In a special series, on this Independence Day, NDTV spoke to Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, Bangalore who is one of India's foremost scientists who has been studying the genetic information of coronavirus, catching mutations and warning about variants. 60-year-old Dr Mishra was formerly the director of the Council Of Scientific And Industrial Research-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB) and a member of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Sequencing Consortia (INSACOG). Celebrating the role of science in the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Mishra said that every top institution in the county is really seriously involved in Covid research and various other services that are required for handling the Covid situation like testing, surveillance, modelling, trying for the new drugs, repurposing the drugs among other things.