Research funding, institutions and awards

Prelims and Mains

For the first time the larger half of India's research bill is paid by private industry rather than by government. The change is in who pays, not in how much, because the total remains small set against the countries India measures itself by.

• The Department of Science and Technology's R&D Statistics 2025-26 put private industry at 51.8 per cent of research spending in 2023-24, ahead of government for the first time.
• Industry now employs more core researchers than the public sector.
• Part of the rise may be better measurement under new disclosure norms rather than new money.

Prelims and Mains

Where ANRF pays for academic research, the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund lends to private deep tech firms. Its first round of soft loans raised the question that a fund run by investors always raises.

• It caps its own share of any project at half, and is meant to be a revolving pool that returns its capital to the Consolidated Fund of India.
• Of the 22 firms approved loans in the first round, 15 were tied by investment to members of the selecting panel, an Indian Express investigation found.
• Its defenders answer that recusal and supermajority voting are the safeguards.
• They add that panel members' connections in deep tech are the point of having them.

Background reading: The Indian Express, 20 Aug 2026: Dear Editor, I Disagree: For deep-tech fund, members' connections are valuable assets (opens in a new tab)