India Needs More Policy Research

Some months ago we were discussing the need for policy research with the founder of a well-known hospital in Bengaluru. He commented that we do not even know how many doctors are practising in the various specialities in India today. It is clear that this basic information would be helpful for any systematic effort to increase the number of specialist doctors, increase their availability more uniformally across the country, decide on where more training could be organized, and so on. However, there are no data on which to build a well-thought-out plan. This is the case with many domains, and although here we focus on the biosciences, our conclusions are more generally applicable.