PROJECT SARASWATI

Who owns the infrastructure through which a nation validates its own knowledge? India has built sovereign digital rails for identity, payments, documentation and commerce. Yet when it comes to research-the knowledge India creates-the infrastructure of validation, indexing and recognition remains largely outside its control. This creates more than an academic problem. It creates a validation vacuum, contributing to publication pressures, Career Advancement Scheme deadlocks, rising publication costs and the outward flow of academic capital. Project SARASWATI proposes a sovereign Research Layer for India's Digital Public Infrastructure-a public digital rail for the aggregation, validation, archival, translation and indexing of Indian research. At its heart is a question of sovereignty: If India can build the infrastructure to move money, establish identity and store documents, why should it not build the infrastructure to validate its own knowledge? SARASWATI is not merely a technology proposal. It is a framework connecting higher-education reform, digital sovereignty, public finance, multilingual scholarship and India's ambition to become a knowledge power by 2047. A nation that funds the creation of knowledge must have the capacity to preserve, validate and recognise it. Project SARASWATI is a call to build that capacity.