China far ahead of India in science, says PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who vowed last month to more than double India's R&D spending to $8 billion a year by 2017, has expressed concern over countries like China overtaking India in the field of science. Singh said that over the past few decades, India's relative position in the world of science had been declining.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who vowed last month to more than double India's R&D spending to $8 billion a year by 2017, has expressed concern over countries like China overtaking India in the field of science.

"Over the past few decades, India's relative position in the world of science had been declining, and we have been overtaken by countries like China," Singh declared in an interview with America's top Science magazine.

"China is in many ways far ahead of India," he is quoted as saying in the Feb 24 issue of Science which carries a special package of news focusing on the state of Science in India, and how it has evolved over the past few decades.

Manmohan Singh had expressed similar concern at the Indian Science Congress earlier this year.