The International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development: The Role of Physicists

The year 2022 has been proclaimed as the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development. This is an extra-ordinary opportunity for the global scientific community to (a) come together to debate the role of science in everyday life, and (b) look inwards to reflect upon the various challenges such as the societal science deficit in many cultures, the various pitfalls in the paths that science has taken,  the gross  inequities in access to the fruits of science, and the inequities within the practice of science itself. While the physics discipline has had a long history of addressing these challenges and questions,  the IYBSSD provides an opportunity to consolidate a renewed set of principles to shape physics practice in relationship to other disciplines of science with insights from the social sciences, and to chart mechanisms to take the goals of the IYBSSD forward. which  will be discussed.