Science and Technology in Pakistan

Science And Technology In Pakistan

In Pakistan, science and technology served as an important part of national politics, practices, and extreme national identities. From 1960s till the present, both science and technology were immediately linked to the national ideology and practical functioning of Pakistan, notably the Pakistan Armed Forces, while science and technology is a growing and flourishing field in Pakistan. Many scientists, who worked in India and United Kingdom (like, e.g. Razi Siddiqui and Salim Siddiqui), migrated to Pakistan and helped give birth to science in Pakistan. Since its independence from Great Britain in 1947, the newly-found nation of Pakistan has seen a large influx of scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians assuming an active role in its fields of science and technology. Liaquat Ali-Khan (office: 14 August 1947 – 16 October 1951), the first Prime minister, invited hundreds of scientists from India and made various reforms to initiate improvement in higher education and scientific research.

Marked by highly developed pure sciences and innovation at theoretical level, interpretation and application fell short. Physics (theoretical, nuclear, particle, laser, and Quantum physics), Material science, Metallurgy (Engineering), Biology, Chemistry (Organic), and Mathematics, are the fields in which Pakistan citizens excelled. During the 1960s till the present, the Pakistan government made the development and advancement of science a national priority and showered top scientists with honours. With the government making efforts to make science a part of national politics, there are several examples of budget cuts in the science funds where corruption remains a vital part of Pakistan politics. In the most notorious case, the government dissolved the Higher Education Commission — an administrative body that supervised research in science — in 2011. Mega science projects such as Black-Garden Dam, Thar Coal programme, and the Reko Dique gold mine programme were severely undermined by the political forces in Pakistan which contributed to the halt of scientific research in the country.

Pakistani scientists won acclaim in several fields. They were at the cutting edge of science in fields such as mathematics and in several branches of physical science, notably theoretical and nuclear physics, chemistry, and astronomy. Professor Abdus Salam, a theoretical physicist, was the first and the only Pakistan citizen to have won the prestigious Nobel Prize in 1979. Furthermore, technology is mostly high developed in the fields of nuclear physics and explosives engineering, where the arms race with the India convinced policy makers to set aside sufficient resources for research. Due to a crash programme directed by Munir Ahmad Khan and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Pakistan is the seventh nation to have developed an atomic bomb, which the global intelligence community believes it had done in 1983 (see Kirana-I), nine years after the India (see Pokhran-I). Pakistan first publicly tested its devices (see Chagai-I and Chagai-II) on 28 and 30 May 1998, a mere two weeks after the Republic of India carried out its own tests(See Pokhran-II). Space exploration was hastily developed in 1990 Pakistan launched Badr-I followed by Badr-II in 2001. Since the 1980s, the space programme dedicated itself to military technologies (Space weapons programme and Integrated missile systems), and maintains a strong programme developed for military applications.