China honours scientists on giant billboards. Ex-CEA wants India to honour its own greats

Former Chief Economic Advisor K V Subramanian on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take inspiration from China and rethink the names given to public spaces across India. He said India should move away from repeatedly using the names of a handful of political leaders for cities, neighbourhoods, airports, stadiums, and institutions.

"Narendra Modi Ji, Let's take inspiration from China," he wrote in a post on Tuesday. "Instead of having the same political names repeated across every city and town - Nehru Nagar, Indira Nagar, Rajiv Gandhi airports, stadiums, institutions, etc. - let us undertake a systematic exercise to identify such names and honour a wide spectrum of Indians who have contributed to India's civilisation and progress."

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From Ramanujan To Kalam

Subramanian suggested that public spaces could instead be named after scientists, scholars, and nation-builders such as Srinivasa Ramanujan, C V Raman, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendra Nath Bose, Homi J Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, A P J Abdul Kalam, and M S Swaminathan.

His list also included Har Gobind Khorana, Salim Ali, Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams, Satish Dhawan, Raja Ramanna, and M Visvesvaraya.

The former CEA said India could also honour saints, philosophers, mathematicians, and intellectuals from its past, including Adi Shankaracharya, Panini, Patanjali, Chanakya, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya, Varahamihira, Kabir, Guru Nanak, Mirabai, Tulsidas, Sant Tukaram, Sant Jnaneshwar, Thiruvalluvar, and Abhinavagupta.

From Tata To Ambani

Subramanian also proposed recognising entrepreneurs and wealth creators. His list included Jamsetji Tata, J R D Tata, G D Birla, Dhirubhai Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Karsanbhai Patel, Verghese Kurien, Ratan Tata, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Dilip Shanghvi, Uday Kotak, and Anand Mahindra.

"These are people whose ideas, discoveries, institutions, and enterprises transformed the lives of millions of Indians," he said.

The noted economist argued that a nation should honour "scientific achievement, scholarship, enterprise, innovation, courage and civilisational contribution".

"We have no shortage of Indians worthy of remembrance," he said. "Perhaps it is time our public spaces reflected the extraordinary breadth of contributions to India - not the repeated dominance of a handful of political names."

China Inspiration

Subramanian's post came after author Ravi Karkara wrote that celebrating scientists, research, and innovation was essential for building a great economy. "We must recognize, support, and celebrate our scientists and researchers - not just nationally, but globally. China is doing this at scale. The rest of the world must take note and do more," Karkara wrote.

Karkara shared a report that said China was putting portraits of scientists on giant city billboards instead of celebrities to inspire young minds.