Kakoli Mukherjee By Express News Service HYDERABAD: “Should we still be quoting Albert Einstein when it is said that his first wife, a physicist, contributed a lot to his work, but never got the credit?” This was a question raised by a woman scientist at a conference, which saw the best brains from various academic institutions and research institutes in the country. On the second day of the national conference on Women Led Science, Technology and Innovation at ICMR-NIN at Tarnaka, speakers not only discussed climate change, space technology and genome mapping, but also about the measures that can be taken to reduce gender gap in Mathematical, Computing and Natural Sciences disciplines. Dr CB Lakshmi, who is the co-convenor of the conference and was heading the R&D department in CSIR-IICT, said: “There were 11 women studying chemical engineering in my batch in Osmania" University.People from other streams used to come and see us as they had never seen so many women in that particular discipline. This was 1974. But it saddens me to say that gender discrimination still exists in our workplaces. When I was being considered to head the R&D department, I faced stiff opposition on account of being a woman. I still hear such tales of bias from many prestigious institutions in science.” Dr B Saha, director – R&D at NACL Industries and bureau member of IUPAC, said that in a global study, it was found that gender gap persists across all disciplines, geographic regions, levels of development and employment sectors. This study, in which premier science bodies like International Mathematical Union, IUPAC, IUPAP and International Union of Biological Sciences, were involved, was conducted over a period of two years. As part of the project, 30,265 response were received from 159 countries. A few of the recommendations to reduce the gap were engaging families and communities to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career choices among girls, mentoring by experienced STEM professionals, promoting workshops that develop women’s confidence and other skills (leadership, communication, and critical thinking), increasing the number of nominations of women in scientific committees and awards, and giving preference to women between two candidates at equal level competing for the same position. Governemnt best practices In a scheme on ‘Intellectual Property Rights’, introduced by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, women are encouraged to work from their homes, enabling them to draw a good balance between professional and domestic demands. There is another scheme too which aims to bridge the career break that women face in view of family responsibilities.

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