Not only that, it offers escape from the grinding bureaucracy of the government job where he grew tired of seeing "cabinet notes, office orders and the same faces".

"I needed a different landscape and I joined the private sector as it is more energetic and dynamic" says Raman.

India's scientific community says it just can't match offers being made by technology outsourcing companies, which it warns are robbing India of its much needed research and development talent.

Even more alarming, says Madhavan Nair, chairman of India's premier space agency the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is that students are turning from science to technology as job prospects are far better.

Foreign and domestic technology firms such as IBM, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies, are planning to hire more than 100,000 outsourcing professionals in the current financial year alone.

Global consulting and banking companies are also increasing their staff in India by recruiting from the best management and engineering institutes such as the Indian Institute of Management and the Indian Institute of Technology.

Nair says that the space agency -- Raman's previous employer -- receives between 30,000 and 40,000 applications for the 200 or so posts for engineers and scientists it advertises annually.

"In absolute numbers, there is no dearth of students who are opting for science," he tells AFP.

"But the concern is that highly talented youngsters are now opting for engineering. They have the intention of taking highly lucrative jobs and (often) they compromise their own aptitude for scientific research," Nair says.

"This not only deprives Indian science of good talent but can also restrict or limit a good scientific career opportunity for them.

"Often these highly talented youngsters are involved in routine jobs that have good financial returns but with little of the intellectual satisfaction that research organisations can offer," Nair says.

But for many students, money makes all the difference.

More than 180 students from Bangalore's Indian Institute of Management were, for example, hired by 21 global consulting and investment banking firms this year. The highest salary offered was by Barclays Capital with an annual package of 193,000 dollars.

A newly-hired professional in India's technology outsourcing industry earns about 8,400 dollars a year while a space scientist earns half that amount, although pension is an added incentive.

"I am not surprised. The technology jobs are the ones that are most visible. Everybody knows they pay well and one can live a good life. I think it will even out after some time," says Padmanabhan Balaram, director of the Indian Institute of Science, the country's top science institute.

For some time now, he says, top students have been turning their backs on science due to lack of job opportunities.

"You cannot expect people to go into a course if there is no employment," Balaram says.

"If you invest more money into research and development then you can see a difference in the kind of employment opportunities you create. This is what China has done," he says.

Role models needed

Former space scientist Raman says many scientists in India are working under rigid bureaucratic rules with limited funding for research.

"You have to live with the notion that science (in India) is not cutting edge. We will not be automatically respected as funding is scarce ... so it is also a place of potential frustration," he says.

The Chinese government will allocate 71.6 billion yuan (8.8 billion dollars) from its budget for science and technology in 2006, Zhang Shaochun, assistant minister of finance said in Beijing, said last month.

India, by comparison in the financial year to March 2007, has a research budget of 2.9 billion dollars.

Raman said peer pressure and "social structure" was also behind the trend for Indian men and women to take up easy, well-paid jobs.

"A run-of-the-mill technology job looks far more attractive than anything else. To be a scientist requires character. In a technology job ... all you need is just to follow the herd," Raman says.

"In India, knowing what the social structure is, people are bullied into taking the soft option. You can make money when you are young and you can marry a pretty girl," he says.

India has a strong scientific legacy. Modern mathematics was born when the Indians invented the numerical zero, and the binary numeral system -- a sequence of ones and zeros that is used to process modern computers -- could not have been developed without it.

The earliest concept of the sun being the centre of the solar system was also found in ancient Indian texts.

K. Kasturirangan, former chief of the space agency ISRO, says Indian science needs new role models.

"The spirit of competition is not the same for management, technology and science. Science is a lifetime commitment not competition. We need people who are committed to research," he says.

"Scientists are not created overnight. You have to mentor students from their school days. Then you need to have role models with a certain kind of aura."

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