Send 10k PhD students each year to US: Narayana Murthy

Bengaluru, Jan 30: Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy has said India and the US should work on an agreement to send 10,000 Indian students to the US to do their PhDs in important areas in STEM (science, technology,

engineering and math) education, every year over the next 50 years. This, he said, would cost the government approximately $5 billion a year - a small sum considering the benefits it would have in terms of creating lots of innovative solutions that can solve problems across sectors in India.

The agreement, he said, should make it clear that the students would not be given employment in the US once they finish their PhDs and they would have to come back to India and serve here for at least 10 years.

"The US will also benefit from this arrangement. There will be a large number of Indian students working on problems that will add value to US academicians," he said. He also suggested that India issue 10-year multiple-entry visas every year to hundreds of thousands of graduate students from the US. Speaking at the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce Conclave 2020 on Friday in Bengaluru, he said one of the offshoots of this strategy is greater collaboration between the Indian and US academia in developing solutions in emerging areas like the internet of things (IoT), where devices would be talking to each other and talking to your phone. "India has to become a partner in adding value to the US companies by developing advanced software in IoT not just for US companies, but the customers of US companies. This requires us to train our youngsters in adaptive control and handling analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog framework and digital devices. They have to be taught how to write and optimize code since the response time is critical in these applications," he said.Murthy also said one of the areas neglected is opening India to foreign universities. "Even though former PM Manmohan Singh wanted to open India to foreign universities, for some reason, we have not made progress. But it's important that we immediately take steps towards this if we want our grand-children and their children to be in an India which is economically strong," he said.

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Average age of school children picking up drugs, smoking habit in 10 Indian cities around 13 years!

News Network

December 13,2025

New Delhi: School-going children are picking up drug and smoking habits and engaging in consumption of alcohol, with the average age of introduction to such harmful substances found to be around 13 years, suggesting a need for earlier interventions as early as primary school, a multi-city survey by AIIMS-Delhi said.

The findings also showed substance use increased in higher grades, with grade XI/XII students two times more likely to report use of substances when compared with grade VIII students. This emphasised the importance of continued prevention and intervention through middle and high school.

The study led by Dr Anju Dhawan of AIIMS's National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, published in the National Medical Journal of India this month, looks at adolescent substance use across diverse regions.

The survey included 5,920 students from classes 8, 9, 11 and 12 in urban government, private and rural schools across 10 cities -- Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dibrugarh, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jammu, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Ranchi. The data were collected between May 2018 and June 2019.

The average age of initiation for any substance was 12.9 (2.8) years. It was lowest for inhalants (11.3 years) followed by heroin (12.3 years) and opioid pharmaceuticals (without prescription; 12.5 years).

Overall, 15.1 per cent of participants reported lifetime use, 10.3 per cent reported past year use, and 7.2 per cent reported use in the past month of any substance, the study found.

The most common substances used in the past year, after tobacco (4 per cent) and alcohol (3.8 per cent), were opioids (2.8 per cent), followed by cannabis (2 per cent) and inhalants (1.9 per cent). Use of non-prescribed pharmaceutical opioids was most common among opioid users (90.2 per cent).

On being asked, 'Do you think this substance is easily available for a person of your age' separately for each substance category, nearly half the students (46.3 per cent) endorsed that tobacco products and more than one-third of the students (36.5 per cent) agreed that a person of their age can easily procure alcohol products.

Similarly, for Bhang (21.9 per cent), ganja/charas (16.1 per cent), inhalants (15.2 per cent), sedatives (13.7 per cent), opium and heroin (10 per cent each), the students endorsed that these can be easily procured.

About 95 per cent of the children, irrespective of their grade, agreed with the statement that 'drug use is harmful'.

The rates of substance use (any) among boys were significantly higher than those of girls for substance use (ever), use in the past year and use in the past 30 days. Compared to grade VIII students, grade IX students were more likely, and grade XI/XII students were twice as likely to have used any substance (ever).

The likelihood of past-year use of any substance was also higher for grade IX students and for grade XI/XII students as compared to grade VIII students.

About 40 per cent of students mentioned that they had a family member who used tobacco or alcohol each. The use of cannabis (any product) and opioid (any product) by a family member was reported by 8.2 per cent and 3.9 per cent of students, respectively, while the use of other substances, such as inhalants/sedatives by family was 2-3 per cent, the study found.

A relatively smaller percentage of students reported use of tobacco or alcohol among peers as compared to among family members, while a higher percentage reported inhalants, sedatives, cannabis or opioid use among peers.

Children using substances (past year) compared to non-users reported significantly higher any substance use by their family members and peers.

There were 25.7 per cent students who replied 'yes' to the question 'conflicts/fights often occur in your family'. Most students also replied affirmatively to 'family members are aware of how their time is being spent' and 'damily members are aware of with whom they spend their time'.

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