Quality workforce, investment in R&D essential to become 'developed nation'

To bolster its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047, India needs to substantially increase the size of its quality workforce and investment in R&D in science and technology, including by the private sector, a top Indian official has said. In an interview with PTI on the sidelines of the PANIIT 2024 meeting in a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, said that one of the key challenges that India has is shortage of trained manpower in R&D sector and "that requires to be enhanced substantially. Given the size and scale of our country, we need a large number of quality R&D workforce to drive the science and technology landscape of the country, he said. Another thing is that we need substantial investment in the R&D sector as a percentage of our GDP, which has been really much lower than the world average, Karandikar said in response to a question. India has taken the initiative to set up a very ...