India is ready – more than ever – to take next steps towards becoming a science powerhouse, according to an editorial published in an international journal. | Image:Republic Digital

New Delhi: As the first phase of polling in India got underway to elect the new members of the Parliament in what is, by far, the biggest and the longest-ever election being conducted in the world’s largest democracy, the country is not only set to become an economic superpower in the coming years, but it is also ready – more than ever – to take the next steps towards becoming a science powerhouse, according to an editorial published recently in an international journal.

The editorial – ‘How India can become a science powerhouse’ – published in the Nature Magazine on April 18, 2024 sees India as a nation that has an opportunity “to reimagine science funding”.

Stressing that a “thriving research system needs much greater autonomy”, the Science magazine cited researchers lamenting over “basic research” being “neglected by successive governments”.

“One thing India’s government can do is to boost science spending by encouraging businesses to contribute more, as is the case for other leading economies”, the editorial suggests as it dives right into a leading question: how to bridge the funding gap. 

In the light of recent projections estimating that India is set to become the third-largest economy by the end of the decade, the Nature asserts that “there is, indeed, much to build on”.  

“If policymakers and industrialists can get this right, an opportunity to put rocket boosters under the country’s impressive scientific achievements is there for the taking”, the editorial carried in the weekly journal states.

Further in the article, the journal’s editorial team cites government data to highlight how India had, between 2021 and 2022, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical industry by volume and was the leading supplier of affordable medicines and generic drugs, as it hail’s the country’s “crucial” contribution in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. 

Under the Modi government’s flagship initiative of ‘Vaccine Maitri’, India began sending vaccine aid to countries around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by the end of March, approximately 66 million doses of homegrown Covishield and Covaxin had been dispatched to 95 countries in form of gifts, commercial agreements and under COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX).

Underlining that India became the first-country-ever to land near the lunar south pole and only the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, the editorial in ‘Nature’ also noted India’s position as a host to the “world’s largest constellation of remote-sensing satellites”.

India made history in August 2023 when the Vikram lander from its Moon mission [Chandrayaan-3] successfully touched down as planned, thereby making ‘Bharat’ the first country ever to land in the lunar south pole region, and subsequently joining the elite club of countries to have achieved a soft landing on the Moon.

Notably, the feat that garnered immense praise from space agencies and world leaders alike, came just three days after a failed attempt by Russia’s Luna-25 mission.

Furthermore, the editorial praised India’s research output, even as it urged the future governments to consider increasing the country’s R&D spending. “India is among the world’s most prolific countries in terms of research output, after the United States and China. Whichever political group is elected, it must consider how to increase the country’s R&D spending, as well as what could be achieved with more money”, the editorial stated.

The editorial, while drawing comparisons between India’s science spending and that of similar-sized economies, further underlined how the country stands out. “Around 60 percent of India’s research spending can be traced to central and state governments and universities, and around 40 percent to the private sector. In comparable nations, there is often much more private-sector funding”, the Science magazine editorial said.

The editorial also acknowledged that India today has many global companies in construction, information technology, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals, as it asserted, “They could be contributing a lot more to the nation’s research — both in terms of funding researchers and also infrastructure”.

‘Nature’ – part of Springer Nature – is the leading international weekly journal of science which was first published in 1869.