India's Opportunity to Catch Up in S&T

India must take advantage of the changed, fraught international environment and approve dual citizenship to attract the NRIs, many of whom are high-performing individuals.

- JAYADEVA RANADE

As India makes efforts to upgrade its scientific, technology, and research capabilities, major new opportunities have recently presented themselves. Unlike in the 1990s when an entrenched administrative and scientific bureaucracy missed opportunities for India to make significant advances in S&T (science and technology), this time government must take full advantage. Opportunities seldom knock twice.

Obsessed with imposing exorbitant tariffs across the board to balance US trade, US President Donald Trump has also, in his first hundred days, targeted immigrants, America's prestigious higher education institutions, and researchers and students. Chinese students, who dominate STEM subjects, were specially identified, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that Chinese students, and particularly those who are members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), would be denied visas and admission to US colleges.

The requests from the US Administration seeking personal information of foreign students—of whom Indian and Chinese students are the majority—created a climate of apprehension and fear among foreign students in the US. It has put at risk the nearly USD 80 billion that the US earns from students of these two nationalities. Indian and Chinese students are also the highest number engaged in research in STEM areas. Faculty, including American nationals teaching science and guiding research in STEM subjects, have not been spared. Their government research grants have been slashed. Consequently, a number of them are exploring opportunities elsewhere outside the US.