  During the last two decades, India has emerged as a major knowledge producer
in the world, however different reports put it at different ranks, varying from
3rd to 9th places. The recent commissioned study reports of Department of
Science and Technology (DST) done by Elsevier and Clarivate Analytics, rank
India at 5thand 9th places, respectively. On the other hand, an independent
report by National Science Foundation (NSF) of United States (US), ranks India
at 3rd place on research output in Science and Engineering area. Interestingly,
both, the Elsevier and the NSF reports use Scopus data, and yet surprisingly
their outcomes are different. This article, therefore, attempts to investigate
as to how the use of same database can still produce different outcomes, due to
differences in methodological approaches. The publication counting method used
and the subject selection approach are the two main exogenous factors
identified to cause these variations. The implications of the analytical
outcomes are discussed with special focus on policy perspectives.
