The Lift Line
“The bus we need to board is the next one, and it has not yet left.”
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
This op-ed in The Hindu of 7 October 2026 is by K. VijayRaghavan, former Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, who chairs Ashoka University’s Science Advisory Council, and Archish Mittal, Vice-President at the investment firm Iron Pillar. One has run India’s science advisory system; the other invests in technology companies. Together they argue that India’s habit of measuring itself against technologies others built decades ago, “catch-up-itis”, is now the bigger risk.
For background, it fits a run of science-policy stories we have covered: the Prime Minister Research Chair scheme and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) in a 5 September deep dive, the pause in selections under the Rs 1 lakh crore RDI Fund in the 30 September roundup, and this week’s Nobel Prizes, the Physics prize for IceCube among them, which are a reminder of how long the road from curiosity to impact can be.
GS Paper 3: Science and technology, developments and their applications; indigenisation of technology and developing new technology. GS Paper 2: Issues relating to education and human resources; government policies and interventions.
Background and Context
The authors’ two definitions
| Term | What they mean |
|---|---|
| Science | Discovery, curiosity, the effort to explain the universe, and abstract ideas in mathematics |
| Technology | The development of tools that let humans transform the world |
| Old relationship | Separate enterprises; technology followed science at a distance, sometimes by a century |
| New relationship | Over the past 50 years or so, research and application “sewn together at the hip” |
India’s research architecture today
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| ANRF | Anusandhan National Research Foundation, set up under the ANRF Act, 2023; replaced the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB); Governing Board chaired by the Prime Minister |
| ANRF funding | Rs 50,000 crore over 2023-28, of which Rs 14,000 crore is the central-government share |
| RDI Fund | Rs 1 lakh crore over six years, mostly long-term, low-cost loans for private R&D; selections paused in September 2026 for want of funds for a second round |
| R&D spending | India’s gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) is about 0.6 to 0.7 per cent of GDP |
| General Financial Rules | The Finance Ministry’s rules governing how public money is spent and procured; they bind publicly funded labs and institutes |
| Clinical trials | Regulated under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, by the CDSCO |
The Analysis
1. The value and the danger of catching up. People fret about the “buses India has missed”: aircraft, advanced weapons, new materials and biotechnology. The authors grant the value of this introspection: it forces the question of whether India’s systems can be streamlined. Catching up is not bad in itself; “much of the world’s industrial history is a history of catching up”. The danger is that it becomes a habit. If ambition is always defined by what someone else has done, India will always arrive late, pay for licences and know-how, and build on foundations laid elsewhere, and those costs recur with every new technological wave.
2. Science and technology have fused. The authors’ central claim is about a “tectonic change”. For most of history, technology followed science at a distance. Now, the distance and time from curiosity to application are short. Two examples:
| Curiosity | Application |
|---|---|
| Studying viruses that infect bacteria | Much of our understanding of how genes are regulated |
| Studying how bacteria defend themselves | CRISPR gene-editing technology, “within just a few years” |
The implication: investing in fundamental research is now the route to leading, not a luxury. “The bus we need to board is the next one, and it has not yet left.”
3. Fix one: education at scale, and “foundries”. AI tools that democratise access to learning can reach millions of students “poorly served by our moribund institutions”, and bypass those institutions where necessary. But “learning science requires doing science”. The authors call for hundreds of experimental “foundries” in engineering, physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics, places where young people work with real instruments on real problems.
4. Fix two: open the national laboratories. Most national labs are poorly accessible to researchers, students and companies outside their walls. The authors propose that every lab be organised into three zones:
| Zone | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Green | Open interaction |
| Amber | Collaboration |
| Red | Strategic work |
Most of what India’s labs do, they argue, belongs in the green and amber zones. Opening them would benefit both the labs and the universities.
5. Fix three: flexibility, earned by compliance. The authors engage with the trust problem directly. Many say India is a low-trust society and that regulators should trust researchers more. The counter is that trust is low because compliance has been poor, which is why rules are onerous. Their answer: India has many “islands of excellence” in universities, institutes and labs that do comply. These should be freed from the weight of General Financial Rules (GFR) compliance, “a weight few other countries place on their scientists”. Accountability should be measured by outcomes, not by procedure at every step.
6. Fix four: faster, predictable regulation. Approvals for research with biological materials and for clinical trials “remain slow and unpredictable”. Every extra hoop favours those with deep pockets, who can afford the time and cost, and shuts out small and medium-sized institutions. High-quality, speedy regulation is therefore a competitiveness issue.
7. The arithmetic of steady improvement. “None of this is beyond us.” Pockets of excellence already exist; what is missing is “the decision to make those pockets the norm”. The closing calculation: improve 10 per cent a year in every sector and field, and India will be nearly seven times better in 20 years (1.1 to the power of 20 is about 6.7).
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
Research institutions:
- ANRF: established under the ANRF Act, 2023; replaced SERB; Governing Board chaired by the Prime Minister.
- ANRF funding: Rs 50,000 crore over 2023-28; Rs 14,000 crore from the Centre.
- RDI Fund: Rs 1 lakh crore over six years, mainly long-term, low-cost loans for private R&D; the Technology Development Board (TDB) is the first agency selecting firms.
- India’s GERD: about 0.6 to 0.7 per cent of GDP.
Rules and regulators:
- General Financial Rules (GFR), 2017: issued by the Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure).
- New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019: regulator is the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), headed by the Drugs Controller General of India.
- Research with genetically engineered organisms is reviewed by the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) under the Department of Biotechnology.
- Environmental release is appraised by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) under the Environment Ministry.
- Both work under rules framed in 1989 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
Science concepts:
- CRISPR-Cas9: a gene-editing tool adapted from a bacterial immune defence against viruses; Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.
- Bacteriophage: a virus that infects bacteria.
⚠️ Watch the trap: ANRF replaced SERB, not the Department of Science and Technology, which continues to exist. The GEAC sits under the Environment Ministry, while the RCGM sits under the Department of Biotechnology: do not swap them.
The Debate
For the authors’ view. Catch-up is expensive and permanent: each wave of technology brings new licences and fees. When discovery turns into application within a few years, countries that do the discovery capture the value. India’s talent base, its digital public infrastructure and AI-enabled learning give it a chance to leapfrog rather than follow, provided institutions are allowed to move fast.
The other side. Freeing institutions from financial rules invites misuse, and the authors themselves concede that poor compliance created the rules. Fundamental research pays off over decades and unevenly; with GERD under 1 per cent of GDP, India may need to concentrate scarce money on proven strategic gaps such as jet engines and semiconductors, where catching up is unavoidable. Opening national labs also raises security concerns for dual-use work, which is why the “red zone” matters.
The balanced verdict. Catch-up and frontier research are complements. India will still need to close strategic gaps, but it should not let those gaps define its ambition. The authors’ reforms are incremental and conditional: autonomy for institutions with a compliance record, outcome-based audits rather than none, and zones that protect strategic work. That makes them practical, not utopian.
How to Think About This
Earned autonomy. A recurring theme in governance answers: trust should follow performance. The same logic underlies graded autonomy for higher education institutions and Navratna and Maharatna status for public sector enterprises. Use it for any question on regulatory reform.
Process versus outcome accountability. India’s audit culture checks whether rules were followed, not whether results were delivered. In research, where most experiments fail, procedure-based accountability punishes risk. Link this to GS4 ideas of trust and integrity in public institutions.
From linear to fused innovation. The old “linear model” ran from basic research to applied research to product. The authors describe a fused model where curiosity and application feed each other. This is a useful frame for questions on industry-academia linkage and why India’s patent and product output lags its paper output.
Diagram-in-Words
Indian Research Can Shape the World: from catch-up to leading
The authors' argument, from catch-up-itis to the four reforms they propose.
Takeaway Box
- Thesis: stop defining ambition by what others built decades ago; back fundamental research to lead the next wave.
- Why now: science and technology have fused; CRISPR went from bacterial biology to a tool within a few years.
- Four fixes: experimental “foundries” and AI-enabled learning; green, amber and red zones for national labs; freedom from GFR compliance for proven institutions, judged by outcomes; fast, predictable approvals for biological research and clinical trials.
- Context: ANRF (Act of 2023), the Rs 1 lakh crore RDI Fund, GERD at about 0.6 to 0.7 per cent of GDP.
- Arithmetic: 10 per cent better a year gives nearly seven times in 20 years.
Revision Flowchart
Indian research: beyond catch-up
Covers the architecture of Indian research, the authors' argument, the four reforms and numbers, the counter-view, the way forward and the exam angles.
Sources: The Hindu, op-ed by K. VijayRaghavan and Archish Mittal, 7 October 2026; background: Ujiyari, 5 September 2026
Source: Indian Research Can Shape the World: Beyond Catch-Up — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
