Adding Entrepreneurship to India’s Science, Technology & Innovation Policy

Science, Technology & Innovation Policy (STIP) is an important policy instrument particularly in the developing countries. India also has recognized the role of science, technology and innovation in development as early as 1958 but still trails behind its peer Brazil, China and the Asian tiger Singapore. Considering strong correlation between research and development investment and growth based on existing studies, this paper brings forth the present situation of India in investment and its influence on the performance of the economy vis-à-vis the three countries. This paper studies the STIP 2013 in detail and reports the contribution of the Department of Science and Technology in India. The main conclusion of this paper is the recommendation for incorporation of “entrepreneurship” in STIP based on global best practices, which can be achieved by government’s involvement as a venture capitalist to seed and support innovations, increasing transparency and incorporating entrepreneurial curriculum

Discovery of New Hydrothermal Activity and Chemosynthetic Fauna on the Central Indian Ridge at 18°–20°S

Indian Ocean hydrothermal vents are believed to represent a novel biogeographic province, and are host to many novel genera and families of animals, potentially indigenous to Indian Ocean hydrothermal systems. In particular, since its discovery in 2001, much attention has been paid to a so-called ‘scaly-foot’ gastropod because of its unique iron-sulfide-coated dermal sclerites and the chemosynthetic symbioses in its various tissues. Despite increasing interest in the faunal assemblages at Indian Ocean hydrothermal vents, only two hydrothermal vent fields have been investigated in the Indian Ocean. Here we report two newly discovered hydrothermal vent fields, the Dodo and Solitaire fields, which are located in the Central Indian Ridge (CIR) segments 16 and 15, respectively. Chemosynthetic faunal communities at the Dodo field are emaciated in size and composition. In contrast, at the Solitaire field, we observed faunal communities that potentially contained almost all genera found at CIR hydrothermal environments to date, and even identified previously unreported taxa. Moreover, a new morphotype of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropod has been found at the Solitaire field. The newly discovered ‘scaly-foot’ gastropod has similar morphological and anatomical features to the previously reported type that inhabits the Kairei field, and both types of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods genetically belong to the same species according to analyses of their COI gene and nuclear SSU rRNA gene sequences. However, the new morphotype completely lacks an iron-sulfide coating on the sclerites, which had been believed to be a novel feature restricted to ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods. Our new findings at the two newly discovered hydrothermal vent sites provide important insights into the biodiversity and biogeography of vent-endemic ecosystems in the Indian Ocean

Size distributions of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods at the Kairei (A) and Solitaire (B) fields.

<p>The average sizes of the Kairei and Solitaire populations were 37.87 mm and 31.95 mm, respectively.</p

Map of the newly discovered hydrothermal vent fields.

<p>(A) Locations of the Dodo Great Lava Plain and Roger Plateau in the Rodriguez Segment (Segment 15 and 16 of the CIR). (B) Locations of the Dodo and Solitaire hydrothermal fields on the Dodo Great Lava Plain and Roger Plateau, respectively.</p

Opercular plates of the ‘scaly-foot’ gastropod.

<p>(A) Ventral view of juvenile of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropod with operculum indicated by red arrowheads. Shell length is about 2 mm. (B) Opercula of adult ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods indicated by red arrowheads. The scale bar represents 5 mm.</p

Chemical compositions of hydrothermal fluids from the Dodo and Solitaire hydrothermal fields.

<p>(A) Chlorine and (B) H₂ concentrations are plotted against average fluid temperature during each sampling. Blue open circles with dashed lines and red open squares with dotted lines represent the Dodo and Solitaire fluids, respectively. Gray horizontal line in (A) indicates seawater level (560 mmol/kg).</p

Photographs of macromorphology and of microscopic and SEM-EDS analyses of sclerites from the two morphotypes of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods.

<p>(A), (B) Photographs of the two morphotypes of ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods. Bar indicates 1 cm. (C), (F) Optical micrographs of the polished surface of the sclerite sections. (D), (G) Elemental mapping of iron in the same sections by SEM-EDS. (E), (H) Elemental mapping of sulfur by SEM-EDS. The black-white-green colors indicate the intensity of each element.</p

Parsimonious networks of the ‘scaly-foot’ gastropods at the Solitaire and Kairei fields, based on sequences of nuclear SSU rRNA gene (A) and mitochondrial COI gene (B).

<p>White circles indicate the haplotypes from the Solitaire field and black circles indicate those from the Kairei field.</p

Photographs of black smoker chimneys and associated brownish colored spots.

<p>(A) Tsukushi-2 chimneys on basaltic sheet flow lava at the Dodo hydrothermal field. <i>A. rodriguezensis</i> is sparsely distributed on the lava. (B) A brownish colored spot in the stained lava area surrounding the Dodo hydrothermal field. (C) Toukon-3 chimneys at the Solitaire hydrothermal field. The chimney walls were partially covered with swarms of <i>R. kairei</i>. The animals aggregating around the diffuse fluids are visible in the background to the left of the frame.</p