Science education and research in India

The latest issue of the journal Chemical and Engineering News has a cover feature on "Indian Science Rising" written by Amanda Yarnell. The issue features quite a few stories that examine different aspects of doing (and teaching) science and engineering in India. Yarnell has done a great job of teasing out the key isses in each story, and I found the stories fair, balanced and well reported.

Let me just provide the links here (for future reference); the 'blurb' for each story is not my commentary, but taken from the journal's website:

• Indian Science Rising: India looks to vault itself onto the world's science and technology stage.
• Building R&D For Drug Discovery: Seasoned expatriates trickle back to help Indian pharmaceutical firms push into discovery research.
• Collaboration: Indian pharma bets on links with academia and government.
• Bridges Wait To Be Built: India struggles to foster interdisciplinary science.
• Keeping Postdocs At Home In India: A vibrant postdoc culture could invigorate India's research climate, but recruiting remains difficult.
• A World Apart: Divergence of undergrad education and scientific research in India has been detrimental to both.
• A Funding Evolution: Some of India's scientists find research dollars easier than ever to obtain, but inequities remain.
• Research Facilities: Archaic Labs, World-Class Instruments Pose Stark Contrast.

There is also a photo gallery, that features several young scientists:

• Srinivas Hotha (National Chemical Laboratory, Pune)
• Yamuna Krishnan-Ghosh (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore)
• Aditya Mittal (IIT, Delhi)
• Mrinalini Puranik (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore)
• Govindaraju Thimmaiah (a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin at Madison).