Doordarshan National will now have an hourly slot for science. Called Doordarshan Science, the one-hour daily programme, from 5 to 6pm, is an attempt to communicate science and its values to distant reaches of the country. A joint effort of the Department of Science and Technology and Vigyan Prasar, the programming was initially in English. But Doordarshan director general Supriya Sahu said, during the launch, that the plan was to get programming done in regional languages to extend the reach.
DST and Vigyan Prasar have also launched India Science, an internet-based channel that will offer live, scheduled video-on-demand services.
Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, who launched both the channels, said that these had been in the making for over two years, but that they did not want to launch something without ensuring it was a good product. “Doordarshan is the best medium to communicate good science, because it is not governed by the pressures of TRPs.”
Ashutosh Sharma, secretary, science and technology, added that India ranked fifth in the number of scientific publications, but when it came to communicating these scientific achievements, the efforts were inadequate and ineffective.
He said that in addition to the two channels, the DST will soon launch an India Science and Technology Innovation portal, where PhD scholars will be encouraged to write popular science stories or create videos and blogs of their research. “We have already received 3,000 such entries,” he said.
These efforts should take away some of the bad publicity the government has received in recent times for encouraging an atmosphere of pseudo-science in the name of harking back to India's past. Utterances from both ministers and men of science have left the scientific community aghast. Some of these include claims that the Kauravas were test-tube babies and that ancient Indians pioneered not just air travel, but also inter-galactic travel.