>>8370159The typical reader of the morning leader is now in for a pleasant surprise. "We have been doing a bunch of good things," says Dr. M. P. Rao of the Indian Institutes of Technology, Bangalore. "The most important of these is that we will become a global centre for medical research." This is indeed what the Indian government has been promising for a year. After eight years of waiting (and then five more years) for the promised medical breakthroughs, the country finally has been given the big prize. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has promised that within three years India will provide all its medicines to all its citizens at a cost of no less than about $300 per person per day. And within five years, when all medical research is funded by private donors, India will become the world's leading center.
Rao says that when he got over 1,000 calls on the night of the prime minister's announcement—a staggering amount for such a small nation—he had an idea. Rao ran up the cost of medicine with his research colleagues: He and his graduate students put together a list of 100 drugs that were under investigation and showed them to top Indian officials. They were given priority. "It was a very smooth operation," Rao says. Then the government gave its blessing
