Still and all, it is pleasing to learn how India’s space programme has focused on societal applications instead of just business ones. ISRO’s satellites are measuring water stress in crops, predicting yields, picking places to drill for water, deciding where to locate rainwater trapping check dams, mapping chlorophyll rich waters that sustain fish catches, reducing deaths due to cyclones from 10,000 in 1977 to just 900 in 1990, linking hospitals to serve remote areas and so on.

Despite a lack of great business anxiety - or perhaps because of that lack-, it has been “estimated that ISRO’s projects have added between two and three times the organisation’s budget to the nations GDP”.

Other articles in the Special Edition highlight instances of Indian innovations and drive. There is the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad using stem cells drawn from near a damaged cornea to repair it to grow it anew. India’s erstwhile practice of manufacturing cheap, generic copies of blockbuster drugs has made it a leader in chemistry research and spawned 9000 drug firms. One of them Bharat Biotech, has produced hepatitis B vaccine for a dollar a shot [or a twentieth of western prices] by innovating and reducing the cost of producing a crucial protein. GE’s Bangalore research team has significantly improved the efficiency of its wind turbines and its engine for Boeing’s planned 7E7 aircraft.

There is news too, that’d get up the hackles of conscientious objectors: New Scientist reports on India’s decision to turn to fast breeder nuclear reactors for its future power needs, even as the world is switching them off. India believes it can succeed where others have lost their nerves. And, GM crops are alive and growing well, thank you. In March, 2002 India set up the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee as a lightning rod to handle protesters and it has been cunningly effective.

Behind all these developments— mostly good and some, disturbing— lies what is known as India’s knowledge leadership. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys says, “US students will worry that IT jobs will migrate to India and so will stop studying technical subjects… If the immigration of technical experts to the US and the supply of their graduates eventually dry up, then I can imagine the centre of gravity of innovation drifting east”.

But we must again ask the question we began with: What’s new that’s causing this attention and praise? Perhaps the world has sized up India but hasn’t quite the right phrase yet that would describe what animates the Indian mind. We have two clues from recent times that might let us understand.

First, when the tsunami struck on Dec 26, 2004, India facing a monumental disaster at home, nevertheless announced an instant aid of $25 million to Sri Lanka and also despatched help to Indonesia. This,when the US lazily announced a niggardly $35 million for the whole world.

Second, we learn from a New Scientist article, India has just completed “the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope [GMRT]— world’s largest, low-frequency radio telescope and India’s biggest science project.” Located at Khodad near Pune, the GMRT consists of 30 tracking antennas, each 45m diameter. “This is Big Science on anyone’s scale”. India’s innovative engineers “created a revolutionary, low-cost design. The entire design cost $12 million”. Astronomer Paulo Freire of Cornell University, USA says, “The beauty of GMRT’s design is deeply influencing the construction of the SKA” [square kilometer array].

The purpose? GMRT will do something that reads like this: “detect a 1420 megahertz radio signal emitted by exited hydrogen gas”. Pure science with no profit-intent built in.

So, what’s the connection between India’s scientific pursuit and tsunami outreach? Together, they epitomise what the Indian mind yearns for: stay open in mind, investigate and reconsider your certainties; and combine that with compassion for the human condition. Not to say, India has perfected this or is anywhere near doing so, but the Indian mind yearns for it.

Indians are growing a successful economy probably because their activities don’t always make economic sense.