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Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Indian-born Nobel Laureate, expressed his disapproval over a participant's claim in the Indian Science Congress last year in Mumbai that an airplane was invented 2,000 years ago by a sage. "The idea that Indians had airplanes sounds almost essentially impossible to me. I don't believe it. The point is that if that technology was produced in a method that anybody can replicate, then it becomes science," he was quoted by a newspaper. Venkatraman was born in Tamil Nadu and is a structural biologist at the Cambridge University. He was given a Nobel Prize in 2009, reported Nyoooz.com

This year, Indian Science Congress accepted a paper by Akhilesh K Pandey, chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Private University Regulatory Commission in Bhopal, that calls Lord Shiva the greatest environmentalist in the world. The paper has sparked a controversy that once again, a science only forum has brought mythology into its domain. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, nuclear physicist, writer and television personality, who is in the city to attend the Hyderabad Literary Festival, commenting on the ISC controversy, said, "All major civilizations tend to exaggerate their achievements. Christianity until a few hundred years ago had been at loggerheads with science and many men of science and letters were executed because they came up with ideas supported by scientific proof that contradicted the position of the Church." According to Hoodbhoy, the biggest reasons why there is backwardness in Muslim communities in several countries is because of their inability to accept science for what it is.

It is believed that the only way Muslims or any other backward community can produce good scientists is by making an environment of critical thinking available at the school level. The atmosphere should not have a fear of domination or apprehension enforced by religious or political bodies, said Times of India