On its first day, the committee that would decide where India’s new deep-tech fund put its money was handed a hard brief: There is very little deep tech in this country. Here is two thousand crore. Go and find it.

So they did. They went to the ventures they knew — the ones they had watched, mentored, argued with, and in some cases carried through the years when no one else would write a cheque. They backed the companies whose science had already been proven. And last week, this paper published a so-called investigative report that they had done something troubling: 62 per cent of the first round had gone to firms in which panel members held an interest.

I read the story with sadness, not anger — and let me own my position at once. I serve in this government, so weigh what follows with whatever discount you think that deserves; the argument does not need my office to stand. The sadness, in any case, is not about a single report, a single journalist, or a single newspaper. It is about a habit of mind that keeps us scoring self-goals while the world races ahead.

The question of conflict of interest is a fair one. Public money deserves scrutiny, and it is good that this is being discussed openly. Gopal Srinivasan of the panel said exactly that when the paper reached him. Accountability is the condition of trust.

What is in dispute is the frame. And the frame rests on a fact the investigation never grasped: How the one lakh crore is actually spent.

The money does not go out in a single round through one committee. It is expected to be disbursed over five years through several fund managers, of whom only two have been appointed so far. More are to come. The Technology Development Board’s........

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