The following article is a speech by R. Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the government of India, delivered at the inaugural session of the 13th Annual General Meeting of the Materials Research Society-India (MRS-I) at Hyderabad on February 7, 2002. Slight modifications and an update were provided by the author. This article is reprinted with permission from the MRS-I Newsletter, Volume B 02, Number 2, April 2002.