Quite apart from these, several regions and nations of the South have had an earlier history of practising and propagating high level, and sometimes abstract, science. He was the first person to measure the size of a planet. He was not a freak example, but the product of a tradition of scholarship in science. These have been backstaged for some time in the passage of time, ready for revival. Science, it has been said, is required as a language and as part of the culture of the South.
Science is also the currency that is used everywhere in the hierarchy of nations.
It is against this backdrop that a case and a plan for supporting the development, indeed the revival and rejuvenation, of science and technology in the South is made. Such an effort will benefit these countries in solving their real life problems, and benefit their efforts at wealth generation. In order for these countries to be counted as players in the march of progress towards the new millennium, they must have minimum, nay, optimum competence in science. There is a sense of urgency about this matter. In the years to come the role of science in development will be even more substantial.