Space Sector Opening Curbed Brain Drain: Jitendra Singh

Opening India's space sector to private companies has widened the choices available to young scientific and technical talent at home and cut the compulsion to look abroad for work, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh said on 8 October 2026. He also holds charge as Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office and for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space.

Where he said it

The minister was speaking to students at the NaMo Book Fest at the Rudraksh International Cooperation and Convention Centre in Varanasi, a two-day festival on 7 and 8 October marking 25 years of Narendra Modi as Head of Government through books by various authors on his life, leadership and public service. A question-and-answer session and a panel discussion with students followed his address, with the Banaras Hindu University Vice-Chancellor among the panellists.

The space economy

Limited openings in the domestic space ecosystem once pushed young professionals overseas, the minister said; the opening up has let more of them stay and work in a growing sector, with private startups such as Skyroot creating roles for young engineers. He put India's space economy at about USD 9 billion today and said it could touch USD 45 to 46 billion in the next 8 to 10 years if the pace holds. Declaring that the age of silos is over, he argued that government bodies, private industry, startups, academia and research institutions have to build capability together to compete globally. Space, he added, is no longer only about rockets and launches: it is used in infrastructure planning, project monitoring and disaster management, and Indian satellites supply information to Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka to help them prepare for floods and other disasters.

The wider science push

The last 12 to 13 years, he said, have been an era of science in India, in which the talent that always existed finally met a policy environment capable of converting it into national strength. He listed the Deep Ocean Mission, the Quantum Mission, artificial intelligence, cyber security and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation among the efforts building capacity in new fields. On biotechnology he pointed to a policy framework built around biotechnology for economy, environment and employment, the world's first DNA vaccine against COVID-19 and the Genome India initiative as markers of indigenous capability and of preparation for precision medicine. Chandrayaan-3, he said, showed that India can run sophisticated missions at remarkably low cost.

Nuclear energy and research spending

The minister also spoke of the nuclear sector being opened to private participation and of India's target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, with nuclear power treated as a clean source for future demand from artificial intelligence and data centres. The priority given to research, he said, shows up in gross expenditure on research and development, which has risen from about Rs 46,000 to 47,000 crore in 2013-14 to roughly Rs 2 to 2.5 lakh crore. Asked about artificial intelligence, he told students to use the technology while keeping their own judgement and curiosity intact, adding that one has to be intelligent enough to use artificial intelligence. India, he concluded, has moved from following the world to walking alongside it, and is ahead in several fields.