Science panic in India

Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro are getting bigger and bigger, and Indian pharma companies like Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy’s are expanding in the West. But not everybody in India is buying the hype that success stories like these are paving the way for the country’s inevitable rise as an economic and scientific power. I wrote recently on the BW Asiatech blog about a report showing that India’s scientists lag far behind those of China in publishing papers.

There’s no shortage of Indian experts sounding the alarm. Consider this story from the Times of India last month, “Science is on its deathbed.” That dire diagnosis is from the Prime Minister’s own science advisor, CNR Rao, who warned his boss, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that “Indian science will be finished in the next five years. Our universities have dried up.” Vipul Mudgal, writing in the Hindustan Times, argues that “India’s science policy is falling apart just when its software prowess is being recognised and made-in-India cars are being exported to the West.”