SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries live in various layers, such as social, cultural, political, religious, scientific, economical, and natural. The bilateral and multilateral sharing, exchange, interaction and communication between these layers can mark a turning point of the process of overall development of the region and role of public communication of science and technology could be crucial and vital in this regard. Though, there exist a variety of programmes and activities for taking science to masses and inculcating a scientific bent of mind into them, generally, it was observed that all these layers are working in isolation and there is hardly any interaction. The present study discovers a range of modes and means of science communication prevalent in these countries and tries to identify some common threads amongst them to make them more interactive and communicative to each other so that they can also share the power of scientific knowledge and scientific wisdom. It emerged that science communication through various media, be it print, broadcast, digital, folk or interactive in developing countries, especially in SAARC region, i. e., Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri-Lanka deserves much more serious efforts to be able to enhance their abysmally low level of scientific literacy, eradicate superstitions, and achieve a baseline public understanding of science. It is the high time to draw advantages from the programmes like Sixth Framework of the European Union especially meant for scientific cooperation (including science communication) between EU and developing countries. A close interaction and communication between these layers would make them more responsive to each other as well as paving the way to develop better understanding and cooperation leading to sustainable development.

SAARC Region  /  science communication  /  regional cooperation  /  science literacy