The stubbornness of the ratio is the story. India's absolute research spending has grown substantially, yet the share of national output devoted to public R&D has hovered around 0.4 per cent for half a decade, dipping rather than climbing in the most recent year reported. That matters because the returns to research are long-dated and cumulative - a fab, a vaccine platform or a foundation model rests on a decade of prior public funding - so a flat share compounds into a widening gap even while the rupee figure looks healthy. The patent numbers add a second caution. Grants to the three departments' institutions peaked at 893 in FY 2023-24 and fell to 251 by FY 2025-26, though patent counts are a noisy indicator: they reflect filing decisions and examination backlogs at the patent office as much as underlying invention, and recent years are typically understated because applications are still pending. Read alongside the missions announced elsewhere - IndiaAI, Semicon 2.0, BioE3 - the picture is of a government concentrating resources into large targeted missions rather than raising the broad research base.