Scientist sacked for exposing CSIR incompetenceKrishna KumarWith just three days to go before his Fulbright Scholarship in India ended, entrepreneur and scientist Dr ShivaAyyadurai was called by a scientist friend and told that the top man of the Council of Scientific and IndustrialResearch, India’s premier scientific institute, wanted to meet him.When Ayyadurai walked into CSIR Director General Samir Brahmachari’s office June 10, the director generalwelcomed him with a question: Why do you want to go back to Boston?“He said CSIR was planning to spin off technological companies and that he wants me to form the CSIR-Techthat will do this,” Ayyadurai said. He heard Brahmachari out, then asked the CSIR chief to make him an offer hecouldn’t refuse.Brahmachari made an offer; Ayyadurai accepted it. Five months later, Ayyadurai finds himself with atermination letter. He has written to Prime Minster Manmohan Singh saying he was fired for criticizing the CSIRleadership (read Samir Brahmachari)How did a highly accomplished scientist-entrepreneur end up like this? The story unfolded thus:“He said I would be recruited at the level of an additional secretary, which he said took people decades toreach,” Ayyadurai says, of that day when Brahmachari made him an offer. “He said I can be the CEO-equivalentof the companies I spin off, and hold equities in them. When I went back to my father-in-law who was a retiredcivil servant, he couldn’t believe it. He asked me to take it down in writing.” Ayyadurai did – but the DG wrotethe job description written down on a piece of one-sided paper, without dates or any signatures.How could a man with his experience have accepted a handwritten note as an offer letter? “In the US, when Ishake hands with a CEO, the deal is done. I told Samir the same thing – that I am taking it in good faith,”Ayyadurai responds. The actual offer letter came two days later – and it said Ayyadurai has been appointed to the post of ‘outstanding scientist’ (Scientists and Technologists of Indian Origin). None of the other promises made by theBrahmachari were contained in the letter.“I was excited about the opportunity,” Ayyadurai told India Abroad. “I accepted it in good faith. The moneydidn’t matter to me. In the US I do my science, I do my entrepreneurship. I don’t understand government jargon.” The next day, Brahmachari introduced Ayyadurai as the next head of CSIR-Tech, and said his first assignmentwas to come up with a structure for it – and then things began to unravel.Ayyadurai and another scientist, Deepak Sardana, started working on a report about the ways in which theorganization could be turned into a profit-making centre of excellence. In the months that followed, Ayyaduraisays, he visited almost all of CSIR’s 42 laboratories and spoke to a majority of its 4,000-odd scientists. Afterthis, Ayyadurai and Sardana put together a 47-page report titled CSIR-Tech: Path Forward. The two entrepreneur-scientists highlighted 12 CSIR-developed technologies that had the potential to begenerate billions of dollars for the organization. “Some of the labs and some of the products and technologiesare better than anything else available in the world,” Ayyadurai said. “Labs at the NAL can build full aircraft outthere. They can get into civil aviation. But they are not allowed to do that. I put all these things in the report.”Besides focusing on the opportunities, the two scientists also incorporated a full chapter on ‘challenges’ – andthose four pages spoke of the difficulties scientists face with the leadership. The authors talk about how theorganisation suffers from a ‘lack of professionalism’, how some scientists feel a ‘loss of faith in leadership’ andhow a coterie of sycophants might ruin it all for the organization. They also suggested that CSIR introduce‘openness in communication’ and establish ‘accountability of all participants’.“Three days later, I get a gag order directing me not to talk to scientists and not to conduct workshops,”Ayyadurai says. And last week, he received the official letter withdrawing his appointment; the reason cited isbecause an ‘unreasonable financial package has been demanded.’“Samit promised me that I would get Rs 500,000 once I am on board as the CEO,” Ayyadurai says, respondingto the charge that he had asked for Rs 600,000 per month. “Then they said, till I get my PIO card I cannot betaken officially on board, and that I would be treated as a business consultant till then. I said I was cool with theRs 100,000 I was entitled to.”
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