I am not saying that India should take all its money from education and sanitation and put it in rockets and r&d. I am not speaking against welfare programs either. I am saying that the whole attitude that "India shouldnt have a space program until everyone has toilets" is self-defeating and means that India will never have a space program, and probably never have enough toilets either.

The core of my point is that a small percentage of the budget should be kept aside for r&d in science and technology (and also to encourage entrepreneurship) because the returns from such endeavours can be tremendous. If you put x dollars to buy a toilet you will only ever get 1 toilet but if you invest x dollars wisely you could in time pay for a hundred toilets.

I think it depends a bit on the ideology the government wants to follow in which one to prioritise.

I assume one favours lifting people out of poverty through opportunity of economic opportunity (subsidising R&D at the expense of other industry). The other is to lift people out of people through welfare (subsidising sanitation through the expense of other industry).

The latter would definitely help in the more immediate term but wouldn't be sustainable. It's a hard pill to swallow but prioritising a better economic climate may be better in the longer term.

There is also another way to look at it where the improvement in sanitation can improve living standards, thereby improving the economy through a different root of the problem. I think the government is taking an approach that uses less welfare.

I would favour the space plan since the ISRO currently has a very high launch success rate and an incomparable cost. For India and the world as a whole it is more optimal to promote its development. The material/'hard cash' export value of launching satellites can help more in the longer term to subsidising sanitation than approaching it directly and sooner.

That's true, but it's a fallacy to imagine that India's science and rocketry programs somehow take resources away from sanitation efforts. In fact India's space program actually brings in revenue, as this story shows. More importantly, it provides inspiration to Indians, showing them what they are capable of doing. That, more than anything, is what is truly necessary to allow India to tackle the fundamental problems it faces.

There are plenty of other sources of money besides taking it from space research.