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Purpose of
the Workshop
by
Prof. Shambu Prasad
The
workshop is a continuation of an ongoing dialogue on
science and democracy and was conceived with the idea of exploring
ideas and
lessons from the way civil society is engaging with the State. There is
a lot
of experience within civil society in diverse sectors that we could
learn from,
which in turn could strengthen these initiatives.
In earlier
discussions at Knowledge in Civil Society
(KICS) forum, we have noted that several social watch reports on various
aspects of
the economy and society are available. However, science and technology
have
been considered to be very privileged activities,
and have not received much attention.
One of the
objectives of this workshop would be to work towards
a social watch on science and technology in India.
We would
like to draw insights on processes of civil
society and the way they have influenced science and technology
policies. We
would like participants to share both their successes and failures in
engaging
with the state and explore some of the mechanisms which civil society
groups
and policy analysts could use to influence science and technology
policies to
make them more people-friendly.
Another
idea of the workshop is to enable cross-sectoral
learning across diverse sectors like energy, power, agriculture,
health,
forestry and textiles etc. and develop joint themes or a new kind of
vocabulary
that can enhance the future work of civil society organisations and
policy analysts.