Gauhar Raza is an Indian engineer, science communicator, Urdu poet, and documentary filmmaker, and a former Chief Scientist at CSIR NISCAIR.

In this episode, we explore what happens when a country keeps upgrading its gadgets but downgrades its relationship with evidence. Gauhar argues that India is being pushed from open-ended science toward pre-decided conclusions, where grants reward beliefs, not results, and institutions get pulled into research designed to “prove” the answer first.

Expect to learn why Gauhar calls state-funded cow-urine and cow-dung projects pseudoscience, how this culture demoralizes real researchers and accelerates brain drain, why removing scientific temper from education has long tail consequences, the difference between science and technology and why tech without science makes you dependent, why public data like the census matters for democracy, how global collaboration shapes a nation’s research standing, what India can learn from China’s future-focused science mindset, and much more.

#IndianScience #ScientificTemper #SciencePolicy

🕰️CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 - Gauhar Raza x Kintu Parantu
00:02:17 - Episode Welcome and Premise
00:03:48 - Post-2014 Assault on Science
00:05:56 - Cow Products Research Mandate
00:08:21 - Science Must Stay Open-Ended
00:10:56 - Corruption in Cow-Dung Grants
00:14:41 - Leaders Promoting Absurd Claims
00:18:41 - Baba Wealth Versus Education
00:23:02 - Black Money Across Religions
00:25:03 - Textbook Changes and Darwinism
00:26:49 - Kumbh Threats and Public Health
00:29:00 - Media, Data, and Voter Purges
00:31:03 - Brain Drain and Research Collapse
00:35:45 - People Trust Scientists, Not Babas
00:38:41 - COVID Cow-Dung Madness Debunked
00:42:27 - Can Citizens Stop Pseudoscience?
00:45:00 - Global Reputation and Science Metrics
00:48:44 - Why Compare India With China
00:52:30 - Technology Misread as Science
00:54:18 - Defining Science Versus Technology
00:56:07 - Technology Enables Mass Destruction
00:58:50 - Foreign Tech Dependence Risks
01:00:34 - Rafale Source Code and Vulnerability
01:02:36 - PL480, Hunger, and Self-Reliance
01:04:09 - Y2K Boom and Digital Coolies
01:06:32 - Multinationals Withhold Latest Tech
01:08:24 - Science Needs International Friendship
01:12:51 - Education, Hate, and Hypocrisy
01:16:25 - Elections and Inevitable Uprising
01:22:06 - Any Good From This Era?
01:23:37 - Temple Economy and Exclusion Politics
01:28:11 - Broadcasters Must Defend Science
01:29:10 - Data Collapse and Census Delay
01:31:49 - Colonial Legacy Versus Loot
01:34:11 - Indian Knowledge Systems Critique
01:37:26 - China’s Future-Focused Mindset
01:39:36 - Elite Hypocrisy and Media Lies
01:42:43 - Final Message and Farewell
01:43:06 - Episode Ends

Instagram:   / kintuparantu.sheeba  

Wanna be a Guest on Kintu Parantu? 🎙️
Email: kintuparantu.connect@gmail.com


© 2026 Sheeba Aslam Fehmi
Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.