India, Nov. 1 -- India's digital success story is dazzling. From UPI to Aadhaar to ONDC, the nation has built public technology that now serves over a billion people. We have mastered the art of rapid innovation - moving fast, iterating faster, and creating products that scale effortlessly. Yet beneath this triumph lies an imbalance that threatens long-term resilience. India has become exceptional at building user-facing applications but remains weak in creating the deep scientific and infrastructural foundations that power them.
For over a decade, India's research and development expenditure has stagnated at around 0.6-0.7 per cent of GDP, far below countries like China or South Korea, which invest over 2 per cent. While we celebrate tech...