India produces smart scientists but is struggling to retain them


Representative image of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. India is spending a historically unprecedented, but otherwise still insufficient, amount of money on scientific research.

Representative image of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. India is spending a historically unprecedented, but otherwise still insufficient, amount of money on scientific research.
| Photo Credit: TIFR/Special arrangement

Recent reports of nearly 120 scientists resigning from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have rightly raised concerns. ISRO has been a symbol of India’s scientific aspirations and such an exodus cannot be dismissed as an ordinary episode of employee turnover.

Resignations have occurred over the years but the scale of recent departures confronts us with the question: of why some of India’s brighter scientific minds are electing to leave institutions millions dream of joining.

  • Related Posts

    Science Snapshots: September 27, 2026

    A dam in Hosapete, Karnataka, 2020. | Photo Credit: Alka Jha/Unsplash IIT-Madras tool bridges quake science and dam safety An IIT-Madras team evaluated 6,545 dams under India’s National Dam Safety…

    Continue reading
    How the science Nikolai Vavilov built changed how we save crops

    Nicolai Ivanovich Vavilov (1887-1943) was a remarkable agricultural scientist in the former USSR. His name is familiar to some as an ‘Indiana Jones’ who roamed around the world collecting crops…

    Continue reading