Pakistan beats India in research, not in innovation

It would be interesting to compare India and Pakistan in the world of science and innovation. Everybody would think that India with its high economic growth rate and world class information technology industry is miles ahead. That may not be completely true. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 15, 2013, 01:36:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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It would be interesting to compare India and Pakistan in the world of science and innovation. Everybody would think that India with its high economic growth rate and world class information technology industry is miles ahead. That may not be completely true.

A recent United Nations study finds that Pakistan has more researchers for a million people than India. Pakistan has 162 researchers for a million people as compared to 135 in India.

But, when it comes to taking research to a logical and innovative end through patent registration, Pakistan is not even close to the south-Asian economic power. India has five patents for a million people, five times more than the Pakistanis.

The reason, as indicated by data in the UN report, could be Pakistan’s poor technological infrastructure as compared to India despite the youth there showing more interest than Indians in science and technology.

That is the only saving grace for Indians in the world of science and technology.

Otherwise, the so-called emerging economic power is not even close to several nations with slower economic growth rate. Sri Lanka registers three times more patents for a million people as compared to its northern neighbour India. Even Thailand has more patents and researchers per million people than India.

Comparison of India with China or United States would be shameful. China registers over a 100 patents for a million people as compared to five for India. US, with 707 patents for a million people, is among top scientific countries in the world after two Asian research giants Japan and South Korea with over 1,000 patents for a million people.

A senior government official was hopeful of dramatic change in India’s dismal record saying recent efforts to incentivise research would show results in the coming few years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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