From The Archives

Poor Rich Billionaire

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Tomorrow, as we begin the new year, we seek a new elusive compass. We have relied on a compass that had run its course. We were forewarned that “the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born”. Instead, after a long period of complacency, we now face fractured trade and supply chains, politicised finance, geopolitical tensions, and rudderless multilateral institutions. No rulebook commands universal trust

- N.K. Singh & Nicholas Stern, The Indian Express, (31/12)

India’s ambition to become a global power is fundamentally constrained by chronic underinvestment in research and development; the numbers do not merely reveal a funding gap but expose deep structural failures in the country’s innovation ecosystem. Despite its vast demographic advantage, India has failed to convert scale into high-value research, a reality starkly underscored by the fact that a single multinational can outspend an entire nation on R&D. The burden of research continues to rest largely on the government, while private sector participation remains conspicuously weak. Indian academia operates in silos, leaving research disconnected from industry and the marketplace. Without a fundamental shift in approach, backed by sustained political will, the vision of a truly ‘Viksit Bharat’ will remain out of reach.

- Shashi Tharoor, The Hindu, (29/12)