India plans innovation law to boost research

India plans innovation law to boost research
11 Sep, 2007, 0429 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: The government would soon bring in a comprehensive legislation, the India Innovation Act, to boost research and innovation in the country, Union minister for science & technology and earth sciences Kapil Sibal said here on Monday.

“We want to bring in an India Innovation Act to spur innovation in India, for which we would like Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) to draft legislation and present it to the government in three months,” Mr Sibal announced at a meeting of the Indo-US Task Force on Shaping the Global Innovation Economy. Ficci and the Pacific Council on International Policy, a non-partisan organisation based in Los Angeles, have joined hands to form this task force.

The India Innovation Act is likely to be modelled on the America COMPETES Act, which focuses on three primary areas: increasing research investment, strengthening education opportunities in maths, science and technology and developing an innovation infrastructure.

Mr Sibal also said the Indo-US cooperation dialogue must shift from a regime of denial to cooperation. “The global innovation economy is about people getting together and this necessarily implies cooperation and collaboration, not denial of technology,” he said.

Task force co-chairman and former US ambassador to India Richard Celeste underlined the need to identify fresh opportunities for collaboration in specific sectors, look at the promising areas for innovative public policy and spot the lurking issues that might hamper progress.

In his presentation, Pacific Council president Geoffrey Garrett tried to capture how the curve of demographics supporting globalisation was moving up. “Only those with MBA and PhD degrees today support globalisation, while earlier the college pass-outs would also see benefit in globalisation.”