Despite phenomenal growth in recent years, India's startup ecosystem lags in innovation across strategic sectors. Identify the factors responsible for this inadequate focus on deep-tech and suggest strategies to bridge this gap.

n India" for self reliance -> C) Growth of self-employed population -> D) Rise of Unicorn startups due to growth -> E) Role of MSMEs in exports and employment

Yet, the innovation and research part has lagged across strategic sectors due to following factors :

1. Low researcher base in India which is just 260 per lakh population, while China has 1602 researcher per lakh.
2. Reduced public expenditure on research which is about ~0.6% of GDP, as compared to USA which has ~2% of GDP.
3. Infrastructure bottlenecks : Low quality of researcher facility and laboratory.
4. Proliferation of service startups like OLA, Zomato, etc.
5. Poor industry-academia linkages.
6. Issues with ease of doing business and "small by choice" firms due to LIC burden: -> Licensing -> Inspection -> Compliance
7. Lack of skilled labour in India -> Only about 50% engineers are employable.

diagram Strategies to bridge gap -> (1) Promote research & innovation [Eq: Anusandhan National Research Framework (ANRF)] -> (2) Enhance industry-academia linkage -> (3) Skill based education [Eq: NEP 2020] -> (4) Provide better logistics for growth of manufacturing sector -> (5) Global collaboration and fellowship programme [VAIBHAV] -> (6) Ensure increased private participation in research