Give thrust to problem solving in higher education: Murthy

Infosys co-founder and Executive Chairman NR Narayana Murthy, on Tuesday, said higher education and research in the country has to give more thrust towards solving problems.

"I'm very positive about the trend of scientific research in India; ....a thrust has to given by higher education and scientific research in the country towards problem solving, solving problems that we see around us.

"Once we bring that focus, I have no doubts at all that our scientific and engineering researchers will do as well as anybody else," Murthy said.

"But that orientation is critical for us," Murthy told reporters on the sidelines of an event organised to announce winners of Infosys prize 2013.

"Today in science education there is very heavy emphasis on learning, there is not much focus on relating theoretical ideas to practical situation around us, there is not much focus on understanding nature by using our theories."

"Once we start changing our direction towards some of these, I do believe that we will make progression towards helping our youngsters in relating to science education."

He stressed the need for governments, industry and civil society to come together to create a necessary momentum for achieving widespread problem solving orientation among schools in both urban and rural India. "This will be a huge effort and will require long time, lot of money and efforts."

Appreciating central government's initiatives to support higher education and to pursue research in the country, he said: "Current government has increased the outlay to education by almost three times, the Prime Minister has announced scholarships to outstanding youngsters to pursue research in India.

"There are several initiatives that current federal government has taken, but these things will take time to produce results."

"Having said that, I must confess according to international ranks- India is really nowhere..... that I think is a cause for great concern. But I do think that if we continue all the wonderful efforts that this government has done for the cause of higher education. I'm sure- as we move forward we will be happy with what we have," Murthy added.

The Infosys Science foundation on Tuesday announced the winners of Infosys Prize 2013 across six categories, namely- Engineering ~~amp;amp; Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Announcing the increase in prize purse by Rs 5 lakh to Rs 55 lakh for each category for 2013 awards, the foundation said the award ceremony will be held on February 8 2014, in Bangalore. Kofi Atta Annan, Seventh Secretary General of the United Nations will felicitate the winners.

Winners of Infosys Prize 2013 are as follows: Engineering ~~amp;amp; Computer Science: Romgopal Rao, Institute Chair Professor- Department of Electrical Engineering IIT Mumbai; Humanities: for Archaeology: Nayanjot Lahiri- Professor- Department of History Delhi University, for Linguistics.

Ayesha Kidwai - Centre of Linguistics JNU New Delhi; Life Science: Rajesh Gokhale- Director Council of Scientific and Industrial Research- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology New Delhi.

For Mathematical Science: Rahul Pandharipande - Professor Department of Mathematics Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich; Physical Sciences: Shiraz Naval Minwalla- Professor Department of Theoretical Physics Tata Institute of Fundamental research, Mumbai; Aninhalli R Vasavi- Senior Fellow Nehuru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

The foundation officials said winners were chosen based on significant progress showcased in their chosen spheres as well as for the impact their research will have on the specific field.

It said the winners of the prize were evaluated by a panel of jurors comprising eminent scientists and professors from around the world. The jury chairs of the six catagories are Pradeep K Khosla- Engineering ~~amp;amp; Computer Science; Amartya Sen- Humanities; Inder Verma- Life Sciences; Srinivasa S R Varadhan- Mathematical Sciences; Shrinivas Kulkarni- Physical Sciences; Kaushik Basu- Social Sciences.