The government’s new Research, Development and Innovation scheme is half-hearted hope masquerading as policy. True, it talks big money: Rs 1 trillion, for private sector R&D, which, at present, is vanishingly small, and certainly needs a policy-induced boost. But the tentativeness of the scheme, and the failure to put flesh on an admittedly weak skeletal structure even 14 months after the Budget announced this grand corpus for R&D in 2024, and the proposal to disburse funds as loans, rather than as equity or grants, offer little reassurance.It would have been useful, if those in charge of policymaking had paid some attention to how the government boosted R&D in the US, home of the brave and land of the free market, during and after World War II. But that would have meant admitting that history is important, and not just science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and history that does not glorify ancient Bharat, at that.
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