Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

In the 1930s, the need for establishing research organisations for the development of natural resources and new industries in India began to emerge. Eminent citizens such as C. V. Raman, Lt. Col. Seymour Sewell and J. C. Ghosh had proposed the creation of an advisory board of scientific research. Sir Richard Gregory, then editor of Nature, was among the first people who officially reported to the British Government. After visiting scientific departments and universities in India in 1933, Gregory submitted to Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for India, regarding the need of scientific organisation similar to the DSIR in Britain. Indian scientists at Calcutta and Bangalore initiated schemes to launch a National Institute of Sciences and an Indian Academy of Sciences, respectively. At the Fifth Industries Conference in 1933, the Provincial Governments of Bombay, Madras, Bihar and Orissa unanimously reiterated their demand for a co-ordinating forum for industrial research. Hoare advised the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, to support the demand. However, in May 1934, Willingdon replied to Hoare saying, "The creation of a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in India to promote the application of research to natural resources does not appear to be necessary." While the Indian DSIR was rejected, the colonial government provided a small concession. It instead offered to create an Industrial Intelligence and Research Bureau, which came into operation in April 1935 under the Indian Stores Department. The Bureau's limited resources (with a budget of INR 1.0 lakh per annum) made it impossible to initiate major research and industrial activities as had been hoped for; it was mainly concerned with testing and quality control.[6]

At the onset of World War II in 1939, the bureau was proposed to be abolished. Arguably, Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar became the most instrumental in the creation of CSIR in India.[7] As a member of Viceroy's executive council, and also of Commerce, he recommended that the Bureau should be terminated, not as a measure of economy, but to make room for a Board of Scientific and Industrial Research, which should be endowed with greater resources and wider objectives. It was by this persistence that the Board of Scientific and Industrial Research (BSIR) was created on 1 April 1940 for a period of two years. Mudaliar became the chair of the board. It was at this point that Bhatnagar was appointed to pilot the board, as the Director. The BSIR was allocated an annual budget of INR 500,000 under the Department of Commerce. By the end of 1940, about 80 researchers were engaged, of whom one-quarter was directly employed. Major achievements of BSIR included development of the techniques for the purification of Baluchistan sulphur anti-gas cloth manufacture, vegetable oil blends as fuel and lubricants, plastic packing cases for army boots and ammunition, dyes for uniforms and the preparation of vitamins, and the invention of a pyrethrum emulsifier and cream. In early 1941 Bhatnagar persuaded the government to set up an Industrial Research Utilisation Committee (IRUC) for translating results into application. The government then agreed to make a separate fund out of the royalties received from industry for further investment into industrial research. Mudaliar recommended that an Industrial Research Fund should be constituted, which would have an annual grant of INR 1,000,000 (one million) for a period of five years. This was accepted by the Central Assembly in Delhi at its session on 14 November 1941.

Then the constitution of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as an autonomous body was prepared under Mudaliar and Bhatnagar. Thus, CSIR came into operation on 26 September 1942. The BSIR and IRUC were incorporated into the advisory bodies to the governing body of the CSIR. In 1943 the governing body of CSIR approved the proposal of Bhatnagar, though the initiative of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to establish five national laboratories — the National Chemical Laboratory, the National Physical Laboratory, the Fuel Research Station, the Glass & Ceramics Research Institute and the National Metallurgical Laboratory. In 1944 in addition to its annual budget of INR 1 million, CSIR received a grant of INR 10 million for the establishment of these laboratories. The Tata Industrial House donated INR 2 million for the chemical, metallurgical and fuel research laboratories.[6] The foundation for the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute at Kolkata was the first to be laid, in December 1945; National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedpur in November 1946; and that for the National Chemical Laboratory at Pune was the last, on 6 April 1947, four months before India became independent.[8] All the five establishments were completed by 1950.[7]

1. President : Prime Minister (Ex-Officio) [9]
2. Vice President : Minister of Science & Technology, India (Ex-Officio)
3. Governing Body : The Director General is the head of the governing body. The other ex-officio member is the finance secretary (expenditures). Other members' terms are three years.
4. CSIR Advisory Board : 15-member body composed of prominent members from respective fields of science and technology. Its function is to provide S&T inputs to the governing body. Member terms are three years.

A poster showing CSIR's combat mission against COVID-19

• Developed India's first synthetic drug, methaqualone in 1950.[10][11]
• Developed Optical Glass at CGCRI[12] for defence purposes.
• Developed first Indian tractor Swaraj in 1967 completely based on indigenous know-how.[13]
• Achieved the first breakthrough of flowering of Bamboo within weeks as against twenty years in nature.[14][15]
• First to analyse genetic diversity of the indigenous Andamanese tribes and to establish their origin out of Africa 60,000 years ago.[16]
• Developed the first transgenic Drosophila model for drug screening for cancer in humans.
• Invented, once a week non-steroidal family planning pill Saheli and non-steroidal herbal pill for asthma called Asmon.[17]
• Designed India's first ever parallel processing computer, Flosolver.[18]

• Rejuvenated India's one-hundred-year-old refinery at Digboi using the most modern molecular distillation technology.[19]
• With TCS, developed a versatile portable PC-based software 'Bio-Suite' for bioinformatics.[20]
• Design of 14 seater plane 'SARAS'.[21]
• Established first ever in the world 'Traditional Knowledge Digital Library' accessible in five international languages, English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.[22]
• Successfully challenged the grant of patent in the US for use of haldi (turmeric) for wound healing and neem as insecticide.[23]
• In 2007, under the NMITLI program, began the study of Sepsivac, a drug for gram-negative sepsis.[24]
• In 2009, completed the sequencing of the Human Genome.[25]
• In 2011, successfully tested India's 1st indigenous civilian aircraft, NAL NM5 made in association with National Aerospace Laboratories and Mahindra Aerospace.
• In 2020, initiated clinical trials to evaluate Sepsivac's efficacy to reduce mortality rate in COVID-19 patients.[24]

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize was established by CSIR in 1958. The prize is named after the Founder Director Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar.

The nominees for the award are filtered out from the research categories of - Biological Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Earth Sciences, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary, Engineering, Mathematical Sciences, Medical Sciences & Physical Sciences.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize comes up with a Citation, a Plaque & a Cash Award of 5 Lakh Rupees with the addition of a stipend of 15,000/- per month (till the age of 65).

Every year, the Award Selection Committee of CSIR presents the award to maximum 2 individuals from each research category. As per the stats, the SSB Prize has been awarded to 525 individuals for their exemplary work in Science & Technology.

The candidates must be:

• Indian Nationality
• Overseas citizen of India (OCI) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) working in India
• The awardee must have made conspicuously important and outstanding contributions to human knowledge and progress – fundamental and applied – in the field of endeavor, which is his/her specialization.
• Upper Age Limit – 45 years.

The above criteria help CSIR Committee to select the eligible candidates for the award but the selection will be based on the results of selection procedure which is conducted by the Advisory Committee of CSIR.

18 journals and 3 popular science magazines (Science Reporter and its Hindi,Urdu editions) are available under open access from NOPR website.[26]

• Indian Council of Agricultural Research
• Indian Council of Medical Research

• Official website