In 2015, the United Nations decided to declare February 11 of each year as the International Day to celebrate the participation of women and girls in science.

Standing now in February 2018, it is a good time to ponder why India has never had a female scientist leading its space agency or nuclear facility.

Independent India has never seen a female chairperson of ISRO (who also becomes secretary to the department of space) or a female director of BARC (who in turn becomes the chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission and secretary to the department of atomic energy).

This despite the nation seeing women breaking barriers and rising to become President, Prime Minister, Governors, Chief Justices, Speakers, cabinet ministers, chief ministers, chief secretaries, foreign secretaries, ambassadors, Director Generals of Police, city police commissioners, chief commissioners of the Income Tax department, heading customs, being chief conservators of forests, and so on.

It is an irony that no woman has been able to break the barriers of male dominance in ISRO and BARC. The situation is pretty much the same when it comes to the directorship of most prestigious research institutions in the basic sciences of our country. Unfortunately, there are no reliable statistics to quote numbers when we take all these research institutions as a whole.

The situation is slightly better (i.e. higher than 0 per cent) for the ratio of female vice-chancellors in our country but nothing to be proud of, by any count.

The most recent survey showed that female vice-chancellors hardly add up to about 3 per cent (i.e. we have 97 per cent male vice-chancellors even now). This percentage is inclusive of women-only universities; otherwise the number is lower.

The only professions which have such appalling ratio (0 to 3 per cent) of women at the top are the military, paramilitary and intelligence services in India. But that sounds more logical and understandable because the number of women recruited at the starting level in these uniformed and security services is rather low.

Moreover women are not recruited in the combat arms category (the cadre from where officers are finally selected to become chiefs of the armed and paramilitary forces) in most of these services.

This makes the dismally low figures of women reaching the top of academia and research even more shocking and illogical.

Education, teaching and research are the branches where women are recruited at high rates at the junior level. In most parts of our country, especially when it comes to recruitment of female candidates to school, college and university teaching positions, they outnumber men. But it has to be noted with regret that the likelihood of them becoming school or college principals or university vice-chancellors is extremely low and remains unlikely because of inherent bias and prejudices inside the system when it comes to choosing leadership roles.

Although higher levels of academia and scientific research claim themselves to be “intellectually enlightened and modern”, it is a fact that they are not open to allowing both genders to climb the top equally, as it should be.

Ideally, it is the highly educated and well-read sectors like these which are supposed to become role models in gender parity. But the trend shows just the opposite.

Technically, the gender ratio numbers and statistics show that the highest levels of academia and research in India are possibly worse (even compared to military and intelligence services, that can perhaps justify the poor ratio by quoting high disparity at the recruitment stage) when it comes to promoting women from junior levels to reach the very top.

Otherwise, we would have seen at least a couple of female chiefs for our space and nuclear agencies by now, and even more women scientists becoming directors of research institutes and leading universities on a par with their female counterparts in other legislative, executive and judiciary roles.

For comparison, the current director general of CERN (the largest particle accelerator in the world) is a female particle physicist and the current president of the International Astronomical Union is a female astronomer.

Alas, a lot more has to be done in this direction in India to make things even and fair!