Science & Technology for Rural Development

Dear Friends,

As Science For Villages (SFV) enters its fourth year of publication, this issue comes to you in a new format. We realise that it has been a unequal task for the Centre of Science for Villages, which is a small group of scientists engaged in taking technology for the poor in the villages, The responsibility of publishing a monthly representing the efforts and aspirations of those engaged and interested in the taking of technology for the benefit to the villages, is not an easy one. What has sustained this endeavour is the encouragement and goodwill of such people who come from diverse directions and converge on the aim of making the would more equalitarian, humanistic and ecologolically balanced by utilizing the tools of Science & Technology. Since all such people of kindred spirit want to get closer, SFV has, in a small way tried to be one of the medias to bring them together.

We have been able to get the cooperation of the scientific community working in labs and technological institutions, social scientists and social workers working with the people and the people of goodwill everywhere.

They who wish to see a new day dawn where science is guided not by human avarice and competitiveness but by the spirituality expressed through Truth, Love and Compassion. We strive to see that all such people may feel this journal as their own and thus be instrumental in the development of unity amongst those who share a common concern and are working towards a common goal.

We have always been feeling that what techniques get developed in S & T Centers which are of utility for the villages do not get to the desired beneficiaries automatically. Whereas in the case of techniques which the enterprising, entrepreneures are on the lookout of, the latter themselves grab them. The techniques which may help improve the life of the weaker section of the commuity require a social engineering to make it available to them. Not only is the technique to be demonstrated for its technological viability but its economic and socio-psychological place determined by hard trials and errors. A body of scientists-with a social outlook, identifying the needs of the villages, associating with the generators of technology and having an infrastructure to fashion what the lab has found out to suit the conditions in the field, is an imperative need. Until this conduit is created between the portals of the labs and the doors of mud huts, the knowledge which could bring succour to the needy will remain unutilized. With low off- take of technology generated in the labs a situation arises whereby further growth in rural techniques is also stultified We feel that SFV could help in bringing to the notice of the people in the field what the labs have in store for their benefit and at the same time be able to convey to S & T centres what are the real needs of the villages. It also shares the successes and fallures of efforts in technology transfer.

We take the opportunity to express our gratitude to all those whose assistance aud cooperation has made SFV possible. May the fourth year of SFV be an year of more active participation on the parts of our readers in improving SFV by freely conveying to us the ideas and information that they have or come across.

                                                                                                                                 Devendra Kumar