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INDIA
RISING
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India excels in rocketry and nuclear science but has produced few breakthroughs in other fields.
Now, free of sanctions and swimming in cash, the world’s largest democracy
is gunning for status as a scientific powerhouse

CREDITS: ALL PALLAVA BAGLA EXCEPT BUTTERFLY: LAKSHMI NARAYANAN K./WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; RICE FIELDS: ISTOCKPHOTO.
BANGALORE, INDIA—When A. P. J. Abdul says aerospace engineer K. P. J. Reddy, head of with those of leading nations. In 2008, a land-
Kalam, the father of India’s missile program, IISc’s Laboratory for Hypersonic and Shock mark civilian nuclear pact between India and

COM; FLAG: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; JANTAR MANTAR ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY: JOERG HACKEMANN/FOTOSEARCH
inaugurated a center of excellence in aero- Wave Research. He walks past a 16-meter- the United States beckoned Indian scientists
dynamics here last November, he emphasized long steel shock tunnel, stops at a lab bench, in strategic sectors to come in from the cold;
how the new facility would boost the nation’s and picks up what looks like an ordinary access to imported precision instruments is
defenses. Indo-Russian missilemaker Brah- medical syringe. It’s outfitted with a “Reddy allowing India to make up ground in areas
Mos Aerospace helped bankroll the center tube”: a shock tunnel writ small that’s capable such as nanotechnology and supercomputing.
at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Ban- of generating shock waves traveling at twice Now the government intends to lift all dis-
galore as a testing ground for its next-gen- the speed of sound. Applications abound. One ciplines on a rising tide. At the Indian Sci-
eration BrahMos-II missiles and hypersonic Reddy tube called “Super Bull” boosts the ence Congress in Bhubaneswar last month,
space vehicles. Indeed, after the ceremony, success of livestock artificial insemination by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged
Kalam, the octogenarian former president of slinging sperm deep into the uterus. to hike R&D expenditures dur-
India, urged BrahMos to think grander and
pioneer a reusable hypersonic cruise missile
A micro–Reddy tube delivers DNA
through a nuclear membrane for cell
Online ing the 5-year plan that begins this
spring, from around $3 billion last
that would return after dropping a payload—a transformation. Another is a juicer: sciencemag.org year to $8 billion in 2017. In an
Podcast interview
feat that could rival technology under devel- Aim it at an apple, and shock waves (http://scim.ag/ exclusive interview with Science
opment in the United States. disintegrate pulp while leaving the pod_6071) with co- (see p. 907), Singh explained
In a hangar here on the IISc Bangalore skin intact. “Juice doesn’t get any author Pallava Bagla. how his government plans to
campus, BrahMos projects and other sensi- fresher,” Reddy says. “increase gradually the propor-
tive ventures are hidden behind black cur- Such bench-top derring-do may seem tion of money that is spent on R&D and at the
tains. The military R&D is the center of incongruent with India’s reputation as a cham- same time create a system of incentives which
excellence’s raison d’être and a jewel in pion of Big Science. After the nation’s first will induce the private sector to increase their
the crown of India’s vaunted defense R&D atomic bomb test in 1974, the United States spending on science and technology.”
establishment. But what’s out in the open in and other countries slapped sanctions on India The windfall is meant to turbocharge ini-
the cavernous laboratory is far more reveal- that squeezed its supply of high-tech equip- tiatives under way to create elite research
ing about the rapid development and entre- ment and materials. Over the next 3 decades, institutions, bring expatriate Indian scientists
preneurial spirit of Indian science. India grew an indigenous civilian nuclear home, enrich science education, and equip
“I want to show you our latest invention,” power industry and a space program on par smart new laboratories. Included in this push

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is South Asia’s first biosafety level–4 lab to keep pace with his field. Scientific journals for decades, says L. S. Shashidhara, a geneti-
for handling the most dangerous pathogens, took 4 months to arrive by mail. “We were out cist at the Indian Institute of Science Educa-
slated to be up and running at the National of competition before we started,” he says. tion and Research (IISER) in Pune.
Institute of Virology in Pune this spring. Everything was difficult and slow. Mashelkar While basic research and living stan-
“Funding is no longer a constraint. What we waited 6 years for installation of a phone line dards languished, India was pouring massive
once had to do abroad we can now do here,” because he refused to pay an exorbitant fee for resources into two strategic areas: rocketry
says Govindaraju Thimmaiah, a chemist at and nuclear science. The former gave rise to
the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced both a sophisticated missile program and a
Scientific Research here. Over the next civilian space program that intends to send
5 years, an estimated $1.2 billion in public a probe to Mars and astronauts into space
funds will be funneled to a new National then onto the moon (see p. 906). India’s early
Science and Engineering Research Board. research on nuclear power, meanwhile, led the
Modeled after the U.S. National Science way to an atomic arsenal.
Foundation, the board is just now getting off India’s first atomic test ignited a nuclear
the ground and is expected to fund its first arms race with China and Pakistan—and
competitive grants this year. “It’s critical turned the nation into a nuclear pariah:
to our future, because it’s run by scientists Western countries banned most
for scientists,” says Raghunath “Ramesh” high-tech exports to India.
Mashelkar, former director general of the Self-reliance promoted techno-

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Council of Scientific and Industrial Research logical ingenuity, as India’s
(CSIR), a national network of 37 laboratories. nuclear and space programs have
Researchers will have to clear some demonstrated on numerous occa-
daunting hurdles, though. India’s legend- sions. India’s research on using
ary bureaucracy can snarl grant proposals thorium as fuel for nuclear power
and expenditures in red tape for months. reactors is nonpareil, and this year
The anticipated R&D budget boost “will The long view. K. P. J. Reddy has it will bring online a homemade
be useless if structural reform is not under- devised a miniature version of his prototype fast breeder plutonium
taken,” warns vaccine specialist Maharaj lab’s shock tunnel (above) for applications as diverse as artifi- reactor. Denied access to radi-
Kishan Bhan, secretary of the Department cial insemination and cell transformation. Over the past 20 years, ation-hardened computer chips
of Biotechnology, the central government’s Indian scientists have expanded their reach in the literature. and lightweight silica tiles for sat-
main conduit for supporting applied biol- ellites, Indian space researchers
ogy in India. Another woe is that scores of India’s Share of Article Output developed their own.
universities are deteriorating or riddled with Medicine The demise in 1991 of the
7.0% Chemistry
Energy
corruption. They nurture few stars and are 6.0% Soviet Union, then India’s main
overburdened with dead wood. “On a day-to- Immunology and 5.0% Physics and ally, was a turning point. India
Microbiology Astronomy
day basis, people are discouraged from doing 4.0% narrowly averted a f inancial
breakthrough research,” says Raghavendra Earth and 3.0% meltdown. “CSIR had a tough
Planetary Materials Science
Gadagkar, a sociobiologist at IISc Banga- Science
2.0%
time even to pay its electricity
lore. “Our system creates followers, not lead- 1.0%
bills,” recalls biophysicist Samir
0.0%
ers. That’s our biggest problem.” Computer Engineering Brahmachari, CSIR’s director
Science
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): COURTESY OF K. P. J. REDDY; R. STONE/SCIENCE; ELSEVIER SCOPUS

Still, the scientific outlook is brighten- general. Singh, as finance minis-

ing rapidly. From 2000 to 2010, India’s peer- Biochemistry, ter in the early ’90s, engineered
reviewed publications more than doubled to Mathematics Genetics and radical reforms that steered India
Molecular Biology
40,000 a year, its world share rose from 2.2% from socialism to a free market
to 3.4%, and citation impact improved from Chemical Engineering Agricultural and economy. A few years later, the
Biological Sciences
40% to nearly 60% of the world average, Environmental Pharmacology, Toxicology and country’s information technology
according to the Thomson Reuters Web of Science Pharmaceutics industry took off—and “started
Knowledge database. Moreover, Indian scien- 1999 2004 2009 taking away all the bright stu-
tists are keenly aware of the need for research dents,” says chemical biologist
that raises living standards in the world’s larg- faster service. C. N. R. Rao, Singh’s science Krishna Ganesh, director of IISER Pune.
est democracy, home to 1.2 billion people. adviser and a chemist at the Jawaharlal Nehru Another signature Singh accomplishment
“We are promoting what we call ‘inclusive Centre for Advanced Scientific Research here, was the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement, which
innovation,’ ” says Mashelkar, who like other recalls that as a young professor decades ago paved the way for the export of high-tech
top scientists here believes that a new day is he would receive the equivalent of about $60 instruments and sensitive materials to India.
dawning for Indian science. per year for research. “I got my first spectro- Institutes across the country have since gone
meter 17 years into my career and first elec- on a spending spree.
Big bang theory tron microscope 30 years into my career,” he
For many Indian researchers, a long night pre- says. Rao—éminence grise and India’s most- Muscling up
ceded the dawn. When Mashelkar, a chemist, cited scientist—was exceptionally produc- In a corner of IISc Bangalore down the
returned to India in 1976 after a postdoc stint tive. In the sprawling field of biology, “I don’t road from the aerospace hangar, work-
in the United States, he says it was a struggle think there were any breakthroughs in India” ers are putting the finishing touches on a

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$30 million, 1300-square-meter clean lab researchers who are helping midwife the several months, for instance, to import a
for nanotechnology. It’s instrumented to new lab. All is not flawless: Raghavan 2-centimeter-square piece of ultrathin zir-
the hilt. “Money is not much of a prob- and his colleagues suffer “supply-chain” conia foil for experiments with nanopo-
lem,” says materials scientist Srinivasan delays due to Indian import regulations, rous zirconium. That foil is used in the
Raghavan, one of four IISc Bangalore he says, and a sanctions hangover. It took nuclear industry, and despite the easing
of restrictions, some countries still hesi-
tate to export high-tech equipment and
Ad Astra, With a ‘Uniquely Indian Flavor’ materials to India, says IISc Bangalore’s
S. A. Shivashankar, who got the ball rolling
BANGALORE, INDIA—India’s space program has a bold agenda this year: It aims to launch five on the nanotech lab a decade ago. It will be
rockets and four satellites, all built at home. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) already fully operational next month and is expected
has 11 remote-sensing satellites in orbit—the largest constellation of civilian eyes in the sky. This to churn out 50 Ph.D. scientists a year.
record puts India securely in the global space club. State-of-the-art facilities are popping up
Part of India’s achievement is to have joined at a modest cost. ISRO’s $1.5 billion annual budget far and wide. Ensuring their smooth opera-
is almost 10 times smaller than NASA’s. But its dreams are not modest. In the coming years, ISRO tion is a challenge, however. “We readily can
plans planetary exploration missions, a reusable launch vehicle, and a program to send astronauts purchase expensive equipment,” Shashid-
into space. “In a very tough economic environment, India remains one of the few countries in the hara says. But he and others are frustrated
world which maintains and even reinforces its space program,” says Jean-Yves Le Gall, chair and CEO over Indian regulations that limit spending
of Arianespace in Paris. “This is absolutely remarkable.” on reagents and other research materials.

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In its 5-year plan submitted last month, ISRO sets some con- “The government tells us to cut down con-
Chandrayaan-1 crete goals. One is to see that its big rocket—the Geosynchronous sumables. It’s considered waste.”
Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)—becomes “a reliable vehicle.” The main impediment, scientists often say,
The GSLV can put a 2-ton communications satellite in orbit; a new is the bureaucracy. “Even the best of inten-
version is designed to launch 4-ton satellites. But GSLV’s record is tions can disappear without a trace in the
spotty. Only two of seven launches have been fully successful. One quicksands of officialdom,” IISc Bangalore
of the liquid cryogenic upper stages—designed in India—packed Director Padmanabhan Balaram penned in an
up within seconds after ignition in an April 2010 launch. Retool- editorial last month in India’s premier jour-
ing it is a top priority. nal, Current Science. There’s a lack of trans-
On the scientific front, last October, India launched Megha- parency. And bureaucrats sometimes demand
Tropiques, an Indo-French satellite to collect data on water and that researchers give a regular accounting of
energy balance over the tropics. This mission marked the 19th progress on their grants. According to IISc
consecutive successful launch of India’s smaller rocket, the Polar Bangalore’s Gadagkar, who studies social
Satellite Launch Vehicle. After lengthy delays, ISRO plans to use
that rocket in 2013 to orbit its first dedicated astronomy satellite, Astrosat, which will be equipped
with a suite of telescopes to view the sky in optical, infrared, ultraviolet, and gamma wavelengths.
ISRO’s greatest claim to fame is the scintillating finding of water on the moon. Instruments
aboard the 2008–09 Chandrayaan-1 probe, a bargain at about $100 million, uncovered water
molecules on the lunar surface. The finding demonstrates that “the moon can support long-term
human presence, a discovery of vital significance to man’s future in space,” says Paul D. Spudis, a
lunar scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, who ran a radar experiment
aboard Chandrayaan-1 that detected traces of water. India is planning a return trip to the moon with
a lander and rover in 2014. Also in the works is a solar mission in 2014 called Aditya and, in the next
5 years, an asteroid flyby. And while NASA earlier this month revealed that it has canceled a pair of
upcoming Mars missions, ISRO is sketching out a robotic mission to Mars within a decade.
Whereas the United States has given up on shuttles, India now wants to build its own. Recyclable
technology would sharply reduce launch costs, ISRO says. A first-generation vehicle would lift off
vertically and land in the sea; later models would glide to a runway. A prototype is housed at a secret Dreaming small. IISc Bangalore’s Srinivasan
facility in Kerala, says ISRO Chair K. Radhakrishnan. Raghavan and S. A. Shivashankar will roll out their
The defining moment for India’s space program will come when India sends humans into space, nanotechnology clean lab next month.
Radhakrishnan says. ISRO has proposed a massive $2.5 billion project. Within 7 years of receiving
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): ISRO; R. STONE/SCIENCE

government approval, India could orbit a few astronauts for a week, then later send them to the behavior of wasps, “I will be evaluated as if I
moon, Radhakrishnan says. was building a road. They want a report every
The government has approved about $25 million for preliminary studies “to wet our hands” with 3 kilometers.”
technology involved in human space flight, Radhakrishnan says. The big project may run into resis- On the bright side, Indian researchers will
tance. Asked whether this is the right thrust for Indian science, C. N. R. Rao, science adviser to Indian have more opportunities to explain how they
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said, “I have nothing against man going anywhere, but I am more are spending their money. Major directions
worried about people on this earth.” In an interview with Science, Singh declined to endorse the in the next 5-year plan include a $350 mil-
human space flight program (see p. 907). lion Neutrino Observatory in Theni—India’s
Radhakrishnan is confident that ISRO’s vision will prevail. “India is poised to soar higher in single largest investment to date in basic
space,” he says. “But it will be done with a uniquely Indian flavor.” –P.B.
Continued on page 909

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Continued from page 906 sities “are terribly run,” Ganesh

says. Few can brag of world-
research—a novel open-source drug discov- class research. “They’re bro-
ery program (see sidebar below), a $1 bil- ken down,” says physical chem-
lion supercomputing initiative, and an effort ist Sourav Pal, director of the
to improve forecasts of the summer mon- National Chemical Laboratory
soon (see p. 910). At the science congress last in Pune. This is a legacy of the
month, Singh also vowed to double public Cold War years. After indepen-
and private R&D spending as a percentage of dence in 1947, India adopted a
GDP to 2% by 2017. That will require much Soviet-style academic system in
higher expenditures from the private sector, which “undergraduate teaching
which currently contributes a mere 33% of Feeling caged in. The Indian system discourages breakthrough was decoupled from research,”
total R&D spending. research, says sociobiologist Raghavendra Gadagkar, who studies Ganesh says. Then a decade ago
Some observers wonder whether India’s wasp behavior. came a “great awakening,” he
scientific community can make good use says: “We realized we needed to
of the windfall. By Western standards, few ing overseas talent through fellowship pro- merge teaching and research.”
disciplines or institutes have built up a criti- grams. “There’s a concerted movement to One obstacle to reform is India’s employ-
cal mass. “The entire biology community bring people back,” says Savita Ayyar, head ment laws. Researchers of any caliber can
of India is smaller than that of Boston,” of the research development office at the easily gain tenure. At the same time, sci-

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Shashidhara says. In genetics and develop- National Centre for Biological Sciences entific stars have limited opportunities to
ment, he says, “many people are just doing (NCBS) here. And scientists on their own advance in salary or rank. “Administrations
gap-filling work.” Researchers in other dis- have organized “Young Investigator Meet- must follow the policy of benign neglect with
ciplines voice similar complaints. “In any ings” in U.S. cities meant to entice newly respect to high performers, even while turn-
given area of science or engineering, the minted Ph.D.s and postdocs. ing a blind eye to the significant dead wood
number of experts is rather small in India,” accumulating in our institutions,” Balaram
says Rao, who says that nationwide only five Science for the masses noted in his editorial.
or six researchers are studying graphene— The flip side of the shortage of well-trained As a cure, the government has opted to
one of the hottest areas of materials science. researchers is the inadequacy of labs and spawn new institutions. In the past 5 years,
To build capacity, the government is woo- institutes. Most of the 350-odd state univer- Singh has presided over an expansion of

Crowd-Sourcing Drug Discovery

NEW DELHI—Each year, India tallies an astounding 1.7 million cases of The first challenge that OSDD’s
tuberculosis (TB). Some 400,000 people succumb to the disease, making cyber-community assigned itself
it the leading cause of death in India for those in the prime of life, from was to glean more information from
15 to 45 years old. Most victims are poor, and pharmaceutical companies the M. tuberculosis genome. It was
have little incentive to develop new drugs against the bug that causes TB, sequenced in 1998, but researchers
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. But the Indian government has a big incen- had clues to the functions of only a
tive to reduce the disease burden. quarter of its 4000 genes. In Decem-
Faced with this conundrum, Samir Brahmachari had a brainstorm a ber 2009, OSDD set out to reanno-
few years ago: crowd-sourcing. “That means looking for experts you don’t tate all possible genes. Some 500 vol-
know exist,” he says. “I wanted to do something very different.” So in unteers got the job done in a mere
2008, Brahmachari, a biophysicist and director general of the Council of 4 months. Now OSDD is trying to Open-source guru. CSIR’s Samir
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India’s largest network of sci- exploit these data. “The more people Brahmachari.
entific laboratories, launched the Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) you put to work on the problem, the
network. Modeled after the open-source software community, OSDD’s more chances you will have to identify the set of compounds that will likely
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): R. STONE/SCIENCE; PALLAVA BAGLA

army of volunteers is building a kind of Wikipedia on TB. Some 5500 par- make it through compound optimization, animal models, preclinical,
ticipants in 130 countries respond to “work packages” posted by OSDD: and, eventually, clinical trials. If you increase your success chances, then
questions on everything from the biology of M. tuberculosis to leads on your overall costs decrease,” says Marc Marti-Renom of the National
drugs; answers are tagged and credited. Center for Genomic Analysis in Barcelona, Spain.
“OSDD is an exciting new approach to drug discovery,” says Melvin OSDD’s iterative approach has identified two drug candidates that
Spigelman, president of the TB Alliance in New York City. “It provides the it has contracted for testing. Under OSDD rules, data from program-
opportunity for virtually a limitless number of scientists to contribute to sponsored clinical trials must be open for all to see—“a clear alterna-
the solution of any given problem.” The Indian government gave OSDD tive,” OSDD states, “to expensive clinical trials conducted in secrecy at
$12 million in seed money; CSIR has requested $200 million over the high costs.” OSDD drugs will be available in the developing world as
next 5 years as the program ramps up for clinical trials and expands to generics, Brahmachari says. “When it comes to health, we need to have a
other neglected diseases such as malaria and leishmaniasis, and possibly balanced view between health as a right and health as business,” he says.
even cancer. “Drug discovery,” Brahmachari says, “is too serious a busi- For TB and other neglected diseases, drug companies might embrace that
ness to be left solely in the hands of pharmaceutical companies.” philosophy. For cancer, all bets are off. –P.B.

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NEWSFOCUS

ported 1 million students by the

Drawing a Bead on India’s Enigmatic Monsoon end of next year.
Institutes, meanwhile, are striv-
NEW DELHI—India’s booming economy is still a gamble on the monsoon. In any given year, if rainfall climbs ing to close the gap between educa-
more than 10% above a long-term monsoon average, floods ensue. If it declines more than 10% below aver- tion and research. IISER Pune, for
age, a drought is declared. Slippage in either direction brings misery. For example, a drought in 2002 shrank instance, encourages its undergrad-
India’s GDP by an estimated 5.8%. Every meteorologist’s dream here is to accurately predict the monsoon’s uates to join labs and author publi-
arrival, distribution, and departure. Toward that end, this year the Ministry of Earth Sciences is launching a cations. And CSIR is venturing into
5-year, $75 million “monsoon mission” to improve the study of complex ocean-atmosphere interactions. the teaching business. Last year, it
India receives 105 cm of rainfall on average per year, 80% carried on southwest winds that sweep in from established an accredited institution
the Indian Ocean from June to September. A winter monsoon also brings moisture from the northeast. Farm- that’s gunning for 6000 students.
ing is heavily dependent on the exact timing of the rain, especially where it is needed to germinate seed. Since “It’s a very important break from the
official record-keeping began 137 years ago, the monsoon has never failed to arrive, and it has never delivered Soviet model,” Pal says.
less than 75 cm of rain. But the spatial and temporal variations are vast—and this is what befuddles scientists. One long-standing problem
“Every year, the monsoon is peculiar in its own way,” says atmospheric scientist Jayaraman Srinivasan of the for science faculties is that many
Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. top graduates turn up their noses
The India Meteorological Department here issues mon- at academic careers. They flock
soon forecasts but has not been able to accurately predict to information technology, where
when the worst floods and droughts will occur. “Extremes companies offer large entry-level

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are really difficult to forecast,” says Ajit Tyagi, the depart- salaries. Meanwhile, those who
ment’s former director general. Everything needs closer stick with science tend to go over-
study: how clouds form, develop, and die—and, crucially, seas for postdocs, depriving Indian
how global warming will change the monsoon. labs of the creative sparks that are
India’s “current prediction capabilities are inadequate,” the hallmark of labs in Europe and
concedes geologist Shailesh Nayak, secretary for the Earth the United States. Stints in over-
Sciences Ministry. A big bottleneck, he says, is a shortage seas labs are seen as a ticket to a
Extreme misfortune. A farmer in Orissa of trained scientists. By Nayak’s estimate, over the next decent position back in India. “Peo-
examines his parched field in 2003. 5 years India will need about 1200 skilled meteorologists, ple think you need to go abroad to
but today has only about 350. The ministry has just get a job here,” says NCBS neuro-
launched a recruitment campaign. scientist Sumantra Chattarji.
In the new initiative, Indian scientists and overseas colleagues will try to adapt computer models devel- Hoping to show that’s not nec-
oped by the U.K. Met Office and the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction for long-range fore- essarily the case, the Department
casting in India. The mission will also make use of data pouring in from Megha-Tropiques, an Indo-French of Biotechnology and the U.K.’s
satellite launched in October to monitor water and energy balance over the tropics. The Indian Institute of Wellcome Trust teamed up in
Tropical Meteorology in Pune will take the lead in seasonal forecasts and prediction of active and break peri- 2008 to create a 5-year, $140 mil-
ods of the monsoon. A key aim is to produce a prediction model that uses open-source software such as Linux. lion fellowship program for up to
The collaborative effort, Tyagi hopes, may at last “unravel the enigma that surrounds the Indian monsoon.” 375 young investigators in India.
–P.B. “Now we’re able to create an envi-
ronment and mechanisms for post-
docs to stay here,” Ayyar says. “You
the education and research system not wit- “We need to find ways to attract intel- might think this is a small step. But it’s about
nessed since the 1940s. Back then, the coun- ligent students into science,” Ganesh says. changing the way people think.”
try’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Toward that end, the government’s Depart- As India’s economy roars and Western
saw research labs as the “temples of modern ment of Science and Technology hopes nations limp along, the trickle of talented
India” and set in motion the creation of the to hook youngsters on science through expatriates returning home may turn into a
elite Indian Institutes of Technology. INSPIRE—Innovation in flood. “You can be richer
An impressive new phenomenon is the Science Pursuit for Inspired in India as an assistant pro- CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): PALLAVA BAGLA; R. STONE/SCIENCE
Indian Institutes of Scientific Education and Research—a 5-year, $500 fessor than in the United
Research, of which there are now five. The million program that hands States,” says Ganesh, who
decision to establish them was controversial. out $125 grants to top sci- says that new recruits to
“A lot of people were against the IISERs. ence students at every high IISER Pune receive royal
They thought, ‘Why not upgrade existing uni- school in the nation. “We treatment. “We give them
versities?’ ” Pal says. Skeptics warned that hope to catch them young whatever they want to start
there wouldn’t be enough skilled instructors and build a cadre of top- up a lab.” His institute may
to go around. The rapid buildup in fact has quality researchers,” says be a new kid on the block.
meant uneven faculties at some institutes. “If T. Ramaswami, secretary But considering the climate
you can’t get teachers who are qualified, you of the Department of Sci- for science in India these
start compromising,” Mashelkar says. Critics ence and Technology in days, Ganesh says, “I have
also say that the IISERs will skim off talented New Delhi. He spearheads no excuse to fail.”
high school science grads, leaving impover- this ambitious scheme, Minding the gap. Krishna Ganesh –RICHARD STONE
ished universities in worse condition. which aims to have sup- is melding teaching and research. With reporting by Pallava Bagla.

910 24 FEBRUARY 2012 VOL 335 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

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India Rising
Richard Stone

Science 335 (6071), 904-910.

DOI: 10.1126/science.335.6071.904

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