"In contrast to this, India filed only 42,000 patent applications, which is far behind these countries. As per an international survey, only three Indian companies are amongst the world's 100 most innovative companies."

He called on both the industry and higher education institutes to emphasise on research.

"We have only 119 researchers in R&D per million people, as compared to 715 in China and 468 in the U.S. Out of the total student strength of 71,000 in NITs, there are only 4,000 PhD students. In IITs, there are only around 3,000 PhD students in the total student strength of 60,000," the president said.

Stating that upgrading the standards of higher education in India should be accorded top priority, he said: "Overseas Indians such as all of you gathered here can play a major role in supporting and supplementing the efforts of the government to remedy this situation."

He said the Indian economy was more resilient than most other countries.

"I am sure you have (the) confidence in the inherent resilience of our people and the dynamism of our economy which has the ability to overcome temporary downturns," he said.
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