Who will be the next principal scientific adviser to the government of India? K Vijay Raghavan, who held the post since 2018 announced on April 2 that his term in the office had ended. VijayRaghavan, who, before this post, was Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, is a multi-faceted man of science, who brought dynamism to his post. He was given a year's extension after his two-year tenure.
Given that his predecessor, R Chidambaram, served as PSA for 16, from November 2001 to March 2018 (until he turned 82 years of age), the relatively quick end to VijayRaghavan's tenure came as a surprise, even though he had got a year's extension. The office of the PSA was created under the Atal Behari Vajpayee government to advise the government on science and technology-related policies and interventions that are of socio-economic importance to the government. APJ Abdul Kalam was the first PSA, who held office from 1999 to 2002 when he became President of India. So there isn't much precedence on how long a person can be the PSA.
VijayRaghavan brought popularity and accessibility to this position. His scientific background -- a Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from IIT Kanpur, and later, research in genetics and neurogenetics (he was previously head of the National Centre for Biological Sciences -- made him an ideal choice to help give overall direction to the progress of science in the country. In 2018, prime minister Narendra Modi also formed the Prime Minister's Science Technology and Innovation Council, headed by PSA VijayRaghavan. The council emphasised nine research priorities for India -- National language translation, quantum frontier, artificial intelligence, national biodiversity mission, electric vehicles, bioscience for human health, waste to wealth, deep ocean exploration and AGNIi, the innovation exploration mission. Of these, Deep ocean, artificial intelligence, national language translation and quantum frontier missions have already been approved.
Who will take over from VijayRaghavan now? The government hasn't announced the successor, but many names are doing the rounds. One is that of Shailesh Nayak, originally an ISRO man, who then moved onto earth sciences, and retired from the government as secretary, of earth sciences. Shekhar Mande, who is due to retire from his post as head of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is another name. Ashutosh Sharma, who, till recently, was secretary of the Department of Science and Technology is the third name. Sharma has moved back to his parent organisation, IIT Kanpur.
