Unveiling a new science, technology and innovation policy for India at the landmark 100th session of the Indian Science Congress in Kolkata in January 2013, the then prime minister Manmohan Singh pitched to make India one among five global scientific powers by 2020. For this, among other things, India needs to increase its share in global scientific publications from 3.5 per cent in 2013 to 7 per cent by 2020, he said.

Today, India ranks third in scientific publication output, after China and the US. According to the recently published science and engineering indicators, brought out by US’ National Science Foundation, India ranked third in the number of scientific publications by 2016, with Indian scientists accounting for 4.8 per cent of research publications worldwide. It is a terrific achievement considering that the country’s share was a lowly 2 per cent till the mid-1990s.

From spreading wings in space and beyond, to tinkering with DNA in a biology lab, smashing atoms in nuclear reactors, producing electricity and medically-relevant isotopes, being an integral part of global mega science experiments and rubbing shoulders with the best in the world, Indian scientists have done it all. India’s rockets are as good as any other country’s, and it has an impressive constellation of satellites in orbit. Today, India is not just known for its space programme, but also its contribution to software development, pharmaceutical research, biotechnology and nanotechnology.

“The success of India’s space missions stands out as an example of good science and technology. I am not sure if we had comparably remarkable successes in basic sciences, although many researchers in the country have made significant contributions in their own fields,” says Subhash Chandra Lakhotia, a distinguished professor at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, known for his work on fruit flies.

As Lakhotia mentions, there have been individual scientists who stood out in their respective sphere of research, but they were blips on the radar. India’s lag in consistent performance is reflected in its Global Innovation Index ranking. In 2018, it was ranked 57, whereas China stood at 17. It’s another matter that India made a significant leap in a short span of time — from 76th position in 2014 to 57th four years later. One reason for this tardy progress is the government’s reluctance to substantially increase funds allocated for higher education and scientific research. Many governments have promised to increase funding for research and development to 2 per cent of the GDP, but it has dipped in recent years and now languishes at around 0.7 per cent of the GDP.

According to Ajay Sood, President of Indian National Science Academy and professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in the last 25 years, there has been tremendous improvement in quality and quantity of India’s basic science output. “Today, India is an important partner in all major international projects, in astrophysics, particle physics, genomics, and human and other biological diversity. This is a major achievement and, in the coming decades, we will see further strengthening of science and technology, thus helping not only the Indian community, but the world at large, given our demography,” he says. At the same time, he rues that the country is not spending enough to strengthen its school and university education systems.

“One of our major achievements has been the expansion of the science and technology innovation landscape in the country,” says LS Shashidhara, dean of biological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. On the whole, there has been an improvement in the quality of education in science and technology, with research and innovation becoming buzzwords in classrooms and laboratories. Institutions of higher learning have come up even in tier-II and tier-III cities and towns, making it possible to take full advantage of the Indian demography, he adds. The flip side of this expansion is that it was too rapid, leading to too many unplanned, not well strategised policy decisions, and mushrooming of professional colleges and universities. “The quality of education is not as high as we could have achieved. Quality should have been the focus while expanding,” Shashidhara says.

Lakhotia, too, has a long list of things that India should be doing to set its science and technology scene right. According to him, it should have developed better strategies to curtail excessive brain-drain. “We need to retain and nurture our best brains to let them blossom into independent academicians, rather than feeling proud about their achievements as non-resident Indians,” he says.

While an emphasis on applied research and innovative ideas is certainly desirable, it should not be at the cost of good basic research. The current environment appears to be less supportive of basic research, even at universities. This will have damaging consequences in the long term, warns Lakhotia. An area Lakhotia is interested in seeing some action is Ayurvedic biology, in which some work commenced a decade ago. There is a need to understand, in an unbiased manner, the science that may underlie the age-old practices and formulations used in Ayurveda, so that myths and fallacies can be dissected from facts.

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