A drive along Islamabad's Constitution Avenue would make you believe that the Pakistani state is totally dedicated to science, even more than Nehru's India. This magnificent eight-lane arterial road, cutting into the heart of the country's political establishment, is lined with Pakistan's most important buildings – the Presidency, prime minister's residence, Supreme Court, National Library and so on. On the other side of the road are the science buildings, privileged to stand in the highest company. They bear such names as the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Pakistan Science Foundation, Islamic Academy of Sciences, Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH), Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS) and others. A short distance from the Presidency is the head office of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the largest single science-based institution in the country. About two miles away, on the campus of Quaid-e-Azam University, is the National Centre for Physics (NCP). Other such institutions are dotted across the country.

All radiate opulence, visible in the shiny new cars parked in their driveways. Some are tasked with doing scientific research and development; others with managing science or popularising it. Their presence in the nation's capital gives the impression of a country enthusiastic about modernising itself. But one is hard-pressed to see what they have actually done over the decades; anything at all? They have done so little in fact that if any, or all, of these grand buildings were to vanish suddenly into thin air, the world of science would not ever notice. Same goes for the so-called science “incubators” in various cities. These were supposed to create new products for industry and business and new ideas for the world of academia. But nothing is visible.

Something has gone terribly wrong. No one really takes Pakistan's science institutions seriously – except perhaps those related to agriculture – or expects them to perform. Why, then, are they located on prime land with phenomenally high real estate value (imagine the dividends with residential skyscrapers or hotels)? And why are they endowed with a large staff paid out of public money? The reason, perhaps, is that the Pakistani ruling establishment wants to be seen taking science seriously.