Compare the life styles and the level of scientific and technical know how of sixteenth century Europe and sixteenth century India. What are the reasons that keep India lagging behind the western countries in almost all areas related to development?

In science, this period from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century includes ;he first great triumphs of the new observational, experimental approach. This new approa n together with'the development in science and technology during tne Renaissance, amounted to a "Scientific Revolution". Technically, this period was of steady advance without any revolutionary inventions. The increasing demand for iron led to development of new blast furnaces. The shortage of wood for iron-smelting led to widespread use of coal. From then on. the centre of industry was to move towards the coal fields. With time, the demand for limited resources increased, forcing the search for new resources and techniques. Thisalso altered the attitudes towards change and novelty, which could not be shunned anymore. You may recall that in the regimented feudal society, new ideas and change were resisted It was in this atmosphere that European science grew to maturity, The first institute for teaching science, the Gresham College, was opened in England in 1579. As we have already seen, the revolQionary Copernican model of the solar system helped in improving astronomical tables, What the theory lacked was an accurate description of the orbits of the planets. Let us now see what the few scientific developments An interesting feature in the early phase of this period was that colonial scientists would try their hand at several fields simultaneously and each scientist was, in fact, a botanist, geologist, geographer and educator-all rolled into one. As data-gatherers, the individual scientists were efficient. However, for analysis and drawing conclusions, they had to depend upon the scientific institutions in Britain, which received such data from many colonies. It was followed by Agricultural-Horticultural Society of India (1817), Calcutta Medical & Physical Society (1 823), Madras Literary and Scientific Society (1818), and the Bombay Branch of the Asiatic Society (1829). These societies rendered invaluable service, particularly through their journals which compared very favourably with the European ones.