Nobel laureate Richard R. Ernst says Indian scientists are a "bright lot" but need to work more on "team work" and with discipline.

Ernst, awarded the 1991 Nobel prize for chemistry, also emphasises that "science without conscience ruins the soul".

The Swiss scientist, on a visit here, told "Indians are a bright lot, but what they need to practise more is team work. Perhaps they are also not as obedient and disciplined as one ought to be while pursuing science."

According to him, "what is needed most in a scientist is a passion to do and to achieve."

Referring to nuclear magnetic resonance - an area of his expertise - the 72-year-old scientist points out: "The day is not far when this technology would be able to tell you whether your child would become a scientist or a musician or something else - and that too before he is born."

Modest to the core, Ernst turns quite emotional as he remarks: "I still feel bad for other members in my team who were equally deserving to share the award. They will always remain more important to me than the award."

He even confesses that he was not the first one to have achieved what got him the Nobel prize.

"There was a Russian professor who had done extensive research on the same lines as I did, but his only handicap was that his work in Russian remained unnoticed by the Nobel jury," he says.

"Well, if his work had been taken note of, then you would be talking to him instead of me here today," he quips.

Recalling the Nobel award ceremony, he says, "I must confess I was so overwhelmed by the queen of Sweden that I did not wish to leave her hand after the handshake at the award giving ceremony."

What chemistry the handshake had churned, Ernst says, he does not know. "But even in the photograph one could see that I am gripping her hand quite firmly, and I can still recall how both the Swedish King and my wife were eyeing me at that moment," he recalls with a nostalgic laugh.