According to you, what are the key qualities of a leader?

I think the most important quality of a leader is to not be afraid of taking decisions. Leaders often come to situations where there is more than one possibility and they have to take an educated and informed decision. While consultation is important, adhering to majority or minority views is not. Leaders have to look for a long-term vision and use intelligent arguments to drive towards that vision. So, it's not the majority view that always prevails and a leader needs to take responsibility for such decisions.

Another thing that I don't hear being talked about enough is that leaders should be generous with their time and ideas, and get people to be comfortable with them. These, I think, are the key qualities of a leader.

When did you first realize that you are on a path towards leadership?

I can't really point to a single incident. But, when I think back to when I was in school or in college, I was always trying to forge partnerships and resolve disputes. So, that was a start. And I guess I was a little headstrong as well; if I thought something was right, I'd stand by it.

There was a very small incident that happened when I was in school that I can laugh at now. When I was in ninth grade, I was suspended from my school for doing something that I actually didn't do. They said, “If you own up to it, the punishment will be lenient.” I said, “If I have not done it, I'll not own up to it.” So I was suspended from school for two weeks. And then they realized that I hadn't done it and they called me back. So, yeah, I was a little headstrong. If I felt that what I was thinking was right, then I’d stick to it.

What do you consider your biggest successes and what have these taught you?

I consider building the Virology Group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) my biggest success. I was 31 years old when I was asked to build a group and lead it. It was an immense challenge. I had just finished my postdoc and I had even got a faculty position in USA, just a few months before I received the ICGEB offer.

There is nothing better than investing in good people. People are the most important part of any enterprise.

But this offer was too good to say no. I thought that if I became an assistant professor in the US, then I’d become an associate professor, then a full professor, and so on. I would be one amongst many. Here was an opportunity to actually create something, if I had a vision. Yes, it would not be safe. But it was a wonderful learning opportunity.

So, I would count that as my biggest success. I think what it has taught me is that opportunities don't come every day. When they come, you should have the ability to recognize them and take them on.

The second thing I learned is that there is nothing better than investing in good people. People are the most important part of any enterprise. Money will come today and go tomorrow, but if you have good people, you will always be successful. So I've tried to have teams around me of good, competent people. That is the biggest lesson that I've learned.

What are some instances where you faced failure, and what have these taught you?

Oh, there have been many instances of failure. But you shouldn’t let failure deter you from doing things, from taking decisions, from moving forward. Sure, a wrong decision can set you back. That's fine, as long as you learn something from that failure and you don't repeat the same mistakes again.

The only people who don't make mistakes are dead people.

So yes, there have been many, many failures and I can't really say that this has been the biggest failure. But on balance, I think things worked out more towards success than failure. I would simply say, don't let failure deter you. The only people who don't make mistakes are dead people. So, go ahead, make mistakes, and learn from them.

How much value do you give to human relationships?

I think human relationships are everything. To move ahead in life, you cannot step over people to climb up the ladder. Because, if you are climbing over someone to move up, you are going to meet them on your way down. So, human relationships are everything. And this is something very dear to me.

How do you keep your team happy and motivated?

First of all, value them, show them that you care. They should have the confidence that if they make mistakes or mess up, you are there to protect them. I think that's key to giving confidence to young people. This is something I was very fortunate to have in my own career. I've had mentors who allowed me to explore, to make mistakes, and who stood by me. It’s important to show people you care, to hear them out, and to show that you value them.

How do you deal with difficult situations or difficult people?

The easy answer would be that you foresee difficult situations, but many times, you can't. But I think it's important to be fair and transparent in your dealings with people. And then, to just be firm.

There will be some difficult people who will just fail to understand. You can try up to a certain point. Beyond that, if a decision has to be taken, it should be taken. As long as you have processed it properly, you have been fair, and you have been transparent in your dealings, then don't worry about it. Move on and don't repent.

Difficult situations are a part of life. I've encountered many difficult people, and beyond a certain point, if you feel that you are unable to change their attitude, then let them go their way and go your own way.

What role does able leadership play in scientific/academic environments?

Science is a group activity, not an individual activity. So just like in any group activity, leadership is important. I am always reminded of something that Peter Drucker, a big management guru, said – “Only three things happen naturally in organizations - friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership” – and I agree with this completely. As a leader, you have to provide vision and direction. You have to give people the confidence to perform.

How and where did you pick up the leadership traits/skills that were necessary to bring you where you are now?

I haven’t had any formal leadership training. But I believe that you are really a product of your upbringing, your experiences. I've had the experience of some very good mentors. So, I try to emulate them. A lot of it also has to do with my parents. They were very open to me taking my own decisions in life, and I had the confidence that they would support me in anything that I do, and that was an immense help.

I keep telling my students that all of us are born equally foolish.

I really don't think we should over-plan our lives – “At the age of 20, I’ll do this. At 25, I’ll do this; at 30, I’ll do this…” Life doesn't happen like that. Make the best of the moment and go in incremental steps. I keep telling my students that all of us are born equally foolish. The decisions you take in life, the vision that you have, are what take you forward.

What, according to you, is the most important principle of leadership?

Lead, follow or get out of the way. Try to lead. If you don't have good ideas and somebody else has them, then let them lead, and you follow. And if you can't do that, don't stand in the way. Let somebody else do it.

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Congratulations on being elected the president of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). Can you tell us about the history of this organization?

Thank you very much. IUBS was established in 1919 along with few other such unions for Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Such international unions were conceived to internationalize science and use scientific knowledge and methods to address societal problems. Establishment of these unions was also a symbolic response of scientists, who are global citizens, to the political problems in Europe at that time.

One of IUBS’s major initiatives is its program on Climate Change Education. Can you tell us a bit more about this project, particularly with respect to its relevance in the Indian context?

IUBS is leading a global project, along with many Unions and UN organizations, to make every citizen of the world aware of the science of climate change and its impact, such that the future generation is better equipped to develop innovative local solutions to mitigate the same. An implementation team, working from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, is collating and curating various educational modules on climate change that can be integrated with the existing core curriculum in any discipline/subject at the high school and undergraduate/college levels (visit https://tropicsu.org for more details).

As India is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change, it is important that the entire Indian education system adopts novel pedagogical methods to impart a better understanding of climate change. Considering our country’s demographic dividend, the rest of the world would also benefit when Indian youth are educated and trained in ways to mitigate the impact of climate change.

What role can Indian Scientists play in IUBS’s various activities, and how can they make the most of this association?

IUBS is a think tank, policy body and a platform for biologists from many countries to come together to initiate new collaborations. India’s involvement in these activities is vital to influence global efforts to address problems of climate change and decrease in biodiversity. At the same time, sharing of knowledge between nations will help our national missions on food, nutrition, infectious diseases, etc.

Can you tell us a little more about the global project on ‘Gender Gap in Science’, of which IUBS is a part?

Gender parity is one of the goals that all nations want to achieve in all spheres of life. It is very unfortunate that science is lagging far behind many other professions. IUBS, along with other unions, is developing reliable indicators of gender gap in different nations/regions. These quantitative parameters will help in studying reasons for the gender gap and identifying ways to reduce it. IUBS is contributing to this project by collecting data on biologists from across the world.

Can you comment briefly on the scientific programs at IUBS?

A major mandate of IUBS is to facilitate international cooperation to seed new interdisciplinary research themes. For example, a major initiative that IUBS funded and nurtured was assessing the biological consequences of climate change (on biodiversity, agriculture, etc) and globalization (spread of diseases, invasive species, etc). This has grown now into two major research themes in many countries leading to several publications, policy papers, and an action plan. All this was possible as IUBS provided a platform for free exchange of ideas and information.

Does IUBS have any programs/projects to support or nurture young scientists?

Yes. IUBS supports the participation of young scientists (PhD students, Post-doctoral fellows, and young faculty) to attend international conferences.

What form has your involvement with IUBS taken over the years? Which projects are you most excited by?

I started as a member of the Executive Committee of IUBS (during 2012-15) and later became Secretary-General (2016-19). During these years, I learned how unions like these function and their strengths to shape global policy on a number of issues using knowledge of modern biology. Interestingly many members of different committees of IUBS are basic biologists and contributing significantly to address societal problems. As I was more interested in education and capacity building, I focused on such projects. Climate Change Education that we discussed earlier is one such project.

As the next president of IUBS, what are some areas that you plan to focus on in the coming months/years?

I would like to focus on policies that strengthen research and education in biology across the scales to enable populations to address problems of the 21st century. We need to develop and popularize ways to share data and use modern informatics to integrate biology for deeper as well as a broader understanding of biological systems. The idea is to unify biology, not by ignoring or rejecting its diversity, but by accepting the very essential feature of all forms of life, i.e. their underlying diversity.

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According to you, what are the key qualities of a leader?

A leader, as I look at it, has a very large vision and works with the team that collectively owns that larger vision to be able to reach the end goal. What is hugely important for a leader is to carry the team along with that vision, and then collectively be responsible for delivering it. It is important for a leader to communicate the vision very effectively to the whole team and take them forward.

True leadership is about looking at the larger picture rather than looking at smaller components of it, and seeing how you connect the dots to be able to paint that larger picture. It is not just working towards the vision but letting the team become a part of the vision so that they eventually own that responsibility. The onus lies on the leader to ensure that the team does not just blindly follow him/her but truly owns that vision and gets on to the path of becoming future leaders. It is the quality of the leader to let each person in the team become responsible for what he/she is taking forward.

After a PhD and a postdoc, instead of following a usual career path, you took on the role of a science manager at DBT. This was way back in the late ’80s and you have come a long way since then. When did you realize during this journey that you have leadership qualities in you and that you are on the path towards leadership?

I don't think anyone at any given point of time gets a eureka moment and decides that “I am a leader!” Instead, it is how you progress in your career path – you start learning hands-on, understanding the best ways to take major initiatives and challenges forward, and building on those as you grow further.

There has been no single turning point in my life when I realized that I am on a path towards leadership.

I think everyone has the quality to be a leader – just that you have to look inside and be aware of those wonderful qualities in you to be able to take the path towards leadership. You don't suddenly realize one day that you can be a leader; it has a lot to do with your own personality. What is key is to have confidence in yourself and conviction in what you're doing.

There has been no single turning point in my life when I realized that I am on a path towards leadership. I have been a very outward-looking person from the very beginning and the credit goes to my own background. Being a defense child, I think I learnt about clear targets and deliverables very early in life from the environment where I was growing up. I also picked up quick decision-making abilities alongside clarity of my own thoughts.

I went to 9-10 schools over the years – that gave me an opportunity to meet new people and build new friendships and strong networks (these were essential for survival when you join a school midway through a session). I think these are all qualities that a leader needs and they came very early on during my foundation years.

I also give credit to my parents who gave me values. I give a lot of credit to my teachers who brought that clarity in thoughts and taught me how to articulate well. I was always fond of participating in various oratory competitions, mock parliaments, and theatres in school. I used to be the class and house monitor and that taught me many leadership skills without my knowledge. These activities helped me in bringing out my own personality traits. All of this happened very early, when I had no clue that I would occupy a leadership position later in life. But yes, the foundation was laid right during my school years.

During this entire journey, what do you consider your biggest successes? What have these taught you?

I would say that I was fortunate to be associated with a vast number of different activities from their conceptual stage till their delivery and making them operational. My success has been being able to achieve the completion of a large number of such major programs at DBT from end to end. BIRAC has been one of the most successful programs and has given me maximum pleasure, not only because it has been instrumental in bringing out excellent science, excellent human resource, excellent infrastructure, but has also helped create a new ecosystem in the country which everyone is talking about today.

For any vision to come to fruition it must have a solid road map and there has to be a lot of thought that has to go in the actual implementation strategy.

There have been many other missions apart from BIRAC that I have led with a lot of satisfaction, like DBT’s joint program with the space department where we did the entire biodiversity characterization, or on taking plant tissue culture from just the technique in the lab to actually planting material in the fields, certification of tissue culture systems for the first time in the country, or the whole bio-energy program, where we looked at not just the techniques in the laboratory but delivered these for commercialization. There are many such examples but BIRAC occupies a special place.

The major learning outcomes of all the different programs that I have led have been that as a leader you are responsible for delivering the vision that has been laid down. The journey towards that vision is never smooth -there are challenges, there are obstacles, there are hurdles, and you cannot be deterred by any of these. It’s not a failure -each hurdle is a lesson for you to innovate and go around, to come up with newer and better ways of tackling that hurdle. For any vision to come to fruition it must have a solid road map and there has to be a lot of thought that has to go in the actual implementation strategy. If you do not take care of this aspect, a vision always remains a vision.

What are some of the instances when you have faced failure? What have you learned from these?

As I said Smita, I don't see anything as a failure. Everything is a challenge or a hurdle; it becomes a new learning for something better to be done next time. Something is a failure only if you give up on it. What is critical is to look at it and understand where things went wrong and how to do it better next time. Nothing is a failure; it is all part of the learning process.

I don’t see anything as a failure. Everything is a challenge or a hurdle; it becomes a new learning for something better to be done next time.

This is what science is all about as well – we are all scientists who do experiments but do we ever fail in an experiment? The experiment may go wrong and give an unexpected result but what is important is to learn from the result and take it up again in a different way that would lead towards success.

How much value do you give to human relationships as a leader?

I think human relations are key and critical for anything to move forward. And a leader is a leader only if he/she is conscious and sensitive to that component. Everything can go wrong if you do not handle human resources in the right manner - it's all about creating and building happy teams. It is about energizing the team with what you do as a leader. It is about working and being inclusive; it is about connecting with all the stakeholders. All that happens only by working with individuals. Human relationship is hugely, hugely important and I, as a leader, give a lot of importance to this component because if the teams are happy, they deliver their best.

What do you do to keep your team and people at work happy?

As a leader, you have to let everyone be participative. And as I said earlier, a leader is not just someone who lays the vision. A leader has to make sure that the team takes responsibility for and ownership of what they're doing because by doing so, they automatically contribute towards the bigger picture.

If they contribute and feel part of the process, they enjoy the work and deliver their 100%. It becomes their own target, not a target that has been given to them. The delivery becomes associated with the passion. The leader has to make sure to bring in that passion into the team. The leader has to give the team their space and let them grow as future leaders. So that is my strategy to keep my teams happy.

How do you deal with difficult situations or difficult people?

I think everyone has his/her own way of working and own views/perceptions. Once you're working together, it is not about ‘difficult’ or ‘easy’. The gaps that come are mainly because of lack of communication.

Mostly, very difficult situations get resolved just because you actually sat across the table and discussed it.

I think most of the issues get resolved by talking to each other. So, communication is very important to me - that is really what is key and critical. It helps you understand the issues that the other person is facing. Mostly, very difficult situations get resolved just because you actually sat across the table and discussed it.

I have always been a firm believer of this, and I think wherever I have faced a difficult situation or difficult person, I have always found it much easier to have a chat with the person on the other end and discuss it openly. This is the best way to resolve it collectively and it has been worth it most of the times.

What role does an able leadership play in scientific/academic environments?

The leadership role is key and critical – the direction and the vision come from the leader. While the teams play a key role in the success of the institution but what transpires at the end is how the leader is going to work with the teams below him/her. Leadership has to give the teams their space and freedom to work; the teams are constantly watching the way the leader is behaving, making the leadership fully responsible. It is also the responsibility of the leadership to make sure that the organization meets the challenges, the goals, the vision, and the way leader does this is to carry the teams along and make them responsible. The leadership role is of utmost importance in determining the success of any scientific/academic environment.

How and where did you pick up the leadership traits/skills that were necessary to bring you where you are now?

As I said before, the foundation was laid during my school days. But each part of my journey so far has taught me a lot – I have met with some very interesting people, got opportunities to work with great leaders, watched how they work, and have picked up and imbibed components that were of interest to me. Also, two leaders never have identical styles of working. But there are certain qualities and traits of the leadership which you pick up and take forward.

Keeping the eye on the vision and taking the team towards that vision is the most important principle of leadership.

Also, each bit of learning does not necessarily come from other leaders - you always have to be open to learning. Many times when you are working in teams, you find certain very interesting ways in which things are done and that becomes a lesson for you that you wish to incorporate in your next activity.

Thus, I feel that there is no prescribed course for leadership - I think every leader finds his or her own space. You have to be open to pick up these traits from your seniors, from your peers or from your teams.

What, according to you, is the most important principle of leadership?

I won't say there's just one - basically, the leader has to be one who has complete conviction and a person who can carry the team along. You have to be a team person in order to succeed. The message that the leader has to give to the team is about the importance of hard work with integrity, with discipline, and making sure that no one loses sight of the larger picture for which everyone is moving forward. Keeping the eye on the vision and taking the team towards that vision is the most important principle of leadership.

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In the second instalment in this two-part interview, Ramanjaneyulu talks about CSA’s history and the the various initiatives that it undertakes.

What motivated you to set up the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA)?

I used to volunteer with farmers’ organisations while working as a scientist in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), at Directorate of Oilseeds Research in Hyderabad. Here, I saw a deep contrast between what was happening in agricultural institutions and what was happening at the level of farmers. The technological developments, ex­­­tension services or policy measures were often not directly related to the crises in farmer communities. Also, the innovations that farmers were making themselves never reached other farmers and remained as islands of successes.

Around the same time, farmer suicides were increasing. Debates on the ecological crisis due to the green revolution model of agriculture and climate change were beginning. That’s when a few of us decided to build an institution which takes a scientific approach to alternative models of agriculture for ecological and economic sustainability. That is how the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) was born in 2004.

Across the country, farmers were making agricultural innovations. We tried to understand the usefulness of these methods in different contexts, looked at their scientific validity and rationality, tested them in various growing conditions and replicated them.

We started in 2004 in Andhra-Telangana region with 20 people in the organisation, and today we are a workforce of 150. We now work in six states- Telangana, AP, Maharashtra, Punjab, Sikkim and Tripura. We are also going to be in UP, Orissa and Bihar with whom we partner and implement government programs. We support more than 250 farmer co-operatives across the country. We have scaled up many successful models in partnership with various state governments.

What are farmers’ field schools?

As an organisation, we looked at farmers’ most and immediate pressing problems, as a strategy to gain their interest and trust. Pests and diseases were significant problems, and pesticide use was very high. Pesticide poisoning cases were on the rise with thousands of farmers being hospitalised every year.

We found problem diagnosis to be the main issue. Farmers were unable to identify the pests, the stage of the pests’ life cycle or whether it is a pest infestation or a disease. Therefore, we introduced farmer training programs adopting a farmer field school approach.

The idea was to transform farmers from passive learners to active participants in the learning process. In these schools, farmers are taught to understand their ecosystem. They learn to identify pests and intervene early during the pests’ lifecycle so that they do not reach damaging levels. Most of the preventive measures are not chemical based. We devised and started the ‘non-pesticidal management program’ where we use locally available material like pheromone traps, neem, vitex-kind of local botanicals, etc., to treat infestations.

Learned and experienced farmers become resource people to train other farmers. By 2010 we had spread across the state and reached out to about 20% of the state’s farmers. Pesticide use was brought down by 50% in Andhra Pradesh and pest incidences came down significantly. The only major incidence since 2010 was in 2018 when we observed a predominant pest incidence of Brown planthopper in rice, specifically in the areas where non-pesticide management was not followed.

Farmers speak in local languages and communicate in a particular way, whereas scientists understand and communicate differently. There is always a mismatch between the two, and never had an attempt been made to synchronise them. This program closed the gap between farmers and scientists and showed us that the confidence-building mechanisms for farmers are essential.

A decade ago, agricultural universities were the only source of knowledge, but now farmers are also recognised as sources of knowledge and innovations. I see great potential in knowledge-based extension programs, where farmers are trained to understand their ecosystem, manage it and become resource people for other farmers.

Could you tell us about some other initiatives undertaken by CSA?

We are setting up an incubation centre in farmer cooperatives called Grameen Academy, where youth from villages can learn, innovate and become entrepreneurs themselves. They can also organise and participate in the marketing of their produce. We started a helpline for farmers called Kisan Mitra, which runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Along with the hotline, we also started farmer service centres in villages for addressing their problems and for accessing government support services. We partner with governments in implementing services. We work with district administrators to help farmers obtain credit, insurance and the right prices. We also take farmers’ issues to the government.

We are also trying to bring consumers, farmers and the government on a single platform. At our consumer cooperatives, consumers come together, engage and directly buy from the farmers. We also educate consumers about making the right choices about their food by nutritional counselling. We help consumers grow their vegetables and manage their home wastes. We are also working to bring the consumers and farmers together on public policy issues. All these work falls under the Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) called ‘Sahaja Aharam’.

Another initiative we just began is to map the ecological footprint of food before it reaches the consumers’ plate. Many a time as consumers, we only think about what food does to us but not what it does to our environment. We call this the ‘ecological footprints’ of food, in terms of carbon, water and energy and ecology. We are using action research to educate consumers. Each packet sold at Sahaja Aharam can be traced back to the farmer who produced it, its ecological footprint, and its economic footprint (which indicates the share of each player in the supply chain).

CSA, in partnership with various farmer breeders and farmer cooperatives, has built an open source seed network called ‘ApnaBeej’. ApnaBeej is an institutional system for open access to seeds and attempts to establish a benefit-sharing model. This is in contrast to the current proprietary seed models, which have led to an extensive monoculture of crops and varieties and monopoly of the industry.

Finally, CSA is also working on a cloud-based IT platform ‘eKrishi’ which supports farmers and farmers’ institutions from production to consumption across the supply chain.

In the first part of this interview, Ramanjaneyulu spoke about the agricultural crisis in our country and the pressing need for sustainable agriculture.

He is recognised for his efforts in pioneering non-pesticidal management in agriculture. In this first instalment in a two-part interview, Ramanjaneyulu explains the causes of the agricultural crisis and the need for sustainable agriculture in our country.

How did the agricultural crisis start in India?

If I go to a doctor and tell him that I have a headache, the doctor diagnoses the cause and treats it. But unfortunately, in the past, whenever farmers reported agricultural problems, the scientific community blamed the farmers for their illiteracy and not following the instructions they were given, rather than understanding the problems.

When water levels started getting depleted, pests developed resistance, fertiliser use efficiency decreased and factor productivity went down, mainstream agriculture never responded to the crisis. We became more technology and product-driven. We dismissed taking a scientific approach for problem diagnosis in agriculture creating the crisis.

I can give you several examples. Today, in Telangana, cotton is grown in more than 50% of the crop area, while not even 15% of the land is suitable for cotton. Crop failure is inevitable when a crop that usually grows in black soil with irrigation comes into rainfed areas with shallow red or chalka soils. As a result of farmers growing water-intensive crops, groundwater depleted.

Often, hybrids were turned to as solutions for falling yields or failing crops. But hybrids can only perform in specific growth conditions unlike local varieties, which can withstand the existing conditions and survive better. Glyphosate (herbicide) use in India is increasing significantly even though the World Health Organisation has declared Glyphosate as a known carcinogen. Though recommended only for few crops, it is sold and used all over the country all year round.

I believe mainstream agricultural institutions entered a monoculture of ideas and failed to innovate. They copied solutions from the West and never entered a dialogue to discuss the farmers’ crises. The world has now recognised and moved on to agroecological approaches. But in India, not a single institution talks about it. We don’t innovate; we don’t learn from contemporary innovations.

How have government policies contributed to this crisis?

The government’s functions can be understood from its two roles – (1) investing and incentivising activities or products required for the greater good; and (2) regulating activities which may have negative impacts. However, presently, it has failed in both.

There are no long-term policies on use of natural resources like land/water or biodiversity in our country (these three being primary resources for agriculture). Not many private companies or new technologies were in play when the 1966 Seed Act was passed. Since then, there have been no new regulations for seeds. Much later, the PVPFR (Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act), the Biodiversity Act etc., came into existence giving new rights to farmers and more responsibilities to the government, but these are not accommodated in the regulations. The new seed bill has been pending in the parliament for the last 14 years.

The current crisis in farming is also about farmers’ incomes. 85% of farmers have low incomes (about 5000 Rs/month/family), which have not increased for many decades. There have been talks about moving people out of agriculture in the last 20 years but no sector has provided any gainful employment to people.

As a result of all of these factors - the collapse of public institutions and the failure of the government in meeting the changing needs of farmers and establishing necessary support systems - farmers are caught in crisis.

What changes are necessary within the scientific community and science policy in India to combat the agricultural crisis?

Fixing accountability at various levels and taking an integrated approach towards agriculture, livelihoods and environment is the key. Course curriculums and research priorities have to change. We looked at agriculture-focused projects taken up during the last 20 years, the crop varieties released, and the recommendations made. Among the top 100 projects in terms of financial investment in agricultural institutions, very few stand to succeed and meet the needs of the farmers.

Knowledge about the Intellectual Property law (IPR) and biosafety implications of their work is sorely lacking in the scientific community. Innovations have become technology-oriented rather than designed to solve existing problems of the farmer community. Regulatory failures, illegal cultivation of GM crops and unlawful sale of herbicides/agrochemicals is rampant. All of these have to be mended.

We need to plan and conserve natural resources for agriculture as a long-term plan. We need a land use policy in this country. We need efficiency in our ways of resource use, not just economic but also ecological efficiency.

Coming to economic policies, for a long time, we have been asking for income security for farmers. When I say income security, it’s not guaranteed income or direct income support. It is about ensuring farmers get what is due to them. The government artificially lowers the prices in the market for consumers, to make food cheaper, but does not compensate the farmers. Costs of cultivation and costs of living are high. Regulatory failures further significantly increase tenancy costs and inputs costs for the farmers. To make matters worse farmers do not have access to productive resources and support services. Policy changes should address these issues.

To sum up, policy changes should ensure that we adopt new parameters to assess agricultural productivity and build a new agro-ecological framework and farmer’s income security framework. These two are critical.

What is sustainable agriculture and can you comment on the current scenario of organic farming in India?

Agriculture impacts the environment and the environment impacts agriculture. The more we damage the environment, the more environment damages agriculture. A balance is necessary to be able to sustain agriculture longer. Sustainable agriculture is about renewability of resources, be it water, land or nutrients. Gains of the green revolution were realised only because of the organic matter in the soil built over the preceding years. In 20 years, we exhausted that, and from the 1980s the yields declined and crop failures increased. But we continue to use the same old model of agriculture. It is now essential to restore the organic nutrients of the soil and adopt organic farming.

Organic farming encompasses various strategies like abolishing or reducing the use of synthetic chemicals, growing multiple crops, using cover crops for ground recovery, etc. The organic farming sector is multiplying rapidly in India, registering about 19% growth rate. A massive shift is happening towards organic farming, both in production and consumption.

Across the country now, more than ten states have an organic farming policy in place with clear programs for implementation. States like Sikkim have become entirely organic, and Nagaland is moving in a similar direction. Andhra Pradesh is on a mission to grow completely organic by 2027. Odissa has come up with a policy on organic farming.

However, just like the growth rate of green revolution benefitted only a small section of people- many of who were not the producers, the same is happening with organic agriculture. The growth is not helping the producers, hence not solving the crisis.

So, first, we need to look at how farmers can engage with markets and get a better share of the consumers’ price. Second, the regulatory systems for organic farming were terrible in this country until recently. While improvisations have started, more restrictions now exist for organic farming compared to conventional chemicals-based methods. With larger vested interests entering into the organic sector, problems are cropping up. We are looking at how to resolve these issues with a farmer-centric approach.

Nevertheless, I would say that in ten years, there will be a gradual shift to organic farming. But that shift can be sustained only if supported by proper research, extension and markets. If the public institutions do not wake up to the reality and continue to look at agriculture in the conventional yield and technology-centric way, the crisis will continue. How the agricultural research system gears itself to meet these challenges and adopt an agroecological approach is an important issue.

A common misconception is that organic farming gives lesser yields compared to conventional agriculture. Can you comment on this?

Instead of crop yield as the only factor, we need to look at two parameters - long term sustainability of natural resources and the net income that farmers get. No production system in this world works at maximum production capacity. They are optimised so that the net incomes are met. We have proven, again and again, that just improving yields will not solve farmers’ problems.

Even the calculations of yields are wrong; we don’t add the resulting by-products or the externalities caused or factor-in agroecological effects in the yields. Today, productivity has increased, but it is not gainful. We always compare our yields with American yields, which are different because of their climatic conditions and their soil types. The Swaminathan commission has already concluded that agricultural growth should be measured based on the increase in the income of farmers rather than yields.

Do you have any message for the young research community?

First, India has great potential to become agroecological-approach centric. There is vast scope to expand research in this area rather simply copying something that has been tested and failed. Second, being accountable is essential. As consumers, we are all connected, and we need to connect with those who produce food for us. Like we care for our mother, we should care for our farmers.

In the second part of this interview , Ramanjaneyulu speaks about CSA’s efforts to understand farmers’ crises and make agriculture productive and ecologically sustainable.

Could you tell us more about IndiaBioscience?

IndiaBioscience (IBS) is a program that was created by the Indian scientific community to realize two main goals: to fill a unique niche in the ecosystem of life sciences research in India, and to be a catalyst to promote changes that affect the culture and practice of the field, through engagement with academia, government, and industry at various levels.

IBS aims to increase the visibility of science in society by being a hub for policy discussions and science communication, and as an aggregator of information relevant to the biological science community. IBS has been nurtured within the campus of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, from its inception.

The program sustained its existence with the help of the community over the initial period of its existence. Over the past 5 years, IBS has been majorly funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. We also have a grant from the Indian Government’s Ministry of Human Resource Development.

What activities does IBS undertake to foster a community of scientists, administrators and policy makers?

Our broad mandate is to serve the life science community across India. Some of our activities over the past few years have included mentorship and recruitment programs for exceptional faculty through Young Investigators’ Meetings (YIMs), the creation of useful content in the form of column articles, news pieces, interviews, opinion pieces, etc. on our website, the provision of career resources in the form of a booklet featuring career opportunities in science as well as general career related advice, our podcast titled IndiaBiospeaks, upcoming webinars for students and young professionals (IndiaBiostreams), and facilitation of research collaboration through specific programs.

We have recently begun preliminary efforts towards addressing undergraduate science education in India where we are trying to build a network of educators and connect them with aspiring researchers. We also have a page dedicated to the efforts of educators on our website. We foster a world-class Indian community of scientists, educators, and policy makers through active networking and by making the IBS website a one-stop resource that has some of the best content for the community, not just from India but also abroad.

IBS aims to serve as a bridge between educators and life science researchers. What are their expectations from each other? And how do you aim to bridge this gap?

A cross talk between researchers and educators is necessary for both the communities and that is what we are trying to address by bridging the gap between the two vastly isolated groups. Educators are the ones who teach and have the ability to influence future generations. Therefore, it is very important for them to stay up to date with what is happening in the world of research.

Also, if the educators are aware of the latest research-based methodologies and can teach those concepts to their students at an early stage, this will stimulate the students to become more curious and become true problem solvers rather than simply being rote-learners.

Such cross talks also help educators to grow their network as well as give them access to research instrumentation facilities for their own research as well as their students. Researchers in turn, get to communicate their science to the younger minds and stand to gain from their interactions with curious aspiring researchers early on.

With these aims in mind, we have set up a dedicated discussion forum for educators on the IBS website. The discussion forum is accessible to researchers as well. We invite active educators to our regional YIMs to actively interact with researchers, thus fostering the collaborative spirit. We also want to initiate mentoring and networking meetings for educators, similar to our YIMs.

How do you think the research culture in India has evolved?

The research culture in India is definitely becoming more global. It has become more collaborative in nature as well as more interdisciplinary. People have begun to appreciate the value of sharing, networking, and collaborating. I also see that more and more members of the Indian scientific and research community are in favor of bringing in a more transparent and open culture in science education, communication, and research. There is positivity amongst the next generation of researchers. Younger researchers have also started to realize the importance of outreach and their role towards society.

India has witnessed a major exodus of talent over the years, commonly referred to as the “brain drain.” What are your thoughts on this?

You may have heard of the proverb, “The grass is greener on the other side” So by nature, we are always looking for greener pastures, for better opportunities in life. However, many times we forget that no place on this earth is without issues and challenges.

I feel that one should work in his/her own country trying to address the issues that are pertinent to our country. This will have a larger impact especially because while working in our homeland, we have intimate knowledge of the problems we are trying to address. Of course, exposure to international work culture is very important and the impact this has on shaping researchers’ personalities and skills cannot be negated. But working in one’s own country has its own charm, is exciting and fun, and it provides opportunities to have a bigger and more meaningful impact.

In order to retain the best brains in the country, we urgently need to create an atmosphere where bright young investigators and educators can flourish within the country and mature into independent world-class academics.

India is an important contributor to global research. How can the global visibility of Indian scientists be improved?

To enhance the global visibility of Indian scientists, good quality and impactful science needs to be showcased in a manner that is appreciated not just by domain experts but also a wider audience. We need to be more confident of our own science and we need to take pride in what we are doing. Also, I feel that India has a lot of potential in that it offers a lot of hitherto unexplored research problems, and if Indian researchers start picking up indigenous stories, more buzz can be created around these. What we need is to have confidence and pride in our own assets, be it research problems, home-grown researchers, or Indian journals.

In your experience, what are some of the unique challenges faced by Indian researchers today? Also, what are the areas that they need a lot of support and guidance in?

Through my interactions with a large number of young investigators, I feel that the major challenges faced by Indian researchers are related to funding opportunities, lack of conversations and information exchange between groups working in the same domain, and access to good quality, professionally managed infrastructural facilities.

Bureaucracy is another challenge faced by Indian researchers. Many a times, unavailability of appropriate mentors and adequate and support and encouragement from colleagues also make navigation through the unchartered territories of academia difficult for young investigators.

A robust mentoring program where young researchers get pertinent advice from their mentors would go a long way in equipping them with knowledge of different ways to navigate their paths more effectively and smoothly. For example, when you are starting up your lab you do not know how to move forward, which issue to tackle first and how, what aspects to prioritize, how to deal with students, how to manage grants, where to publish, and so on. Access to a good mentor could go a long way in teaching you how you can find answers to such questions. One of the major objectives of our YIMs is to provide such mentoring to young investigators.

A lot of our readers are early-career researchers who are quite anxious about making the right career choices. It’d be great if you could share some advice for them.

My very first piece of advice would be to follow your heart, and not get influenced by someone else’s dreams and aspirations. For that, you need to understand yourself well, know your skills, values, and interests. Based on this you should research your career options. This will help you stay aligned with your career options.

Also, talk to professionals in different roles – in the roles you are considering – to know and better understand the nuances of each of those career paths. This will help you make an informed career choice and will go a long way in keeping you content and happy. Also, it is very important to build and nurture your own professional network from an early stage.

One comment that I would like to make here is that academia is not the only career path you can explore after your PhD, there are multiple avenues that have opened up where one can flourish and enjoy a happy career. So take the time to, know yourself and your aspirations well and follow your heart. Each career choice should be made after a lot of thought has gone into it. It is important to do this since what matters at the end of everything is your happiness with the career choice you have made.

You completed a PhD, took up an industry career and went on to explore scientific management. What prompted you to change paths?

My interest in biology and need to improve my knowledge and understanding of it nudged me towards pursuing a PhD degree. Towards the end of my program, however, it was clear to me that I would not continue in academia because that was not what I wanted from life. Inner satisfaction from what I do and the resulting happiness have been very important for me from the beginning. Thus, I did not pursue a post-doctoral program, which was (and still is) the norm for most of my peers who obtained a PhD degree.

While I did not know what I would do next, I was clear that I certainly did not want to pursue further research. So I started to explore – I worked in industry for three years and learned a lot from corporate culture. However again, I realized that this was not for me. I needed creative freedom to work. During further exploration, I landed at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) as their Business Development Manager.

It was in this role that I realized where my true interests and passion lie – administration, management, working with different kinds of people, and working in an environment where I know each day would be different. I really enjoyed my stint at C-CAMP. It was new and we had loads to do! I was involved in setting up the facilities and processes, taking the Centre’s mandate to the scientific community across India, and a lot more.

After working for five years at C-CAMP, I moved to a leadership role at IBS, a program that has really fascinated me and I knew that I could contribute in different ways to the life sciences community. This program has given me the independence to work in my own style as well as the opportunity to think and create newer activities as per the needs of our community.

I truly believe that if you are passionate about the work you are doing, it becomes one of the biggest sources of happiness and satisfaction, and I am happy to have found that niche. As I said earlier, what is important is to know yourself well, keep your confidence levels high, and be honest to yourself and your surroundings; you will find your true calling.

What role do you think able leadership plays in determining the culture and evolution of a scientific or an academic institution?

I think leadership is critical. It sets the entire tone of the institute and it sets the level of innovation that the institute is willing to undertake. Leadership is also critical for getting ideas translated into actual practical outcomes. At many different levels, having a good leader can be very determinative of how well an organization does, whether it's a non-profit organization, academic institution or industry.

According to you, what are the key qualities of a leader?

A good leader is not necessarily someone who does things by a dictatorial or top-down manner. A good leader is someone who builds consensus within an institute, who is willing to listen to ideas from other people. A good leader has to make the people in that organization feel excited about working there and feel comfortable with the roles that they bring to the organization. A leader can't do everything on their own. So, a large part of leadership is not just coming up with ideas by oneself, but collecting ideas from the community and figuring out ways of bringing them into action. A leader has to be willing to listen as well as talk, and that's not necessarily a prevalent skill amongst many people.

So, when did you realize that you are on a path that's heading towards leadership?

People view leadership as being the head of something. And of course, that may take quite a while to achieve. I think the more meaningful way to look at leadership is that it can occur at many levels, even for very small projects – that's where leadership begins and where it should begin. So if you are a graduate student and you are organizing a journal club, I would consider that a leadership role. And these roles are very meaningful because a well-functioning organization should nurture many leaders, not just one.

I think I've never considered myself to “be a leader”. When I was younger, I just thought “Well, here's an interesting project. I’d like to do it because I think it would be exciting to do. And it would be fun to bring other people along in this journey.” And so, I think I started out not by aiming to become a leader but by aiming to get some interesting project done. And of course, I would argue now that that was leadership, but I didn't think about it as leadership at the time.

If you are a graduate student and you are organizing a journal club, I would consider that a leadership role.

What would you consider some of your biggest successes as a leader?

There are two kinds of leadership roles I've taken on. Ones which are formal appointments and ones which are informal, emerging bottom-up leadership roles. In many of these latter roles, there was no title, there was no appointment, but were really fun journeys in leadership. The Young Investigators’ Meetings (YIMs) and IndiaBioscience are both examples of this. It's very gratifying to see YIMs today, which were not necessarily intended to be a multi-year project. When we started, it was an experiment. We didn't know how well it was going to work, but it did require leadership to make sure that that first event in 2009 was done as well as it possibly could be, because whether that project would carry on or not depended upon the success of that first meeting.

IndiaBioscience, similarly, was an experiment to see whether one could create a website that would be a way of disseminating information about biology in India and would create a platform for people to interact. At the time, that was a big experiment too. No one knew whether it would be successful or whether people would come. So the goal at the time was just to try to create this platform and make it as good as possible. And now I'm really excited that both these projects have turned into something bigger.

iBiologystarted off as a $2,000 experiment. It began with an idea – can we disseminate scientific information on the web through talks – and it has now become an organization.ASAPbio is another example. It was based on the idea of whether we could try to make publication better serve scientists and whether we could try to advance preprints in the life sciences. Again, the initial goal was to just do the first meeting and test this experiment. But again, because I think the initial planning was really good, it turned into an organization.

So I think these experiences have been the most gratifying to me. They weren't appointments; each of these was just an effort just to create some good for the scientific community, and it's been amazingly gratifying to see these projects actually become really official organizations with people working for them and going in different directions. A very gratifying outcome of leadership is seeing one's effort benefiting other people.

A large part of leadership is not just coming up with ideas by oneself, but collecting ideas from the community and figuring out ways of bringing them into action.

What are some instances where you have faced failure and what have those taught you?

First of all, in science, one has to deal with failure all the time. And perhaps failure sounds like a very harsh word because sometimes we internalize the word ‘failure’ as some failing in ourselves. But the other way to view failure is that it is a consequence of either taking on something ambitious, or even just the nature of science. We simply do not know enough about biology. So when we design experiments or projects, it's very hard to guess exactly how biological organisms work. A lot of our ideas are wrong. A lot of our experiments are not necessarily designed in ways that lead to successful outcomes. So we can’t always expect to succeed – and that's not a personal failure; it's just the nature of the work we're doing.

I think one of the great difficulties that students face coming into science is that many of them are used to succeeding a lot, whether in exams and in classroom learning. And then you come into science and real science doesn't grade on a bell curve. Real science means that you either discover something or you don't. Oftentimes it's a very different mental transition. Some of the best students in science are not necessarily the ones that have done exceedingly well on exams, but those who have a great deal of resilience and are able to work through ‘failure’.

There is also the possibility of ‘failure’ in a leadership role. In most cases, leadership roles don't involve the natural world, but the social world of how to organize people in environments where those individuals produce some kind of successful outcome, and one also has to be ready for failure in these organizational tasks.

If everything you do is successful, you're probably not trying things that are ambitious enough. I think in a leadership role, the critical step to managing failure is to have a strategy about trying a project at a small scale first. If it succeeds, you may then be able to bootstrap it up to a higher level. But some of these early experiments may fail and you have to learn from that too, because you have to decide where to prioritize your energy and resources. I think in some cases, the skills that one learns from science – trying smaller experiments, learning from them, and then developing a bigger research program – is somewhat applicable to leadership positions as well.

If everything you do is successful, you're probably not trying things that are ambitious enough.

As a leader, how important are human relationships to you?

Oh, they are everything! A leadership position is, by definition, working with a group of individuals to motivate them towards some goal. So if that is the purpose, then human relationships are everything in that position. I think there are two components to a leadership position. One is the right idea; if you have the wrong idea, no matter how well you work with other people, it won't be realized. But the other element is that you can have a good idea, but not know how to work with other people. And then that good idea will simply fail. So it has to be a combination of both.

So, how do you keep the people you work with happy?

It's a very hard question. But I would say part of the answer to that question is that you have to make them feel like whatever work they are doing has meaning. People's lives are more than just getting a paycheque and surviving; they want to feel like they're doing something valuable with their time and their lives. So if one can motivate them to see the purpose in their work, I think that's a good way to work with people.

The second element is that one has to understand everyone's personal motivations in an organization. As a leader, everyone is not just working for you, you also have to be working for them. In other words, people have their own careers, their own aspirations, and they want to advance in their lives. I think a good leader has to understand that and part of their role should be about having people feel that the organization is also trying to help them in what they want to achieve. And if there's a good synergy between the two, then it becomes a real win-win situation.

How do you deal with difficult situations or people who are difficult to work with?

Inevitably, when one works, there's a myriad of personalities, some easier to work with and some relatively harder to work with. Part of the way you can work with people who are difficult is to be somewhat disarming. When one tries to be confrontational with people, it creates walls rather than bridges. If you’re so locked into your own point of view that you can’t even listen to another person, it doesn't create an opportunity to try to understand where they may be coming from. So, at a minimum, trying to listen to other people is the first starting point.

Another way is trying to bring people to a higher level of common truth/goal/mission, something that everyone can agree on and use as a starting point. Sometimes people get very confrontational because they're lost in some very small detail. And then these confrontations are really like arguing about a couple of trees in the forest. So one can bring people back a little bit and ask what is the big picture here? What are the things that we can agree on? And then you can use as a starting point for going forward.

As a leader, everyone is not just working for you, you also have to be working for them... People have their own careers, their own aspirations, and they want to advance in their lives. I think a good leader has to understand that.

How did you learn how to be a leader? How should a young person who aspires to be in a leadership role pick up such skills?

Well, that's a great question. Like many things, there's no substitute for experience. And I think taking on small leadership roles early is good. It's the same way that science works. You don't start your first science experiment planning to cure cancer, you start with a smaller project where you learn how to do an experiment, how to get results, how to interpret them, and then you move on to another experiment and so forth. We all have to walk before running and I think that's true in leadership as well.

So one of the messages I really try to get across at the YIM meetings is that young scientists can start thinking of themselves as leaders now at some level. I think there is this misconception that leadership is for old people who are running things. Yes, one day you may get to that high up level where you do want to run something. But running something when you haven't had the skill-building for leadership early becomes a very difficult experience.

One of the key goals of the YIM meetings is to impart this message that young people can make a difference. They can make a difference to their organization; they can make a difference to India as a whole. Young investigators, by definition, are in a leadership position: they have to lead people on their labs. But starting that skill-building when you're a graduate student or postdoc is a very good thing to do and I would encourage people to do it. They may hear other advice from many senior faculty who will say that they should just focus on their experiments, but I think you can simultaneously take on leadership jobs that are small that don't occupy that much of your time. And that is wonderful skill-building for things that you're going to need later.

Leadership may sound like the weight of the world is upon you or that it's going to take a huge amount of your time or that it might be this heavy responsibility. I would like to convey the opposite message - that it can be really fun and it comes with gratification because you've done something that has made other people happy. And it can also come in small, manageable steps that allow you to do these things in the context of whatever busy life you may have.

Young people can make a difference. They can make a difference to their organization; they can make a difference to India as a whole.

To sum up, what do you think is the most important principle of leadership?

Well, in my view, leadership should be more than just something on your CV. I think its ultimate goal should be viewed as creating a common good for other people. In that sense, leadership comes with both responsibility and gratification. It may be seen as a promotion, it may be seen as career advancement, but I think those should be secondary outcomes, not the primary reason why you're taking on that role.