‘False Nationalistic Pride has no Place in Science’: Renowned Mathematician Chandrashekhar Khare
Soham Shah | 16 January 2026 | The Indian Express
False nationalistic pride has no place in science, said Chandrashekar Khare, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Speaking to The Indian Express at the sidelines of the Indo-European Conference on Mathematics at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Prof Khare Wednesday said that ideas from all over the world had to be incorporated while doing scientific research.
Responding to a question about how it could be ensured that research funding goes to useful science and not questionable projects, he said, “False nationalistic pride has no place in science. Ideas from all over the world need to be incorporated. We need to be able to differentiate between what is real science and what is not. We have to make sure that money is spent towards real science.” As the University Grants Commission (UGC) has mandated 5 per cent of the total credits in the curriculum for courses on Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), Prof Khare questioned whether IKS should be given primacy in education systems…