New Delhi: An Indian-American scientist, academic and entrepreneur hired to work with the 67-year-old Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has written to the Prime Minister saying he was fired from his job for criticizing the leadership of India’s largest scientific organization.
“(CSIR) is attempting to remove me (in) reaction to my addressing well-known, intrinsic leadership issues during the course of my professional duties to serve the cause of Indian science and innovation,” said Shiva Ayyadurai in a 30 October letter, a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times.
Ayyadurai, 45, holds four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and has created multiple companies over the course of his career, including one of the world’s earliest email systems. He’s won some of the US’ top awards for innovators.
Samir Brahmachari, director general of CSIR, said Ayyadurai’s services were terminated because he was a “financial mismatch”. “He was demanding too much salary,” said Brahmachari. “Everyone told me I was pampering him because he came from abroad.”
In June, Ayyadurai was in India on a Fulbright scholarship when Brahmachari invited him to join the organization under the Scientist and Technologist of Indian Origin (STIO) programme. Launched by CSIR in 2008, STIO encourages partnerships between Indian scientific organizations and scientists of Indian origin based abroad. Ayyadurai’s offer was withdrawn on 26 October.
Leadership questions: CSIR director general Samir Brahmachari
Under CSIR’s guidelines for the STIO programme, the salary ranges from Rs37,400 to Rs67,000. Ayyadurai did not sign the original offer but replied asking for more money, said K. Jayakumar, joint secretary for administration at CSIR, whose office issued the official offer and the withdrawal letter.
“These Indian-Americans who come back, are they here to help us or exploit us?” said Brahmachari.
A former professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Brahmachari won praise for promoting the cause of open-source drug discovery, which has the potential to provide low-cost medication to India’s poor. He said he was “not concerned” about criticism levelled against him in Ayyadurai’s report.
According to an original handwritten job description, Ayyadurai was to create a structure for CSIR-Tech, a firm that would work with CSIR scientists to spin off their inventions into money-making products.
CSIR-Tech is one of Brahmachari’s projects. Early in 2009, he had proposed a company similar to CSIR-Tech to government leaders, and a draft proposal for it was approved by the Prime Minister on 29 October.