"COVID-19 has brought into the country a clarion call for everyone to rebuild, recover, and re-imagine ourselves in order to achieve Atmanirbhar Bharat.

In our endeavour to attain self-reliance or Atmanirbhar Bharat, we cannot isolate ourselves from the world but integrate with global supply chain. We should emphasize on five pillars of ‘atmanirbharata’ – Buy, Make, Buy to make better, Make to buy better, and Make it together (building public-private partnerships). I have unequivocal confidence in the youth power of the country, which needs to be harnessed with a back-up of technology and trust, for our country to flourish.

'Make in India’ initiative should not only focus on assembling products, but inventing in India as well. Assembling products will no doubt create jobs, but for newer substitutes, there is need to do vigorous research. Research converts money into knowledge and innovation converts knowledge into money, so both needs to go hand in hand for our nation to prosper. We have talent and technologies but now we need to build trust or believe in our capabilities."

Eminent Scientist Padma Vibhushan Dr Raghunath Anant Mashelkar