On September 7th mission control in Bengaluru lost contact with an Indian-designed and -built lunar probe mere seconds before it was supposed to land. Some Indians were consoled by the fact that their country had nearly pulled off an extraordinarily complex mission on a shoestring budget. But others asked why the budget was quite so pinched. As a proportion of GDP—0.6%— public spending on research and development has not budged in 20 years. That is one of the lowest figures among big economies. Since 2015 the largest state funding agency, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has seen its budget decline in real terms. The government wants it to attract private money. Yet firms are even stingier: India's top companies spend barely half a percent of their income on R&D.
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