With an incident of rape at a busy and important inter-state bus terminus in Pune, the focus is back on the rising levels of crimes against women in Maharashtra. The alleged incident took place in the early hours of Tuesday, when a 26-year-old medical professional was waiting at the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation’s Swargate bus terminus for her bus to Phaltan. The accused approached her, called her ‘didi’ and assured her that the bus to her destination was parked at another bay. She hesitated to get into the dark bus that had no passenger, but he convinced her. Once inside, he allegedly raped her and walked out. That such a heinous act could take place at a crowded terminus that has been used by scores of women, across age and income groups, sparked outrage. It took 500 police personnel, dog squads, drones and the assistance of nearly 400 villagers, according to official sources, to nab the accused Dattatraya Ramdas Gade, 36, a history-sheeter on bail since 2019.

The crime could easily have been a statistic in the records had it not been for the location and the woman’s determination to approach the police. One case does not mean that the entire system of security has collapsed, but it does raise questions critical to the issue of women’s safety in public places. The immediate concern is the lapse in police processes. Gade, it transpires, has been involved in multiple criminal cases of theft, robbery, and chain-snatching, especially as he drove women passengers up and down the district in his vehicle; he used to often pose as a policeman at the Swargate bus terminus itself. Pune cops affirmed that they patrolled the bus terminus twice in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. The question stares us in the face: how did Gade escape scrutiny and action all this time?

The state government, led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, wants to show that swift and firm action was taken, but that is beside the point. The political connection of the accused with the Nationalist Congress Party may have emboldened him too. Nevertheless, the larger issue is of every arm of the law and judiciary following processes, without fear or favour, that can make a dent in the rising graph of crimes against women in the state. The registered cases were nearly 32,000 in 2020 and rose to 45,331 in 2022. On average, 121 crimes against women – and about 55 against children – are registered every day across Maharashtra. Solving one case swiftly or putting the might of the police on the case that grabbed headlines does not address the core problem, which, at its simplest, is the police machinery ensuring safety in public places 24x7x365. There can be no let-up and, certainly, no excuses.

 National Science Day – develop scientific temper

The National Science Day, celebrated on February 28 in India to mark the discovery of the Raman effect by physicist C.V. Raman on this day in 1928, comes on the back of a stunning difference between India and its nearest competitor, China – the latter’s unveiling of an AI model ‘DeepSeek,’ that rivals the United States’ OpenAI models at a fraction of the price, causing a global upheaval earlier this month. Videos and memes mocked India for its pathetic attempts to join the AI bandwagon with poorly crafted puns to fit the acronym. It matters less that the world laughs at our backs for patently unscientific approaches to either AI, never mind India’s attempts to roll out its version with ‘Krutrim,’ or to banging plates and lighting lamps to drive out the coronavirus during the pandemic in 2020-21. It matters more that, even as the world’s largest economies leverage the cutting edge of science and technology, India is in danger of losing its scientific temper despite being the first country in the world to explicitly write it into the Constitution.

In the early years of independence, scores of new educational institutions and scientific establishments were founded, including for space technology, which, at that time, brought on jeers given the widespread poverty in the country. Many of these, including the Indian Space Research Organisation and educational-research institutes like IITs, besides iconic engineering colleges, were nurtured by a dedicated and growing pool of scientists and career researchers. It would not be out of place to say that science and technology go ages back into India’s history, too, if the two-millennia old Charaka Samhita is seen for the pharmacological treatise it is or the Jantar Mantar precinct, which showed a keen understanding of mathematics, astronomy and physics.

If India is now not at the forefront of transformation in the science and technology space, the question begs itself. Experts have lauded India’s large talent pool and a vibrant start-up ecosystem that supports innovation for a growing market. What ails the science and tech sector has to do with the quantum of resources dedicated to research and political climate which can advance – or dampen – the scientific temper. India spends a mere 0.66 percent of its GDP on science and technology – the lowest among BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the United States and China spend 3.07 and 2.4 percent, respectively. Most of the spending goes to government institutions in India, where research is increasingly directed, or re-directed, to suit majoritarian political ends rather than pure science and tech purposes. This has to stop. And scientists, like Dr Raman, have to be remembered as India’s heroes more often for scientific temper to stir the young.