vimal wrote:IITs don’t have deep research culture.....
Please do some "research" in advance yourself before posting these thoughts. Most of the above comments make no sense.
IITs have been completely transformed from their 1980s/1990s reputation as mainly an exporter of high-quality talent to the western world (mainly to the USA). Even at that time they did quite a bit of research, it is a different matter that academic research in India overall was much smaller in size than it is today.
Here is the GoI's own ranking of research institutions in India:
https://www.nirfindia.org/2022/ResearchRanking.html
The metrics for the rankings are very comprehensive:
https://www.nirfindia.org/nirfpdfcdn/20 ... search.pdf
Overall, the Ministry of Education led by Dharmendra Pradhan is doing a very thorough job in tracking progress of our higher education institutions:
https://www.nirfindia.org/2022/Ranking.html
The original 5 IITs have very robust research (especially in engineering and related areas) and occupy most of the top ranks in terms of research funding and output. They win loads of competitive government funding and have strong links to the private sector (partly because many IIT alumni are leaders in the private sector). The IITs established later (both greenfield ones as well as rebranded institutions like Roorkee) are also coming up rapidly in research.
Sure, there is one IISc and one TIFR, both of which are are excellent in certain basic sciences. Many more are needed.
The research landscape in India needs (and is being given by Modi sarkar) an all-round boost in capabilities, not a bone-headed approach of stalling institutions that have overall excellent education and research models like the IITs.
IITs have strong momentum in engineering and applied sciences research, and they should further bring up their basic science research as well.
The undergraduate education component of IITs is also very important - it provides the top level talent pool in engineering and related disciplines. Much of that pool now stays in India and not going to other countries. Research and teaching go together, as the example of most of the world's great universities have shown.
Top "basic science research" Institutions like IISc, TIFR and others should really boost their undergraduate programs in basic sciences, while continuing to expand their research. The idea that "teaching undergraduates will disrupt research" is not supported by centuries of evidence to the contrary. If you do not produce high quality Bachelor's level students in basic sciences (and instead mostly going into engineering), you will not have high quality basic science researchers either.
Even in STEM-focused institutions, management and social sciences are important to create a more well-rounded perspective.
Finally, the many large full-spectrum universities of India should also be boosted on all fronts.