COMMUNICA TION Science Policy for rational Development The Scientific Workers9 Association of the Council/or Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SWA) in its fifth annual council meeting^ held at Jamshedpur on 6 and 7 July 1974, came out, through the following resolution, with a declaration on science policy for the country. This document received from K R Bhattacharya, President, CSIR'SWA deals succinctly with some of the issues discussed in the previous numbers of the SOCIAL SCIENTIST. SINCE independence, and even earlier, our national leaders have rightly stressed the importance of science and technology (S & T) for national development and emancipation of the masses. Especially under the guiding inspiration of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, S & T in independent India received increasing attention and massive outlay. Institutions of science teaching and of research and development (R & D) have proliferated phenomenally during the last quarter of a century. The outlay on R & D has increased enormously till today it approximates 0.5 per cent of the GNP. All this has been done on the premise that (a) propagation ofS&T will bring about a change in the attitudes and outlook of the people, more conducive to rationality and development., while at the same time (b) S & T will also provide the hardware and know-how for the economic development of the country and material well-being of the people. Unfortunately these expectations have in many ways not been fulfilled. The way we have conducted our science teaching and research, we have totally failed in carrying the knowledge of science and the message of innovation and rationality to the people. The vast masses remain as ignorant of science, of its potentiality and youthful vigour as ever before, largely because science has remained by and large an elitist institution, divorced from and having no interaction with the life and problems of the masses. Even among the professionals and institutions, our conduct of