evidence: The US-based National Science Foundation (NSF) published a report titled ‘Science & Engineering Indicators 2022,’ that saw India climbing to third place in 2020 from seventh place in 2010. According to the report, six nations contribute more than half of all peer-reviewed Science and Engineering (S&E) papers worldwide. China and America are the major contributors, with a percentage share of 23 and 16, respectively and India occupies the third place with a 5% share. According to a government assessment, just 15.8% of all articles produced by Indian scholars are published in the top ten journals worldwide, and even china (27.6%) is way ahead of us in publishing quality research. Unfortunately, in the most populated country after china, with the largest network of Higher education Institutions in the world (5288 universities) our contribution to scientific research is abysmally low. Compared with the United States (3216) and Indonesia (2595) we have more research institutions at our disposal but the quality of scientific research is atrocious. World University Rankings 2023 conducted by Times Higher Education explicitly shows that Indian institutions are way behind American, European and Chinese Universities in teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.