The lure of getting a doctoral degree from the US is fading, as grants become meagre in the wake of the recession. America's loss is India's gain
When Bidya Binay Karak decided to get a Ph.D. in solar astrophysics, she didn’t consider going to America, the land that — lest we forget — put man on the moon. This, despite the fact that the US is widely upheld as the bastion of astrophysics research. The reason? “Institutes like the IISc [Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore] offer world-class master’s and doctoral programmes,” she says, as a matter of fact.
A study in 2008 by the Indian government’s Department of Science & Technology estimated that the total number of Ph.D.s (in the sciences) in India rose 62 percent from 3,886 in 1983 to 6,318 in 2003, the latest year for which data is available. This meager figure is hardly reason to bring out the marching band. But the good news: Nobel Laureate R.E. Smalley estimated that by 2010, 90 percent of all Ph.D.s (physical sciences and engineering) worldwide would comprise Asians living in Asia. The bad news for India: Most of these scientists will be from China.
(This story appears in the 30 April, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)