India Shining

Remember the catchy phrase which was the tagline of NDA's campaign during the last general election. Eventhough they failed in their effort to retain power, but they have given a new phrase and it is true. There has been enough analysis about why NDA lost power so I will not venture there.

But for the last 5-6 years, India has been getting lot of good news. The economy is booming, we are improving in sports(marginally albeit), our international stature is going up and in our game of oneupmanship with Pakistan we are certainly way ahead.

Ofcourse, we should not be complacent as still there is a long way to go and it is imperative for the policymakers to anticipate the problems that India as a nation will face not just in the near future but also 10 years from now or even longer.

We are justifiably proud of our strong human resource and talent, of the thousands of engineers we can produce. But is that enough?

US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is right now in India and she had a comment that "India has a large and strong technical capability, while America's assets are in the areas of creativity, problem-solving and innovation."

And she is right. For we have been for long good at following, at preserving our established tradition but havent done that well in creation. Ofcourse, in our distant past, there was prolific creativity. But I think the invasions crippled the people's mindset and led to a higher emphasis on preservation rather than creation.

We urgently require effort by the part of government and big private corporation in research and development. In creation of new technology rather than solely the adoption of exisisting technology.

In this respect, MNCs can help India out. Many of them are setting up R&D centers here where indian minds are working on creating innovative solutions. Now of course these inventions will be the property of these MNCs, but it will give exposure for indians to work in this mindset and maybe there will be some indian spinoffs too.

After all, India should shine but with it's own light and not by reflecting other's!


PS: I can't resist posting a joke here. This joke just randomly came into my head. Maybe planted by the aliens as Asimov believes.

Q: Why do south indians love rice so much?
A: Because they see that Punjabis eat wheat and they have wheatish complexion.