India is the fifth largest economy in the world. The world is beginning to see many positive dimensions of this change taking place in the country. The prestigious journal Nature has said that along with economics, India is also set to become a major force in the field of science. For example, last year, India became the first country to successfully land on the South Pole of the Moon and the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon.
Nature believes that India’s success in the field of science becomes even more special because it is currently spending less than one percent of its GDP on research and development. “If the private sector also increases its contribution to research and development, the day is not far when India will shine on the global stage as a superpower of science,” the journal said.
“As an economic powerhouse, India is poised to take a giant leap towards becoming a major force in science,” the prestigious British weekly said in an editorial.In 2021-22, according to government data, India had the world’s third-largest pharma industry. India is a leading supplier of affordable and generic medicines. Some of these medicines were very important in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic in the world. The journal says India is one of the leading countries, after the US and China, where most research is being done.
The number of universities in India has increased from 760 to 1,113 in the period 2014-2021. Seven more IITs have been established in the second decade of the 21st century. With this, the number of ITIs in the country has increased to 23. Two new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research have also been set up in the same period. These successes have been achieved by a country that spent only 0.64 per cent of its GDP on research and development in 2020-2021.
While 60 per cent of India’s research spending comes from the central and state governments and universities, about 40 per cent is contributed by the private sector. In other countries, private sector spending on research is much higher. In 2022, the private sector accounted for 66% of spending on research in EU countries. Today, there are many global companies in the IT, manufacturing and pharma sectors in India.
