India's Independence Day: From humble beginnings, the nation made strides in science and technology

Science and Technology have always been an integral part of Indian culture. Natural philosophy, as it was termed in ancient times, was pursued vigorously at institutions of higher learning.

The Indian Renaissanceat the dawn of 1900s, which coincided with the independence struggle, witnessed great strides made by Indian scientists.

This innate ability to perform creatively in science came to be backed with an institutional setup and strong state support after the country’s independence in 1947.

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Since then, the Government of India has spared no effort to establish a modern Science and Technologyinfrastructure in the country.

The Department of Science and Technology plays a pivotal role in the promotion of science and technology in the country.

In total four Indians have made the nation proud by winning theNobel prize,which was started in 1901. Itis awarded for the outstanding work in the fields of physics, chemistry, literature, peace, physiology or medicine, and economics.

The Indians who won the renowned prize include Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman for physics in 1930,Har Gobind Khorana in 1968 for physiology or medicine,Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for physics in 1983, andVenkatraman Ramakrishnan in2009 for chemistry.

In the past seven decades, India has built satellites and sent probes to the Moon and Mars, established nuclear power stations, acquired nuclear weapon capability, and demonstrated firepower in the form of a range of missiles. Undoubtedly, these are all fabulous achievements of Indian scientists and technologists.

At the same time, scientific research,combined with favourable public policies,has made India self-sufficient in the production of food, milk, fruits and vegetables, drugs, and vaccines. All this has had great social and economic impacts and directly and indirectly touched the lives of ordinary Indians.

Developments in communications and information technology have enabled timely forecast of weather and early warning of cyclones, saving thousands of lives.

These are all results of investments made in scientific research soon after independence and science-politics network built in decades prior to that.

Investment in scientific research was 0.1 percent of GNP in 1947. It went up to 0.5 percent in less than a decade. Scientists like Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, Homi Jehangir Bhabha, and Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis not only built scientific institutions but also helped shape policies.

Market size

At rank 48, India stands among the top 50 countries in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020 with a score of 35.6. In 2019, it was placed at 52nd position with a GII score of 36.58. India ranks 45th on the innovation output and 57th on the innovation input sub-indices.

The Government is extensively promoting research parks technology business incubators (TBIs) and (RPs), which would promote innovative ideas till they become commercial ventures.

India’s gross expenditure in R&D was forecast to reach $ 96.50 billion in 2020. By 2022, R&D expenditure is targeted to reach at least 2 per cent of the country’s GDP. The engineering R&D and product development market in India is forecast to post a CAGR of 12 per cent to reach $63 billion by 2025, from $31 billion in 2019.

IT spending in India is estimated to reach US$ 93 billion in 2021 (7.3 per cent year on year growth) and further increase to $98.5 billion in 2022.

India's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy prepared by NITI Aayog, the planning body, outlined a way forward to harness the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in different fields. Accenture offers a framework for assessing the economic effect of AI for selected G20 countries in its latest AI research studies and forecast that AI will raise India's annual growth rate by 1.3 per centpoints by 2035.