India aims for global power status, but a significant research and development (R&D) deficit hinders this ambition. Despite having 17.5% of the world's population, India produces only 3% of global research output. While patent filings show rapid growth, India's share of global applications remains low, and domestic innovation intensity, measured by resident applications per capita, ranks poorly. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP has also remained stagnant, highlighting a critical gap in leveraging human capital for high-value research.