Sustained economic progress which can satisfy national ambition is invariably fuelled by scientific advances translated into deployable technologies. This has been the inevitable global experience since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Alive to this reality, the government is overhauling India’s science establishment, which includes setting up the new National Research Foundation (NRF) and restructuring the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). In this scenario, a frank assessment of the current administrative ability to simultaneously optimise Indian science’s efficiency and resilience is necessary.
India’s low overall expenditure on research and development (around 0.7% of GDP, compared to 3.5% for the United States and 2.4% for China) is but one aspect constraining its scientific outcomes. Considering such low expenditure, it is pivotal to allocate money wisely and focus on high-impact projects.
Unfortunately, the scientific administration has failed to do justice to the task at hand. Even the vaunted space programme is witnessing narrowing leads. In 2022, the Indian Space Research Organisation stood a distant eighth on launch numbers, with foreign startups racing ahead on key technologies such as reusable rockets. Likewise, the lead in nuclear energy has been frittered away, being latecomers to small modular reactors; thorium ambitions remain unrealised. On critical science and technology themes such as genomics, robotics, and artificial intelligence, the situation is even more alarming. The direction and organisation of science is inconsistent, even unfit, for the vital role which science must play going ahead.
