New Delhi, July 6 -- In 1821, US secretary of state John Quincy Adams proclaimed, "We are the well-wishers of freedom of all, but the champions only of our own." America defied Adams with its considerable contributions to global prosperity over the next two centuries.

Yet, recent proposals to restrict foreign access to frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) faced with demands to disregard clinical-trial data from China and India would advise caution. This new world makes a re-imagination of India's science ecosystem imperative.

Science has gone beyond laboratories, journals and patents. It is a source of national power, economic competitiveness, health security and mass prosperity. Nat...