Urging India to invest more in science, Tarun Khanna, the Jorge Paulo Lemann professor at the Harvard Business School, has said no country has escaped middle-income status without doing so.
In an insightful presentation followed by an interaction at the NDTV World Summit 2025 on Saturday, the professor also spoke about the need for students from India to look at all options, given the uncertainty in the US, the urgency for the world to act on climate change and what India needs to do to become a superpower.
Asked why India has not been able to showcase public investment in science, Khanna said the problem is not restricted to the country.
"I think most developing countries - we are currently what is called a low middle-income country... I would like us all to internalise that no country has escaped middle-income status without investing in science ever. It has not happened, so we have to do it," he said.
Citing an example of an interaction with CEOs in which only one said they had a proper conversation with a scientist in the past year, the professor said there is something stopping entrepreneurs from thinking of scientists and academic institutions as resources for ideas.
"The scientists dismiss the entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurs dismiss the scientists, and we are locked in this mutual suspicion which needs to be debugged... I think we need to try a lot of experiments to see how to debug that process to break that cycle of mistrust," Khanna said.
To a question on whether India can stand its own against China and the US, the professor said the country has a large young population and a very large market that it can leverage.
"But the second thing I would say is if we don't have our own science and our own scientific prowess, we are always going to be hostage to somebody else who has a better set of cards to play. So we better get our scientific act together. Otherwise, I think it's going to be very hard to be a superpower of any sort. That's just the reality. The good news is it's doable," he emphasised.
Along the same lines, Khanna said while startups and quick economic winds are good, India also needs to invest in, and focus on, areas which need a longer time horizon.
"I gave you a couple of examples from China just because it is the one country that has outstripped everybody, and so I think it is deserving of some introspection. Those are returns in multiple orders of magnitude that are higher than what we are pursuing - 100 times, 1,000 times, 10,000 times greater. So we need to play in the big leagues," he said.
US As Educational Destination
Asked about how the US is for Indian students, given the uncertainty and the shift in policies under the Trump administration, the professor said they should look at all options.
"Anybody who reads the news would know higher education is going through a tumultuous time and my university, Harvard, is no exception. These are uncertain times, and when students ask me 'should we be considering the United States?', my honest answer is you should consider all the options," Khanna said.
"At this point, we have plenty of interesting universities that are starting up in India, not just the IITs but liberal arts institutions, including Ashoka, Plaksha and FLAME. We have universities in Canada and the United Kingdom that are capitalising on the US uncertainty at this point, and are competing for talent. And, in the end, competition for talent is a good thing. It is good for the students, it is good for the academics and I just hope that the policy uncertainty in the United States dies down," he said.
Worrying Trends
On two trends that he feels are worrying for the world, the professor said he is worried about rising inequality and climate change.
"Markets have an uncanny ability to allocate resources to whoever is able to use them well at that moment, but they also seem to be generating quite a bit of inequality," he said.
"And the other one is managing the carbon footprint. There are seven environmental thresholds that constitute tipping points and the world has already gone over the tipping point for six out of the seven. So I think we are in a very precarious place as a human race vis-a-vis using too much carbon. It is fantastic to see India being so open to renewable energy," he said.
Rapid Fire
During a rapid fire, Khanna was asked to describe Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one word and he said "hyper-prepared". He generated laughter soon after when, asked the same question about US President Donald Trump, he replied, "no idea".
On the NDTV World Summit, he said it was really fun to meet people from all walks of life.
from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/35vNRbl
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