education. Education is educated people and the scientist. What is needed as a body the scientists must come out with a S&T policy as one whole body and also linking – because ours is an agriculture country – there must come in agro based industry. It is not only the main industries but agro-based industries especially in the rural sector. We must come out with an S&T policy. I think scientists have not done their duty. We have been blaming various sectors. This will be a good opportunity because we have a scientist as the Minister of S&T.

Prof. Sam Karunaratne – I want to be a bit mundane on this because there was a suggestion that we must have some distinct points to be thrown to the policy makers and also to the government on some important aspects. Dr. Kingsley de Alwis spoke about education and S&T. In 1978, in one day a decision was taken to have science for all up to GCE O/L. It took only one day. There was a meeting of a lot of people from universities and ministries and so on and there was a discussion that we are bringing down the level of Chemistry and so on, but we went on the basis that this will inculcate the scientific thinking in each and every child of this country. That decision was taken and put into effect – I don’t know the results of it. But I have some recent statistics in UK – about 370,000 students enter tertiary level education institutes – I saw this in an engineering magazine. Out of 370,000 there were only 2090 students in Physics and 3010 students in Chemistry. They were so worried as to why these other people are all going into Accountancy, Business and so on – they were worried about the number of engineers in the UK – they had to rely on foreigners.

That is not the main point I want to make. We are not an ordinary country – we are the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. When we describe ourselves in that way I believe that the education of the youth of this country becomes the responsibility of the government. They spent Rs. 6 billion they say on tertiary level education and I know that according to statistics Rs. 18 billion – 3 times that money - is sent outside the country by parents to educate their children. It costs $ 100,000 to get a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. Now it is even more. We can’t ask the government to put up all that kind of money. Even the proposed expenditure is over Rs.6 billion for the year 2005. You can’t ask the Government to double that amount, because there is no money. But there are other organizations, private or otherwise that come forward to do the function of the government. Say, in the teaching at tertiary level – I run an education institute teaching up to bachelors and masters degrees in Information Technology. I try to shoulder the burden of the government because it can’t put up more money to have 1000 IT professionals. When someone else takes the burden, what does the government. do? They impose a tax, VAT, value added tax, for this education. When somebody else tries to help the government by taking part of the burden of the government, the government comes along and imposes a tax. Earlier it was 10%, but when there was a differential of 10% and 20% in the VAT the government found it difficult to compute these figures and collect it, and therefore they made it 15% (common) to make it easy for their calculations. Bread went from 10% to 15 % and education went from 10% to 15 % to make their calculations easy.

Should a government tax education at tertiary level? Why is it that India can do IT business for other countries? Because they have enough people to do it. Now here we don’t have enough people, and we are trying to develop the people – but then the government puts a tax. This is one of the impediments.

I have to pay Rs,30 m. a year to the government as a punishment for teaching 3000 odd IT professionals. I think, if the government can bring Volvos and Benz cars for various people, there are so many politicians, they can reduce the VAT. I can do so much more with the Rs,. 30m that I pay as VAT. I wrote to so many people about it but nothing has come out of it.

Motorola came to Moratuwa University about 20 years ago and they wanted 350 engineers to start their facility here. But we were making only 50 electrical and electronics engineers, so we could not meet their request, and therefore they went elsewhere. There are so many jobs outsourced from various countries, and India and all these other places are getting them. We are trying to get some money by developing our people. The government, instead of assisting, tries to stop it or put an impediment to it. Earlier, education was done partly by government and partly by the private sector. Of course, there was an intermediate stage with government-assisted schools. I was paying Rs,15/- per month for my tuition fees and suddenly it became Rs.5/- after (some time in the 1940s or so), government started paying for part of the education in assisted schools. Here, what do they do? They punish the people who are doing their work. So I think one point is that VAT must be removed from education.

President _ Are we going to arrive at a consensus here that Private Education particularly private tertiary education should be the way to go. I know that this is a huge political issue at the moment. There will be a conflagration, particularly among the undergraduates and so on if this is said, but I think if it is necessary to say it, as Prof. Karunaratne has suggested, we ought to say it.

Prof.Karunaratne - I will say one thing, if it is put in that way, that private education is the way to go, then I too will disagree. No it is not the way. When they were talking about other energy sources as alternative energy, they should have called them complementary energy systems. They are not alternatives. This private education is complementary education and not the alternative, so therefore we don’t say the private sector is the way to go with education alone. The government must do all what it can, but it can’t do enough. Therefore that is why the private sector comes in to take part of the burden.

President – So you are suggesting to fill the gaps in the things the government cannot do, that the private sector ought to come in?

Douglas – Some people said we are blaming the government, that we have not done anything. I fully agree. Why don’t we do anything either as a body or as individuals or as a chairman? Because we have to be ‘yes’ men.

There are three things I want to point out. I think Christopher brought out very clearly how good we were in the old days ‘50s, ‘40s and so on, particularly in the agriculture field. I would like to comment on what Kingsley said about the private sector getting more involved. Now if you look at what happened in the old days lot of the research largely was confined to agriculture department, TRI, CRI and RRI. These institutions were bringing in money helping to sell products in the country to the colonies and to Britain. But they built these things up as money spinners and institutions were created. Private producers’ cess was used to get these institutions going. That is one thing where the private sector support was channelled to support R & D.

Then the next point is the department of agriculture. Production at home was not considered till the war broke out – because Britain thought we could get the rice from Burma and so on. When the war broke out and there was a shortage of rice. I remember at school we had one meal of rice a week during the war. They recognized this and the department started a big onslaught to become self sufficient in rice production. We needed it. Likewise I would say, we need to be self-sufficient in our human resources for S&T if we are going to produce with our own technologies. With globalization - we are importing technology and importing scientists. We ought to be doing it ourselves and if we don’t import the technology and learn their technology and learn to do it ourselves, we are lost.

One little point about IT. IT is fine. Again, to take it to the rural masses, unless you are going to cut down the telephone costs, cost of software is going to increase with the increasing cost of software for Windows – you have to pay about RS.30,000/- for the original programme (you can get the copies for much less) – if that kind of cost is coming in – forget about IT for the masses.

Prof. Sunethra Atukorale - In some instances we develop a policy with one government and what invariably happens is that when the government changes, we start going backwards again. So I think as a body of scientists we should stick to a policy and let it be implemented. I have come across nutrition policies, health policies every two years. But nothing is implemented and that I think is one of the reasons that we scientists should stick together and say we shouldn’t change the policies with the politicians.

President - I will be touching on that in my address now. So we can keep that for the next session.

Pethiyagoda – I’d like to make a little point from what Kingsley said. Kingsley pointed out that among the indices that are used in accessing S&T, Sri Lanka fares well in terms of personnel. We have the people. But somehow they are not producing. Does this mean in simple terms that there is a problem about scientific management and then as a concrete measure would one of the ways be to make the principles of management part of the science curriculum? That may be an over simplistic way but somehow the problem appears to be the question of managing whatever science we have. The issues of prioritization, cost consciousness, publications of criteria all this would come in to it whether we are on the wrong path in …………

Prof. Karunaratne - ………..specially in IT we don’t have adequate management.

President – This question is hanging in the air. We have the S&T personnel, They are not delivering – is it a difficulty with management. I agree with Petha that that is the case. But whether we ought to have a broad based undergraduate programme for research management or science management I think is not the way to go. It’s for us to get good managers, to get good people heading institutions. And that is not happening. With very few exceptions we are not getting good people to head our institutions. Why is that – because of toadyism and cronyism and all the corruption that takes place in this country which I shall address later on. So I think that is the reason. We need good managers to direct us but we are not getting them. It is not because we don’t have them it is because they are not being appointed.

Dr. Kingsley de Alwis – I would just like to respond to that last point. When I pointed out that the productivity of our scientists is low – although we have the numbers - I also mentioned that we have the quantity but not the quality. In some respects, in terms of literacy, we have high numbers. We boast that we have 90% literacy, the highest in Asia outside Japan and so on. In fact, what can you do with that education?

The other point is of course, the question that Dr. Pethiyagoda brought up about management – I think before we look at management we need to look at whether we have the demand for our services. There is no point managing an enterprise if you can’t sell the product. You can manage your science very well, come out with a lot of research and publications but if there is no demand for that and it is not made use of what is the point? So I think management has to come again with demand, we must learn how to manage our resources and provide the right product.

President – Clearly it is all interlocked.

Dr. Nissanka Seneviratne – I think it is not only that it concerns the quality of the people we produce, but that the people are not unutilized. Right now in the Department of Agriculture a couple of cases whom I met – trained in Pesticide Analysis – that person and another person also trained in this field – what are they doing? They are sitting in a quarantine unit in Katunayake. Also, I do know because I have been personally involved in this, one of the finest toxicologists who was engaged in the South East Asian scene ……….was literally thrown out of the Department………..

Dr. Panabokke – Just to reiterate what I said, in 1969/70 I was the Secretary General of the National Science Council. Then I sat together with Dr. R.O.B.Wijesekera , George Ponnamperuma and others and we identified most of the indices that Dr. Alwis presented. Many of these indicators. Compared to India and other places we were nearly there……………. I think the downfall, the decline started in the 1970s. If someone can do an analysis of the situation that prevailed at that time – go back to that period and collect those statistics – then we can diagnose which areas we have gone downhill and which areas we can build upon. That makes it a more realistic exercise.

President – Very good point. This whole question of benchmarking and a chronology to see when we started this fall from our pristine position. I think that is very important …..

Dr. Jayantha Wijeyaratne - Shall we make a note of that and at the final sessions can we identify some people to do that exercise?

Dr. Panabokke – I think that exercise was done by … I don’t know whether the records are available, Dr. George Ponnomperuma, who took a very live interest in that. He was held as a senior scientist at that time and we were able to do something on this line, whether it is useful or not I don’t know. But I know, one indicator was 1970 when I left the National Science Council at that time - I saw no future in doing that kind of work. I thought I will go back to my old discipline of Soil Science where I can at least diagnose and solve problems. But something similar was done at that stage and if we can go ………..

President – I think we will go back to that and try that,

Dr. Vidanapathirana – At the moment there is a data base at the National Science Foundation that will be helpful. Now they are improving the data base so it will be useful for your work. Actually Dr. Kingsley de Alwis made two points, one is government. intervention – actually that is a very important thing and I think that must go into the policy. Even now, in India most of the institutions are funded by the government. The private sector has come in later but even now the government is taking a big hand. The Department of Biotechnology, the Department of Science an Technology, are all government funded. They have made enormous progress on those issues. Even things like the Criminology Department were funded by the government money.

The other point is – we have a problem of critical mass. Although we say we have – probably a good literacy rate but now we have actually a critical mass because we don’t have enough people. It is not that we have enough people. If you take Botanists or Chemists we know all of them in this country – we have very few people. It is not enough – there is no critical mass for development. That has been identified by even the ADB. That is why the ADB S&T programmes started. They had a 5 year plan – I don’t know how it is going.

President – That is a quantitative critical mass but would you agree Dr. Vidanapathirana that we have good quality people in this country? Even a small number?

Dr. Vidanapathirana. - In this 1970 exercise we tried to compare ourselves with different countries and we matched very closely with New Zealand which was a predominantly agricultural country now going into industry. In our ratio of investment on agriculture and medicine we are almost on par with New Zealand. They have the same kind of economy as ours. And they were just emerging into the industrial sector, and we were trying to push ourselves. That was in the 1970s. So we took NZ as a good model that has very similar natural resource base ……….

Dr. Lochana Gunaratne - My point is that on this question of the quality of our people, most of us are of the older generation and we are talking about that time and I think Kingsley when he mentioned that we had high quality people, or we have high quality people – I think the assumption is that the same situation is there with the younger generation. I am not so sure about that – I mean not that we don’t have the brains. I think most of the brains are going out. I don’t know whether we have a younger generation of scientists that are coming up and the quality of science education at the very basic level seems to be extremely poor. Unless we focus on education, education at the secondary level, I don’t think we are going to continue to have high quality people.

President – Yes, I think we are now seeing the emergence of strata – of layers of activity that ought to be done before we arrive at the ……… This education thing is I think going to be very important.

Dr. Lochana Gunaratne – There are certain situations that occurred, for e.g. at the end of the ‘80s and so on when Universities were closed and a lot of our young people found their way out and went to do their higher studies abroad. Many of them are doing extremely well now. And also having opened the path, more and more are going that way. So I think we are losing the best brains that we have.

President – But of course we have to be careful. We are losing them but there is no way we can stop them. Unless the government. is going to bring draconian legislation as they tried in the ‘70s. They can’t prevent it. We can improve our quality.

Prof. Karunaratne – If the parents are spending Rs,18 bln per annum on their children’s education and the government of Sri Lanka is spending only Rs.6 bln ( that is 1/3^rd) – the methodology I am trying out is trying to recover part of that Rs.18bln. That is, instead of asking the children to go there, have good quality education here and the cost of that will be 1/20^th or so. I know the children who have gone, They have spent over US $ 100,000 to get the degree. In my own institute it costs only about Rs.350-400,000/- to get a degree.

???? – Dr, Panabokke brought out this question of the ‘70s – an analysis they made on the scientific situation with Dr. Ponnamperuma, on our situation compared to India. We are relatively good. Now it is rather interesting that about that time our public services started eroding very heavily. The public services have become as Milinda Moragoda said a couple of years ago, totally subservient to the politicians, ‘yes’ men. And I have seen if the public services are becoming that, also those of us who are in government services – if we don’t become ‘yes’ men and subservient to bureaucrats – you are not getting anywhere.

Dr. Vidanapathirana – I would like to add to what you said, actually very recently a very prominent politician said over the TV that the intellectuals of this country are not contributing to public debate. Very openly he said there has been no development and we do not participate in the public development. Actually it was the Finance Minister and he said it several times over the TV. So I would like to know your comments on that. Is that a thing that has to be also identified?

Dr. Modder – I would think so. But I would say two things here. I think the reason why we are not involving ourselves in the public debate is because first we are not given forum. We are not given platforms to do this in, unless we jump on a political platform. So we are finding it difficult because of that. E.g. the Academy is not consulted. We are supposed to be consulted in terms of our Act in all issues governing Science and Technology. Never have we been consulted in my memory.

The second reason is we ourselves do not want to come out in the open and say what we really think. So we can’t get involved in debate because we are ‘yes’ men. So how can you get involved in a debate and – we are contradicting ourselves here – we are saying different things – there is argument. How can you go into a debating situation and argue with your politician because he is your master. You will not say anything. You will only say what he likes to hear. So that is our problem also.

Dr. Vidanapathirana – What I am saying is E.g. If we could have invited someone like the Minister of Science and Technology to this kind of forum we could have started some dialogue. As you know the Minister of S&T is one of us and that would have helped in our………..

Dr. Modder - I agree. Now Gamini you were not at the last council, I think, where we discussed this and I was keen that we should invite Prof. Tissa Vitharana to come here as a member of the Academy in order to listen to us and to give his inputs. I thought that would be extremely useful but then I think Petha said every fellow is getting this general invitation to come and if he was interested he would come. I was hopeful that he might come and I was in fact disappointed that he is not here.

????? – Many people are not aware of the importance of the development of S&T. In fact I just want to give an example of our other professionals- I am a member of the OPA and two years ago they have set up 26 items for the development programme and S&T was missing among the professionals. And I said, without S&T we can’t have a development programme. They added a 27^th one and put me as the Chairman of that. So this is why I say people are not aware that S&T is important for development. They are talking of management. If you have no production – what to manage, where to manage? Production has to come from S&T.

Dr. Modder – We are very grateful to you for having done that and entered into that kind of thing. I was thinking of the OPA – they seem to be doing a lot of good work. I am not aware that their S&T is neglected. But certainly I think it is that thin red line I was talking about. We have these intellectuals in the country who are doing some work and I think we ought to join them and do something.

Dr. Lochana Guneratne – Dr. Modder, I thank you for bringing up the matter of ethics into the discussion. Now, I am sure that you and some others have a personal code of ethics in dealing with it, but I am not at all sure that all of us have an accepted code of ethics. I have to also draw a distinction between a code of ethics and a code of conduct. A common code of ethics which all of us can accept would be a very valuable thing, I think, if we were able to define one. I don’t know how we attempt to do that but I am not aware, may be I am wrong. Some of us are grouped into different professional groupings – physics, chemistry and so on – there are associations which may be having their own codes of ethics and codes of conduct. But across the board, do we have a code……..- the scientific community?

Dr. Modder - I do not think. I myself am a little suspicious. I think you are talking from a ‘holier than thou’ attitude. Look at me, I am ethical, therefore you must be like me. I think if we give that impression that is completely wrong. Each person must develop his own ethics within his own morality within himself based on whatever beliefs he has and then come out with it in his professional work. I don’t think that a professional body ought to impose and say, look if you want to belong to us you must do these things. I think it is something that comes from within our own natures and our own beliefs and practices. That is my own thinking, probably I am wrong.

Dr. de Alwis – I think a code of ethics is needed for your personal behaviour – but that is something that you have to sort out for yourself. But as a scientist one should adhere to a certain code of conduct – a code of ethics as well as conduct. Other professions like Doctors, Engineers they have codes of ethics which apply to the profession. I think that is important, because, for instance take a thing like plagiarism or other things which are ‘No’ ‘No’s for scientists – those are things that just will not fly. And we should show that as a body we totally reject that kind of behaviour. I agree that we do need some kind of code of ethics relating to the profession, not to the individuals.

Dr. Modder – Actually a code of ethics goes beyond the common law strictures, in the sense that plagiarism is covered by common law. It is a criminal act. Any way there are certain acts that are covered by law which you cannot do. But a code of ethics goes beyond that. We are now asking people to behave in a certain way that is not criminal. There is no civil action against it. But plagiarism is obviously a criminal act.

Dr. de Alwis – No. it is not. There have been scientists who have stolen research findings from other scientists and published them.

Dr. Modder – Are they not prosecuted in a court of law?

Dr. de Alwis – They are not liable in a court of law, but this kind of behaviour ….

??? – Code of ethics has been developed by SLAAS and circulated among all its members.

Dr. de Alwis - Okay, so really…….

????? – The other one is developed by the ……… it came very recently. But in addition to that I know that SLAAS about 3 years back developed a code of ethics and it was distributed among all the members.

Dr. Modder - Is that a worthwhile exercise for us to indulge in now?

??? – In fact I must add that the Academy endorsed the…. And communicated that to the SLAAS.

Dr. Locana Guneratne - Actually just another point is that in this kind of developing world the political will is also very important. You were talking about the attitude of the scientists and the politicians. I will give you one example – In Hyderabad there was a person called Chandra Bai Naidu….. Chief Minister. He was influenced by few scientists in that forum what ever it is and he developed biotechnology to the hilt and the IT. In fact he was pursued by these very able few scientists who knew them. I had the good fortune of visiting this Bio Asia Conference and they had a Bio Technology Park and a Bio Technology Village. Scientists have come and set up institutes for developing various products based on genetic engineering. I am just wondering whether some of us can do this through our personal relations. So that is one example from where it has come – a few people have got together and influenced that person. But actually he lost his election because of that because the products did not go to the basic villages. That is just one example, I am not asking for us to follow the same thing. Of course, the politicians will not come to us. They are probably not aware of S&T development, they will not identify some people and say ‘okay, you do this". I think it must come to the scientists who are capable and able. Not many of us are capable of meeting a minister and convincing them. I was just wondering whether that should be one kind of action that we have to take.

Dr. Modder – The question of talking to politicians – I suppose you also mean bureaucrats – talking to them and telling them about the importance of S&T. There is certainly a lack of awareness of what we are trying to do in the Academy. Not that we have done much but what we are trying to do is not brought to the attention of people who should know about it. So that is one problem we have – the communication gap. The related issue is of course the concept of ethics. These are two issues, now would it be worthwhile for us to go into that at this point? Do we want to have a code of ethics? Do we want to formulate a code of ethics?

Prof. Sam Karunaratne – I would like to go into some of the specifics. How are we going to be independent and not just stooges and ‘yes’ men to a politician/? That’s all. This also involves what I am going to say about the code of conduct. At the senior positions – we brought something out in 1999 with the Academy, I was in the Council at that time, it was related to the ability in all our S&T acts where the Minister can give specific instructions to both – the Chairman and also get rid of a Board and Chairman without giving reasons. Two basic clauses in all our Acts, including the Act of NASTEC. Having said that, two of our members of the Council at that time were thrown out under these clauses. We brought out a resolution in the Council that we should change these Acts, get these clauses out. Bear in mind that in the past at least three members of the Academy who were Presidents of the Council and also Presidents of class had been thrown out without any cause – just like that because the Minister wanted them to go. Now we brought a resolution saying this should be done and why because if we held these clauses in we will be eternally ‘yes’ men because scientists unlike doctors and lawyers or even engineers in the later years largely depend on the public services for their positions to get a job, to earn a living. As long as those clauses are there, we will remain ‘yes’ men to the politicians because we don’t want to get sacked. A landmark judgment given in 2001 – we all know about it – the Supreme Court ruled against these dismissals said the ability of Ministers or any one to sack a public servant without giving cause and assuming that that man is there at the pleasure of the appointer is totally wrong – against the Constitution. And judgement was given against the dismissal of one individual and the Minister concerned, was in fact the Prime Minister at the time of judgement, had ……. With the Supreme Court. Having said that, the Academy would take up that case as prime factor in – we can’t do packages. Any attempt to do packages end up like the Constitutional package.

Here was something laid out, a fool proof case with a judgement to get rid of these clauses. We didn’t do that. We are still struggling along, going along and I would say, I am sorry, the Academy is impotent to do what should be done.

I’ll give another example. One of the biggest things we did was the Eppawela Project Analysis. I thought it was a good job. It went up with the President and some comment came from the presidential office about some economics component – answered that also. Now it remained there. If not for the fact that a NGO group looking after the interests of the Polonnaruwa people, farmers or whoever they are, went to Supreme Court about this, that Project of ours would never have seen the light of day. It came out fully later on simply because of the Supreme Court judgement quoting these comments very strongly. Now I am just saying that we did not push. We have seminars, we have recommendations, conclusions of national interest. Not only we, even our institutions don’t push. But look at NASTEC. ………… 1 2 3 have come ………….. they say their recommendations are lying in files somewhere at the highest levels. Now that is what we lack. What the medicos have, what the engineers have , what the OPA do, what the lawyers do, they are totally ready. We don’t push. We are not aggressive.

There was a chief guest at the Bicost (?) 2, Tilinarajah from India who particularly said, "scientists must take an aggressive approach if they want to be heard and get their things done." Lying low is fine if you want to retain your jobs, you don’t get sacked from any positions and with the change of govt. you are selected for the position. If you are a trouble maker you will not be selected to be a Chairman or Director, I can assure you of that.

Dr. Panabokke – I was very impressed with the high level of ……….. and generalization. I was disappointed that you did not take a harsh real look at the administrative system that supports science in this country. To have scientists in the country you must have a good supporting administration that supports science, like in India and other countries. Our science administration has been too much enmeshed in the general administration in the low levels. India and all those countries that have made progress were able to break away from it and have an independent stream of administration for the scientists. I think we have got into a strait where we are in a common administration. The Secretary of a ministry is common whether it is ……….. or scientific administration. We had exceptions with people like Ranjan Wijeratne. But unless we break out of that…… The support system for science management and administration is so enmeshed in the public administration system we are something more than the …………. Of this context. We will continue downhill. And unless we can take someone strong enough to take that step, diagnose that main issue and tear it apart. You take other countries that have progressed in science – their science administration is not enmeshed in general administration…. - take India – not with the general ICS – all these countries have a separate Minister for S&T who is powerful enough to have another stream of management for Science, even for the Universities. If you can study that and impress on that. Otherwise, we will continue this downhill trajectory, we will be the hell hole .

Dr. Modder – Thank you Dr. P. I think that is a very important point - this question of Science Administration. How are we being dealt with by the administrative structure? Clearly that also should be built into our concept paper. Coming back to what Douglas was saying – some very valid points. At the time when Douglas’ issue came to the fore I think we were all very concerned and I was at that time Director of the TRI and I was also involved in that sort of situation. But from the point of view of the Academy I don’t know whether we have the teeth – the Supreme Court can make a judgement and everyone has to follow it – but in our own Academy here, we haven’t got the teeth to be aggressive. We will just be barking and barking and no one will listen to us.

??? - ……… the Supreme Court judgement and put this out to the people concerned. If you want we can put something in the media. But that is my worry. We are impotent …..

A couple of months ago two Geologists did an article condemning the scientists for having opposed the Eppawela Project and saying that they had their own agendas for opposing. Now, I think Leslie is not here and I don’t want to talk …….. – taken over to the Academy hierarchy and answer this. This is a condemnation of the scientific people who were involved in opposing the technical aspects of the Eppawela Project. Now they are saying those scientists had personal agendas. But nothing happened on that…..

Dr. Modder – You see, there are innuendos cast at everybody in this country. Now if we go to fight either personally or as an Academy against things said about us I think it will be a never ending debate.

????? – I would agree if we are fighting everything. We don’t fight about anything – that is what I am worried about the Academy, Mr. Chairman. And also ethically run down…There was one individual – a scientist – who had behaved badly because of these clauses, he was a senior man and if he acted properly he would have been sacked. So he even predated a letter ………………………… getting sacked. Now I have been pushing this and his name was brought in to the Academy, some people objected. There was no inquiry or investigation. He was a man who was ethically made a bad man because of these clauses in the Act. A lot of scientists have become bad men simply because of the clauses in the Act. And we are encouraging people, not only the seniors but the juniors, to be unethical because these clauses are in the Act.

Dr. Modder – I am aware of these cases or some of these cases, certainly where I was involved on my Board for e.g. the TRI. There are all of these things emerging. But as an individual there was not much I could do. As an Academy also I am wondering whether there is anything we can do. Because we will just be hitting our heads on a brick wall.

??? – Mr. Chairman – It seems to me we are impotent, we cannot do anything. Now look at the numbers of people who have come for this meeting. I would propose, we dissolve the Academy, distribute the monies to those who are involved in ……………….. Thank you very much.

Prof. Gunawardene – Before 1978 we had Permanent Secretaries who were taken away from the 1978 Constitution. Can’t we go back to the Permanent Secretary system to prevent these ‘yes’ men coming into the administration? Now the secretaries are under the Minister.

Dr. Modder – So Permanent Secretaries mean that they have to be drawn from the SLAAS? But today what is going to happen? Can’t you appoint a Permanent Secretary to your ministry if you are a Minister?

Prof. Gunawardene – No, not allowed by the Constitution.

Dr. Modder – What Dr. Panabokke said is important – the whole question of administration. But we can’t really go too much into this whole question of reorganizing the Permanent Secretary system or the Secretary system and so on.

Dr. Nethsinghe – ……….. do little things which we can do now in a small way Mr. Chairman. I think if that is done then we will achieve a lot. I must say in the old days when Chairmen, TRI were planters – I remember in the early ‘60s where the Minister wanted somebody appointed and grumbled that it was not done. The Chairman – Mr. Charles M. de Silva said "I will brook no interference from politicians in the running of my Institute". And he was a Planter. Now another planter was appointed the Chairman of the TRI in 1990. People objected to the appointment there - went to the Secretary and so on, and the Secretary wrote back – after a unanimous decision of the Board and the Committee. He wrote back to the Secretary and said we must re-advertise the post. Secretary wrote back – we have refused to consider your request to re-advertise the post – he will remain for two years. That is what the Planters did. ………………. Is there, there is no spine. Now these problems are because of these clauses in the Act. We lose our spines, we lose our jobs. So I become a ‘yes’ man. That is what is so important to my mind to get rid of all these otherwise we can’t do a thing, I can assure you . If we can’t do this small thing……

Dr. Modder – Douglas, I don’t think it is a small thing. It is a huge thing. To remove the stranglehold of government around our necks is a huge exercise. And if we take special cases, if we take your case for example, …’At the same time when these things were happening to you and some people out there, on our Board also we had these problems and I was on the point of coming out, like you say, on a personal capacity or as Director of the TRI, and saying some things that would have been very unpalatable to govternment, to bureaucrats etc., but I was prepared to do that and go. And I was told at that point that a huge donor organization that was funding the Tea industry, you know who it is, came in and those people came and told me – hold your horses, wait a bit, we know your problem, this is a big problem in this country – we are going to solve it. We are not going to give the huge sum of money that is being offered to the Tea industry unless the government does such and such and such and such – cleaning up the Acts of governing boards, etc., etc which was what I wanted. They said you wait a bit, its going to be done. So I waited a bit and in the end it was not done, by which time I had left. Now I understand it has not been done. We are still having the same composition of Boards that we had five years ago.

????? – If you want the scientists to make an impact then and now these are things with which you can make an impact. Time and again, like CIMOGG, like Transparency International – they came out with these things. But unless you shout nothing will be done, I can assure you – we will die a natural death.

President - Thank you Dr. Wijewardene for a most fascinating presentation.

Dr. Douglas Nethsinghe - I am very taken up with the ideas presented by Ray today. I call him a visionary and a missionary without apostles to carry the good message forward yet. Ray, you have been in the coconut estate business for many years. You must have had many planters around you. You could have got your disciples, not only from the Coconut Research Institute, but also among the planting community for what you are saying. Why do you think they did not bite it? Some 25 years ago, by now they would have taken your message. Not much electricity involved, etc.

Dr. Wijewardene – Douglas, what you say is absolutely right. Why have they not? We don’t know. We have had many theories, most of them are absentee planters. But that does not meet the whole thing. Is it profitable? Highly profitable. The Coconut Growers Association has had 3 or 4 meetings at my estate. I got mad as hell. I promised them only the 10 or 20 members, at least 300 or 400 came. And they went away and has one of them applied it? Not one. Only talk. Now, I don’t know why, fortunately, the Chief Agronomist of the Coconut Research Institute, who is Dr. Jayantha Goonetilleke, is now Chairman of the Coconut Cultivation Board. And he has been very firm. He said , OK we will subsidize the growing of glyridiya, but no more subsidy for fertilizer. Quite right, but how many other government people are prepared to stick their necks out? Secondly, the new Minister for Plantation Industries has not only been there, heard the lectures and everything, especially heard at Cabinet when we gave it. We are going to have a fourth crop in the Plantation Ministry, fuel wood plantations. This must be our fourth plantation. But those are pass words. But why are coconut growers so irate? I don’t know. Our whole team has been so busy telling people, putting out publications, demonstrations. On temple lands we have had some impact. Now we have been able to prove that it is more economical, more profitable, to have 50 acres of glyricidia and sell it as fuel wood than to have 50 acres of coconut. Now, up to 10 or 15 years ago, a young man would be happy to have a dowry of 50 acres of coconut. Earlier, he would have liked 50 acres of tea. Now the smart one would accept 50 acres of glyricidia! The just is a resistance – life is too easy – I don’t know what it is. Subsidies helped a lot. Subsidies that encouraged them to use fertilizer, weedicide. We’ve been subsidized to help the people abroad. Now there is big subsidy of, 20 million rupees I think, on photo-voltaics. 80% of that is going back to America. But what are we doing about it here? Nothing. Is there any subsidy on growing our own fuelwood, building it up? Nothing. I don’t know why we are on the wrong end of things.

Dr. Nethsinghe – How much has the planter have to spend to establish these crops?

Dr. Wijewardene – Cheaper than growing coconut or rubber or tea, and you will get your income within 2 years. For coconut, 5, 6, 7 years……..I don’t know what the answer is. I think it will emerge in about 25 years.

President - I think the answer is clear, it sticks out a mile. This is the comprador class the Marxists refer to. These are the people who are selling the third world to the capitalist world. We are getting kickbacks. Our politicians are getting kickbacks – from import of urea, and all the subsidies, etc. that are given out, trips and what not. So it is to their benefit not to put up these environmentally friendly and user-friendly techniques.

Dr. Kingsley de Alwis – I want to get some idea of the size of the generating plant in relation to the area that is covered by these glyricidia plantations. In other words, how many acres or hectares do you need to feed your dendro-thermal plant.

Dr. Wijewardene – Good question. Thank you. We showed that you could start off with a small 3 kilowatt plant and go up to 8 megawatts. The average figure is that you could produce 1 kw continuously per acre. From an acre of land you could produce 1 kw. throughout the year. I showed you the extremes, I showed you the small plant producing 3.5 kw and I showed you the 8 mw plant. People are prepared to put them up now. They want to go ahead. Incidentally, there is a CEB policy to pay a higher price for electricity from imported oil – they are prepared to pay 12 rupees per kw but for renewable energy, the policy is to pay only 6 rupees. This is the biggest battle we have. People will say give us the average of the price you are paying to all the people abroad. At least give us 8 rupees per kwhr. It will galvanize the people and everybody will want to put up generating plants. CEB says, no. But this is only talking about energy as one of our three needs. I think we should overall address ourselves to prioritizing our endeavours as scientists and engineers to the needs of the country, rather than scattering ourselves over the broad side of tremendous scientific and engineering endeavours. And this concentrating on our needs health, nutrition, energy.

Dr. de Alwis – Just one point of clarification before we move on, what would be the radius of the area over which you would collect fuelwood, for instance for a one mw plant.

Dr. Wijewardene - We have a demonstration of a functioning 1 mw plant in Walapane. And that is collecting from about 400 to 500 acres around there. But we are saying you don’t need to be concentrated on fuelwood plantations. There are hedges, hedgerows, and we are going out for about 10-15 miles – the contractor is brining in the wood. If you want I have a 1 mw plant – you want 1000 acres.

Dr. de Alwis - I am talking of smallholder plantings to supply a central power station. You would need fossil fuel to bring in the fuelwood.

Dr. Wijewardene – The transport is already established. They are bringing it on tops of buses and all kinds of things. And they are flooding the generating station with fuelwood. It is a very warming sight to see at Walapane. Now what is the problem there? The CEB lines keep breaking down. So as soon as the steam plant gets going nicely, the CEB line breaks. So they are able to foul it.

Prof. Sam Karunaratne – The best thing is, at the start of the feeder, you ask the CEB to switch off and you pay for the distribution of that entire thing by that company. As much as stakeholders for various distribution systems, they are worried about the stability of the system by connecting these small generators. But if you isolate it from the CEB supply, then you have no problem with the CEB at all. Only, when your plant is not running, they can switch their power on to get the power. So CEB power is now standby power to that area.

President – Any other comments on Ray’s paper?

Dr. Ravie Perera – sporadically employed! You gave a very nice thing about carbon dioxide being given off and the fact that more trees being grown more than offsets the carbon and that you also have a carbon sink. But the biggest problem, as far as the Southeast Asian and South Asia are concerned, is the indoor pollution by smoke. In fact, the amount of lung diseases of women and children in these enclosed houses is humungous. Just to play devil’s advocate, this is one of the biggest selling points of liquid natural gas or liquid gas, saying that this type of smoke is not produced when they cook. How do you justify using this fuelwood?

Dr. Wijewardene – That is a very good question. We already have the distribution of domestic cookers that are working on the gasifier principle. From little chips of wood, they are getting a pure carbon monoxide. You don’t see any smoke at all. It’s just like cooking by gas. So those are available, but there is a further line making wood gas – it is the same as making coal gas. The British used to supply coal gas for all our town lights in my childhood, nearly eighty years ago! That was from coal, imported and turned into a gasifier and that gas was supplied all over the country. That same gas is what we are coming out with now. Only we are using wood rather than coal and it is very clean.

Dr. Ravie Perera – No, I am saying in an industrial way that is a good idea. It will work. But, inside houses, if you use it on an individual basis……. .

Dr. Wijewardene – That is why I said, there are small stoves now, wood gasifying stoves, so that wood chopped gives a beautiful blue flame.

Prof. H. D. Gunawardhana – May I answer Dr. Ravie Perera’s question? In our ancient houses we did not have the kitchen inside the house. It was separated. As a result, we did not have that pollution. Even the ancient thinking was that the citrus family should not be used because the gas liberated is bad for the health. That is why they don’t use it. There is another concept that the demon is there, so it should not be used. But it is not the demon, it is the gas liberated which is not good for the health. That is why the kitchen has been separated from the main house and housewives were not exposed to these gases.

Prof. Karunaratne – Within the UGC also there is a big controversy, even if there is a paper with citations, whether you will get 8 points or 6 points. But, as you said, for research they are talking about kitchens where the smoke comes because of the back pressure – or because it is due to convection. Now, we have built in my own village, the thing is put back and the smoke goes up and there is an extractor fan which does not use electricity but the wind rotates it. In England, when we were studying, practically every house had that kind of thing- with rotating vanes. When the vanes rotate, the smoke goes up. Usually, the hearth is 9 to 10% efficient. Now the hearth made by NERD, at that time without the gasifier, was about 27% efficient. So things can be improved. But I am also a recent convert to dendro power …..

Dr. Wijewardene - Recent? So how long do you think people with one tenth of his brain power would take?

Prof. Karunaratne - …….. the CEB can’t handle kilowatts of power. They are not interested. When you have a megawatt you throw away a kilowatt. Why? It is 1000^th of a unit and when you have a kilowatt you throw away one watt, you are not interested. But, if you don’t have electricity, even one watt is a big thing, even a kilowatt is a very big thing . So there must be another organisation to take this forward and CEB will never do it. Even a department within the CEB will not work. It has to be a completely separate unti.

Dr. Wijewardene - That was why Prof. K.K.Y planned the Energy Conservation Front (ECF) to bring that idea of frugality. All of you gentlemen will remember that when your mother cooked, she cooked in the true spirit of ‘ara pirimesma’, put a bit aside for frugality. We have to do that as scientists, we have to bring back those finer points of life. To improve our quality of life, we do not need to copy the putrefaction of other countries.

Dr. Pethiyagoda - On this question of operations of scale and the interest of the government institutions in small sized and big sized units, if I remember right, during one of the concepts in the development of these dendro stations was that little areas with modest requirements of power, say in the real rural household situation where a couple of lights and a radio is what is required, that that kind of requirement can be met by truly decentralised units without having to link into the grid. Now would that be the feasible way to go?

Dr. Wijewardene - As we are going now. There are many small villages in internal places that will never receive electricity. They are putting in generators and learning the techniques of it. But you see there is much bigger money for the big generating companies to put in a 100mw oil power generating station than to bother about these. So it takes time. Decentralised is the way to go.

Prof. Gunawardhana Some ……………has published some pamphlets as well about fertiliser and all that, and he is from my same village. ……..persons who are managing the estates don’t like this really. They want imported chemical fertilizer to be used rather than this. You know when we suggested, they are very reluctant. I don’t know how to influence those people to do this.

President - Except that organic products are having a big market abroad now. So if you can produce organic tea using these sorts of interventions you are getting a good mark up on your produce. So it is going that way as well. Yes, compost, and even green manure.

Dr. Wijewardene - If we can palletize the green manure, there will be a market there. We are working on the pelletizing and bagging it.

President - Shall we now go on to try and formulate some sort of skeletal structure for our product. What we are going to present as an outcome of this workshop. Petha was suggesting that since we are a small group all of us might chip in and make a contribution to this skeleton that we want to give. Because the rapporteurs I think have gone. We will probably get some input from them later. But can we look at the main outline of what we want to write or produce. I think Ray has given us a good jumping off place - differentiation between wants and needs. I think we have to concentrate as scientists and technologists on the needs of all of us, of our people, particularly the poor people. So if we can look at the needs, the basic needs,……..

Prof. Karunaratne - I think more than that we talk of non-dependence ………….

President – Yes, first of all I think we have to throw out our marriage to the multinationals, the corporate world, globalisation and the Americans etc etc. Of course these are demons. Some of them are not as bad as we think but any way I think we have to cease dependence and go back to our pristine way of life and so on but with a modern outlook.

???? – We have to start with the graduates……

President - Yes, graduates, but we have to start, even if we start with graduates, we have to start. So we will first of all mention that – The necessity to move away from that pattern of development, that paradigm of development that has been foisted on us by the Bank and the Fund and the WTO and do on, and move into a new concept which would be indigenous, which would be our own, which would perhaps be South Asian or regional or whatever. So I think if we can make that as the starting point, the opening gambit, if you think that is right, and then secondly take Ray’s differentiation into wants and needs and show how we have to concentrate on needs. And what do we understand by needs? He has already given us guidelines – Food and Nutrition is basic, Health and Wellness and finally Energy. Can any of you suggest any other……..

Dr. de Alwis - I would be very reluctant to get into an inward looking mode, where we think, okay, we don’t want to keep up with this globalisation and we will try to solve our problems within ourselves. I am not speaking at all against the idea of avoiding dependence. But I think we need to realise that this globalisation, this larger communication that we have with the outer world presents not only problems but also opportunities.

Dr. Wijewardene – I take your point, definitely, but we don’t need to adopt their interpretation. We can look upon globalisation as interdependence. How we are going to participate in that inter-dependent world with our best interests.

Dr. de Alwis – and see what opportunities it holds for us in this situation - rather than close it down and say that …..

President – No definitely not to close it off. I was misunderstood, you can’t we are already there.

Prof. Karunaratne – Your non-dependence on food, in the long term, is your own survival. Nobody can speak anything against that, energy is another matter, say, ………. but food and health!

President - But all these things as Ray has shown us is tapping away our foreign reserves or foreign exchange that is being lost because we are importing food, which is totally unnecessary. We don’t need that sort of food. We can grow our own food or produce our own food here. Bringing in drugs ….

Prof. Karunaratne - Globalisation or inter-dependence – I was in Japan for about 3 months, you can’t buy rice. Long grain rice is about Rs.900/- equivalent for a kilo there. Rice is available at a dollar or so, but it is not allowed to import. Their rice, they call glutinous rice, is now about Rs. 1000 a kilo. So globalisation does not mean that it is just fully open, but I think food in Japan is highly respected so like wise non-dependence on food, no one can find fault with non-dependence.

President - So coming back to Kingsley’s point in what we are trying to say, I think I agree with you completely, that we can’t cut ourselves off from this globalisation movement in the world. But certain things are needs, we can try and meet those needs here - and the things we are talking about are

food and nutrition, stopping these subsidies on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides etc .

secondly, on health and wellness stopping dependence on drugs – a huge variety of drugs – Senaka Bibile was trying to say you have a few genetic drugs that you need to import. the rest of it we can start examining our Ayurvedic system. We can start doing that, I mean, honestly those work. From my own personal experience I know that they work. So we must try and examine that and scientifically look at those things and

finally at this whole concept of renewable energy or home grown energy that we can try and produce without having to import fossilised fuel and oil and so on.

Reducing dependence …….. with a view to gradually disengaging.

??? - ……..we have do it very carefully no substitutes for many of them in Ayurveda. So we have to reduce dependence …..

President - I am thinking more in terms of a gradual disengagement from the globalised system. I would die if we cut off foreign drugs. It has to be disengagement.

Prof Karunaratne - My brother-in-law is a doctor, he does not allow me even to take that Peyawa, which is commonly available and anybody would take it because there are quack ayurvedic physicians like there are doctors. There was one person who used to lace this stuff with Prednisolone and my friend’s mother died from overdose of Prednisolone. When you take it you have a fine feeling for a time. I think you have to be extremely careful …….

Dr. de Alwis – There was a lady who fell sick in Switzerland, and when she went to see the doctor, the doctor asked "What are you taking?" and she brought one these packets of peyawa, (I don’t want to mention the name), and they checked it out and found it had prednisolone.

President - Obviously this has to be carefully regulated and researched. I am taking a concoction – but I get the ingredients – 13 ingredients - in the pristine condition straight from the plant , like in a shop and then my wife does all the boiling and cooking and bottling and so on in the house. So there is no Prednisolone or anything in that.

Dr. Locana Guneratne - I am not sure what we are really trying to prove – whether we are trying to summarise what we discussed today or whether we are trying to develop some move towards developing a policy that we will recommend to the government or what, I am not really sure.

President - What we are trying to do, of course we have these concepts papers now in a form which we can reproduce in the final document but, based on that, we want to draw on various aspects of it and build up a final concept paper.

Dr. de Alwis - I think we should not go off shooting rabbits - we should stick to what we came here to do - to examine the impediments to science and technology in this country. We can take those other things as a separate exercise. Let’s try to focus on getting this initial thing out. This other thing of looking at various factors and trying to see how we can make ourselves self-sufficient and so on is a good thing but it is a huge exercise. It is something which we have to give a lot of thought to before we get engaged in it.

President – I am grateful that you brought us back to essentials. We have those three objectives. What we have to do is to see what the impediments are. And the other one probably is a later development, which as you say is truly a big issue.

Dr. de Alwis - It can be something that came out of this workshop.

President - So in short it is a distillation of the three presentations - trying to identify why it is that we have not taken off.

Prof. Karunaratne - Even Ray’s paper and what we discussed can be exactly under this title, without straying away from the impediments to Science and Technology. While we see that fuel wood plantations don’t get into popular use there must be some impediment. If we want to include those, we have to include them at the same time.

President – Yes - we have to draw on the three papers and do that. So Kingsley can you briefly outline what you see as the form these papers should take – our final outcome.

Dr. Ravie Perera - Who is this going to be presented to? What is the target audience.

President - The target audience is the government, which means the President ….

Dr. Ravie Perera – Isn’t it easier first, as a target audience, go to Tissa Vitharana show it to him, see what he thinks and based on what he says and then he can write it up and present it to parliament.

President - Yes, that is the point of our strategy. But I thought you meant another stage. Tissa obviously is going to see what we write. And he will then also make his inputs as a Fellow of the Academy and help us to refine it and give his suggestions and so on. Then the final resting place of this document will be with President of the country, hopefully not in a file, but in a presidential file perhaps – President, PM, cabinet etc., the whole works.

Prof. Karunaratne - I think if the document is good and the minister also agrees with it, we can send it to the President, the Cabinet, the MPs because I think now in the national administration if there is a good publication we send it to all the MPs in office, as we have decided previously. Some people will pick this up and when they start debating and discussing.

President - And also why not the media – so that it gets a wide dissemination as possible, everyone sees it.

Dr. Ravie Perera - But I think practically the best thing to do is to approach the Minister and the Minister then takes it and says this is from…… . This gives a little more strength to the gallery ….

President - So what you are saying is, we should not take it to the public?

Dr. Ravie Perera - No, take it to the public once the Minister has given his blessing because he also must get some advantage out of it.

President - Yes, we will get his input first, and then decide. He might even advise us on what to do. What is the best tactical way of doing it?

Dr. Ravie Perera - He will take it to the President and cabinet………..

President - And then he has to push it, also as a member of the Academy. Kingsley, what do you think we should do, just to get on to brass tacks?

Dr. de Alwis – Publishing this as a paper is one thing but I think the paper should come out with some recommendations. There is no point in having a paper unless you end up with some recommendations. We have a list of the things with which we ended up - with some specific recommendations for action probably by the government, and possibly by other people. I think we need to ensure that we ourselves might have certain things to do resulting from this workshop. For example, we spoke of trying to examine different things like a code of ethics for ourselves. A number of items came up which we ourselves need to do - I have jotted a few down - which arise out of this which we can follow up as the National Academy. But essentially I would like if we can get the people who presented the papers to present the thing in a form in which we can end up with some recommendations. Then we can combine them into a single set of recommendations - as Editor I would have the job of doing that.

Dr. Nethsinghe - Meanwhile while we get that out I would suggest we give the media these three wonderful papers presented perhaps in a shorter form.

Prof. Karunaratne – I have two points - I think if you are going to make it the responsibility of the government to ensure about Education, Science and Technology and so on, and if other organisations are shouldering the responsibility, rather than tax them, the government should assist them to do it.

The second thing I find is that there is so much money that we get as loans, specially in the IT field, that people go to town with this money. Why I say that is that some people advertise in newspapers "We will give you 16,427 jobs", etc. Government borrows 100 mln pounds to do this and do that on IT. Now they want to have IT for all school children, or at least some classes – there are some 7000 schools, but let us say there are 5,000 schools. They want to train the teachers and a huge sum of money is being borrowed from various banks – the World Bank and so on.

I have brought a proposal that, if you want 5,000 people in 5 years or 1000 people per year - teachers trained, it will cost 100 mln rupees per year - 5 years 5000 teachers – 500 mln rupees. 100bln Dollars is a lot of money. However, right now, after all that talking, we are not training even 200 teachers. So what I am saying is that when the government goes for this new technology, it is necessary to utilise the local resources and the expertise on a priority basis. If we cannot satisfy the requirements, we can go further and get foreigners to do it. But the first step is to use local resources. But we are kind of not taken heed of. When we have capacity and training teachers for IT is the requirement, then the first thing is not to go to UK or US and spend all that money on consultants to do it, but look at the local scene , look at the local resources , availability and expertise and then, if we cannot match the requirement, to go elsewhere.

Dr. Guneratne - You mentioned Mr. Chairman at the beginning that we were looking for generalities. Now from what he says if we can extract a generality which is part of the policy that we can recommend. That is to say before we go out why don’t we look at what we have and that kind of thing can form the part of the policy that we can recommend towards the national policy.

President – Yes, and that could be a firm recommendation

Dr. Guneratne - I want to also mention that I would strongly suggest that we take a look at ethics - some sort of code of ethics, maybe not a code of conduct, a code you cannot enforce – but something that is there that is made explicit. Not just something that is in the back of our minds.

President - Is it a separate thing you are talking about? Yes, that is a separate issue – except that we are criticising the politicians or what I call the political bureaucratic nexus and I think at the same time we ought to criticise ourselves . This has come up in this meeting several times that we are not self examining - that has to be done. So I think it is important that we also redress the balance not only placing the blame on one side but saying that the blame lies with us. I mean why haven’t we taken up issues like this for what 50 years or how long. We have not done anything about it. So we have to place the blame on ourselves, on our lethargy, on our – whatever. And therefore out of that we have failed. And we have failed because we are not examining our own weaknesses.