Posted on: 08-02-06 22:27:31
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=14809
Saturday, January 07, 2006
S&T REPUBLIC DAY 2006
IT STANDS FOR INDIAN TALENT ! - DR. R.A. MASHELKAR*
Dr. R.A. Mashelkar**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the most important change in recent times is the perception about India. I was reading Times magazine recently. I browsed through the interview of Peter Mandelson, who is Tony Blair’s most valued adviser. I was struck by what I read. He said ‘in the space of a decade, China and India have emerged as dramatic, dynamic competitors. Over here and in America, there is a sense that this has put our jobs and livelihoods at stake’. Would we have ever imagined a change of perception of India from a poor and deprived country to a challenger to US & Europe?
The turnaround in the fortune of different countries at different points in their history has been attributed to different factors. For USA, it was roads and railways, which led to the big spurt in its economic growth. For Britain, the factor was textiles. For Denmark, it was milk and milk products. For Sweden, it was timber and timber products. For Middle East, it was oil. The oil for India in the 21st century is IT. And by that is meant IT not as in ‘Information Technology’, but IT as in ‘Indian talent’. It is this talent that is going to catapult India to great heights in the comity of nations.
The uniqueness of the Indian mind has been well accepted. It was the Indian mind, which recognised the power of the fusion of mind, body and spirit for the first time. The products of Indian mind have influenced the events of the twentieth century. For example, one could not talk about digital economy if binary digits, comprising the numerals ‘zero’ and ‘one’ did not exist. It was the Indian mind, which invented the concept of ‘shunya’ or the zero.
Science Olympiad Medalists
We always worry about the fact that in Olympics after Olympics we hardly win any medals in spite of being a country of a billion. But when it comes to the Olympics of mind, we win all the time. Last year, in the Science Olympiads for the school children, 19 young Indian children took part. There was a competition amongst eighty nations. All 19 of them returned with medals!
It is the power of the Indian talent that has given the prestige to Indian IT industry like in no other industry. Infosys and Wipro have caught the imagination of the world. Around 600,000 software professionals contribute to 20 per cent of our exports, and their average age is just around 27 years.
Indian Diaspora
This Indian talent has created great waves across the shores of India. The dominant position of Indian diaspora in the American IT industry is legendary. Whether it is Suhas Patil of Cirrus Logic or Gururaj Deshpande of Sycamore Networks or Vinod Khosla of Sun Microsystems, all of them have been stars in their own right. And the Indian talent goes beyond IT. Then there are Victor Menezes of Citibank and Rajat Gupta of McKinsey and Raghuram Rajan of IMF and Rakesh Gangwal of US Airways and Arun Netravali of Bell Laboratories. The list goes on.
Brand India
I was involved in the process of interview for the Chief Innovation Officer of National Innovation Foundation, which I chair. I found that the individual that we were interviewing had an experience in branding a product. I said ‘I want to brand my India. How would you do that?’ He was puzzled. He had branded a soap, a refrigerator, but he wondered as to how he could brand a nation? I said ‘I will make it easy for you. Let me tell you as to how other nations brand themselves. For instance, US brands itself as a ‘land of opportunity’ He immediately replied, ‘I will brand India as a land of ideas’. Now here is the issue. India is a land of ideas but it is US that is a land of opportunities. That is why young people with aspirations go to USA, which provides them an opportunity to reach their own potential. The challenge before all Indians, whether they are in India or abroad, is to make India the land of opportunity.
It is happening now. The Indian industry is beginning to realize that if they do not innovate, they will perish. Indian drugs and pharmaceutical industry survived so far by copying known molecules. At least ten Indian companies are inventing their own new molecules by getting into discovery research. Collectively, they are looking to employ hundreds of bright young Ph.D.s. In fact, they are complaining about the shortage of suitably skilled Ph.D.s. in India!
There are other sectors where magical changes are taking place. In auto industry, the wheel has turned full circle. Fifty years ago, it was British Morris Oxford, which was sold as Indian Ambassador on Indian roads. Today, it is Indian Indica that is being sold as City Rover on London roads! How did this happen? It happened because Indian talent was given an opportunity due to a vision of a leader and because of a conducive policy of the Government.
Reverse Swing
With the gradual transformation of India into a ‘land of opportunity’, more talent has been returning to the country. During the last two years over 20,000 professionals have returned. At the Jack Welch R&D Centre in Bangalore 2400 professionals are working there. 700 of them are young Indians, who had returned in the last 3 to 4 years. At Intel in their Indian R&D Centre, they are having 2600 professionals. 400 of them have come back from USA over the last 3 to 4 years. Admittedly, this is a trickle of Indian talent returning.
Government of India through its Department of Science & Technology is doing a lot for converting this trickle into a torrent. One of the notable initiatives is Ramanujan Fellowship. Any young outstanding Indian scientist, who wants to return to India, will be given a monthly remuneration of Rs. 50,000 with Rs. 5.00 lakh per year for contingency to help him in his research. This Fellowship will be available upto 5 years. There is no upper limit on the number of such Fellows.
Spotting Young Talent But the primary challenge is to spot the Indian talent young and to nurture it in India. Council of Scientific & Industrial Research has set up the CSIR Diamond Jubilee Invention Award for school children. The objectives of this to spot creativity and innovativeness amongst children and create interest and awareness for intellectual property amongst them. Any Indian student enrolled in an Indian school below the age of 18 years can compete in this award competition. CSIR has run this competition for three years. Thousands of enteries were received. The age group of these young inventors ranged between 11-18 and from class six to twelve.
The Braille developed by Madhav Pathak from a Jabalpur school received the first CSIR Diamond Jubilee Award. Madhav Pathak improved a conventional Braille slate to make writing easier for the blind. It was very tedious for a blind child to memorize more than 300 combinations, since reading and writing is done in the opposite way for a conventional Braille slate. Madhav’s innovation makes it possible to read and write from left to right. This invention later received international prizes too.
But CSIR does not stop at just spotting the talent. It nurtures it too. CSIR applied for patents in the name of Madhav. Further, the model developed by Madhav was improved by one of CSIR’s laboratory, namely, Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIO) in Chandigarh. A prototype was developed by CSIO and was evaluated at a blind school in Chandigarh. The new prototype is an improved pocket version providing more space to read and write both for conventional Braille writers and the new Braille writers.
“Spot & Nurture” mission cannot just be the responsibility of the Government. The corporate world must contribute it in a big way. In this context, it is heartening to see the efforts by leading corporates, such as Tatas, Birals, Reliance, Mahindras, WIPRO and others. Interestingly even multinational companies like Microsoft, INTEL, BASF, Dupont are searching and recognizing young Indian talent.
*Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi
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Speech by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times....
"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were told to eat our
vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the
starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my
children: 'Finish your maths homework. Think of the children in India
who would make you starve, if you don't.'"
I'M PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN....
Quote:
Orginally posted by shankaracharya
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=14809
Saturday, January 07, 2006
S&T REPUBLIC DAY 2006
IT STANDS FOR INDIAN TALENT ! - DR. R.A. MASHELKAR*
Dr. R.A. Mashelkar**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the most important change in recent times is the perception about India. I was reading Times magazine recently. I browsed through the interview of Peter Mandelson, who is Tony Blair’s most valued adviser. I was struck by what I read. He said ‘in the space of a decade, China and India have emerged as dramatic, dynamic competitors. Over here and in America, there is a sense that this has put our jobs and livelihoods at stake’. Would we have ever imagined a change of perception of India from a poor and deprived country to a challenger to US & Europe?
The turnaround in the fortune of different countries at different points in their history has been attributed to different factors. For USA, it was roads and railways, which led to the big spurt in its economic growth. For Britain, the factor was textiles. For Denmark, it was milk and milk products. For Sweden, it was timber and timber products. For Middle East, it was oil. The oil for India in the 21st century is IT. And by that is meant IT not as in ‘Information Technology’, but IT as in ‘Indian talent’. It is this talent that is going to catapult India to great heights in the comity of nations.
The uniqueness of the Indian mind has been well accepted. It was the Indian mind, which recognised the power of the fusion of mind, body and spirit for the first time. The products of Indian mind have influenced the events of the twentieth century. For example, one could not talk about digital economy if binary digits, comprising the numerals ‘zero’ and ‘one’ did not exist. It was the Indian mind, which invented the concept of ‘shunya’ or the zero.
Science Olympiad Medalists
We always worry about the fact that in Olympics after Olympics we hardly win any medals in spite of being a country of a billion. But when it comes to the Olympics of mind, we win all the time. Last year, in the Science Olympiads for the school children, 19 young Indian children took part. There was a competition amongst eighty nations. All 19 of them returned with medals!
It is the power of the Indian talent that has given the prestige to Indian IT industry like in no other industry. Infosys and Wipro have caught the imagination of the world. Around 600,000 software professionals contribute to 20 per cent of our exports, and their average age is just around 27 years.
Indian Diaspora
This Indian talent has created great waves across the shores of India. The dominant position of Indian diaspora in the American IT industry is legendary. Whether it is Suhas Patil of Cirrus Logic or Gururaj Deshpande of Sycamore Networks or Vinod Khosla of Sun Microsystems, all of them have been stars in their own right. And the Indian talent goes beyond IT. Then there are Victor Menezes of Citibank and Rajat Gupta of McKinsey and Raghuram Rajan of IMF and Rakesh Gangwal of US Airways and Arun Netravali of Bell Laboratories. The list goes on.
Brand India
I was involved in the process of interview for the Chief Innovation Officer of National Innovation Foundation, which I chair. I found that the individual that we were interviewing had an experience in branding a product. I said ‘I want to brand my India. How would you do that?’ He was puzzled. He had branded a soap, a refrigerator, but he wondered as to how he could brand a nation? I said ‘I will make it easy for you. Let me tell you as to how other nations brand themselves. For instance, US brands itself as a ‘land of opportunity’ He immediately replied, ‘I will brand India as a land of ideas’. Now here is the issue. India is a land of ideas but it is US that is a land of opportunities. That is why young people with aspirations go to USA, which provides them an opportunity to reach their own potential. The challenge before all Indians, whether they are in India or abroad, is to make India the land of opportunity.
It is happening now. The Indian industry is beginning to realize that if they do not innovate, they will perish. Indian drugs and pharmaceutical industry survived so far by copying known molecules. At least ten Indian companies are inventing their own new molecules by getting into discovery research. Collectively, they are looking to employ hundreds of bright young Ph.D.s. In fact, they are complaining about the shortage of suitably skilled Ph.D.s. in India!
There are other sectors where magical changes are taking place. In auto industry, the wheel has turned full circle. Fifty years ago, it was British Morris Oxford, which was sold as Indian Ambassador on Indian roads. Today, it is Indian Indica that is being sold as City Rover on London roads! How did this happen? It happened because Indian talent was given an opportunity due to a vision of a leader and because of a conducive policy of the Government.
Reverse Swing
With the gradual transformation of India into a ‘land of opportunity’, more talent has been returning to the country. During the last two years over 20,000 professionals have returned. At the Jack Welch R&D Centre in Bangalore 2400 professionals are working there. 700 of them are young Indians, who had returned in the last 3 to 4 years. At Intel in their Indian R&D Centre, they are having 2600 professionals. 400 of them have come back from USA over the last 3 to 4 years. Admittedly, this is a trickle of Indian talent returning.
Government of India through its Department of Science & Technology is doing a lot for converting this trickle into a torrent. One of the notable initiatives is Ramanujan Fellowship. Any young outstanding Indian scientist, who wants to return to India, will be given a monthly remuneration of Rs. 50,000 with Rs. 5.00 lakh per year for contingency to help him in his research. This Fellowship will be available upto 5 years. There is no upper limit on the number of such Fellows.
Spotting Young Talent But the primary challenge is to spot the Indian talent young and to nurture it in India. Council of Scientific & Industrial Research has set up the CSIR Diamond Jubilee Invention Award for school children. The objectives of this to spot creativity and innovativeness amongst children and create interest and awareness for intellectual property amongst them. Any Indian student enrolled in an Indian school below the age of 18 years can compete in this award competition. CSIR has run this competition for three years. Thousands of enteries were received. The age group of these young inventors ranged between 11-18 and from class six to twelve.
The Braille developed by Madhav Pathak from a Jabalpur school received the first CSIR Diamond Jubilee Award. Madhav Pathak improved a conventional Braille slate to make writing easier for the blind. It was very tedious for a blind child to memorize more than 300 combinations, since reading and writing is done in the opposite way for a conventional Braille slate. Madhav’s innovation makes it possible to read and write from left to right. This invention later received international prizes too.
But CSIR does not stop at just spotting the talent. It nurtures it too. CSIR applied for patents in the name of Madhav. Further, the model developed by Madhav was improved by one of CSIR’s laboratory, namely, Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIO) in Chandigarh. A prototype was developed by CSIO and was evaluated at a blind school in Chandigarh. The new prototype is an improved pocket version providing more space to read and write both for conventional Braille writers and the new Braille writers.
“Spot & Nurture” mission cannot just be the responsibility of the Government. The corporate world must contribute it in a big way. In this context, it is heartening to see the efforts by leading corporates, such as Tatas, Birals, Reliance, Mahindras, WIPRO and others. Interestingly even multinational companies like Microsoft, INTEL, BASF, Dupont are searching and recognizing young Indian talent.
*Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Truly Indian
