National Science Day being observed today, Vice President, Prime Minister greet nation

Since launching the world’s largest vaccination program for Covid-19 on 16 Jan 2021, India has administered the shot to over 10 million Indians. In the din of conflicting voices, with some demanding increased private player participation in the vaccination efforts and others displaying vaccine-hesitancy, the key question is whether the public in India trust and support Indian science.

In a large nationwide survey conducted by the IIT Madras Alumni Association in collaboration with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, 82 per cent of Indians have expressed a sense of resilience and optimism about the future. 80 per cent of the respondents believe that the current state of rapid digitisation and a new ‘hybrid’ model of working will become permanent.

We saw this dynamic play out at IIT Madras and several other institutions. A fine-tuned digital mode of education resulted in every student being able to attend virtual classes or view lectures offline. IIT Madras also shifted its research admissions interviews online with research scholars from as far as Assam, Kashmir and Punjab joining the institute.