COMMUNICATION 63 advanced countries are spending over 2-3 per cent of their GNP for'the same purpose. Accepting for a moment that this vital expenditure is far from satisfactory, what is the optimum value recommended by the committee? Here again the committee is finding it difficult to proceed. There are different "models" of development and NCST very naively says: Every 'model' of development, implicitly or otherwise, presumes the applications of S and T to agriculture and industry, health and family planning and the service sectors of the economy, in whatever other respects the models may differ. ' In short, NCST wants to talk of science for the society without putting forth any views on the wants of the society, any model of development or for that matter on any vital aspects of economic development. It also notes "the wide variation of the growth rate? of different industrialised countries with similar investments in R and D.'^ Which are these countries which are thus "different"? Do these different countries have "different35 models of development also? If not, why should it be different at all? In fact a supreme body like NCST should have come out openly with their opinion so as to be a guide to the political groups and the people. NCST underscores the "technological gap'9 between the developed and under-developed nations, and it does not want u^ to do away with our efforts of "reinventing" the developed technologies. It rather warns us on the application or otherwise of technologies developed abroad to our own conditions from the point of view of capital investment, labour intensity etc, and hence cautions us to choose the right technology for import so as to avoid the situation "when technology becomes an agent of foreign domination rather than the vehicle for international development." NCST is unhappy regarding the fund allocation for R and D work. If "there has been no explicit policy-on the level and allocation of funds for S and T activity", "if the overall founding of scientific|research has been decided more by the absorptive capacity of the Agencies than considerations of economic or social importance of th^ fields" leading thus to a "laissez faire attitude", has NCST gone into the root causes for such misdeeds of the government? After all many of the NCST members are not small men and were not so for quite some time as well? Does it show a tendency to pass on the buck or is NCST fighting shy so as not to open the cupboards lest they find many skeletons? Now comes their wrath on the bureaucrats. According to NCST the poor performance of our S and T institutions have been a lot due to their methods of decision-making being subordinate to the bureaucrat. It is wise for NCST to be warned of many scientists - turned - technocrats - turned - bureaucrats in the recent past. So much for the "criticism" of NCST on R and D in the country. How much further does it go? At the outset itself now it puts on record, "we do not as yet have an adequate rationale for such a complex system