MBA News Worldwide
India Arrives On The World Scene
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In fifty-three years since India became a Republic, it has travelled a great deal, especially in the arena of science and technology. It is breaking new ground, finding new paths, reaching out in space, into the depths of the earth and oceans – not just to feed a billion Indians with grain and milk, but also try and put quality into the life of the people. An Indian mission to the moon has already been announced. The world is tapping Indian brains as never before. India has arrived on the world scene. Indians are now looking for a fortune overseas. The big corporations are coming to India to set up shop and do their research and development right here. They are also sourcing billions of dollars of software and other work from Indian corporates – both public sector and private – to get high technology and innovations from India. The Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, says: “Science and technology are undoubtedly a critical input for India’s all-round development. Many of the most visible triumphs of post-independent India have been based on the fruits of science and technology. But the development of India’s S&T capabilities also brings an important benefit to our nation. They give all of us a high degree of self-confidence. And self-confidence is itself a crucial input for the success of any endeavour in any field of nation building. The sky of science belongs to the entire mankind. No part of it can be a monopoly of any single nation”. Even as India is engaged in refining and developing high technology in new directions, it is not overlooking grassroots technology to serve the man in the street or the poor farmer. A classic example of this is the development of a simple hand-held computer called the Simputer by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. It provides Internet and electronic mail (e-mail) access in local languages with touch screen functions and micro-banking applications. It has already been commercialized. Future versions promise speech recognition and text-to-speech software for illiterate users. About 20 years ago when India was trying to acquire a supercomputer for weather analysis, the advanced countries were unwilling to sell one because it had dual use capabilities for defence purposes. India started developing its own supercomputer at the Centre for Advanced Computing (C-Dac) in Pune and came up with the Param Super-computer which is capable of millions of calculations by the second. It adopted the architecture of cluster computing in 1994 and integrated into parallel processing by dividing certain areas of work and then integrating them. The Indian supercomputer then cost only about Rs. 20 lakh against overseas supercomputers costing $ 20 million or more. India also used the rapid developments in micro processor and memory technologies and made cost-effective use to build state-of -the-art high performance computing (HPC) to reach the third generation in indigenous capability. Indian supercomputers are in use in 50 installations within the country and overseas. Telecom in India is among the fastest growing areas in the world. There are now 35 million fixed lines and their number has been rising at 5 million lines a year and could soon be 10 million a year. India also has 15 million mobile phones and their annual increase could soon overtake the fixed lines as a number of public and private sector outfits are around to meet the public demand fully. Some experts see a potential of 500 million telephones – fixed and mobile – in India in a few decades. But India’s innovation was the low cost small rural exchanges (RAX) which could withstand extreme climates in different parts of the country without air-conditioning. The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) which initiated RAX became popular in several developing countries. Even Russia found RAX suitable. This was another effort to take technology to the distant and inaccessible areas with few or no maintenance problems. Innovations India is one of the few countries engaged in developing clean fuels of the future. One of these is hydride – small blocks of solidified hydrogen to run motor vehicles. Advanced work is being done at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Banaras Hindu University. In Varanasi, 50 prototype motorcycles are being tested to ascertain whether hydride can run them in difficult terrain as well as in town and country. The cost of the engines may be high today but if and when experiments succeed even in a decade, the fuel cost of running them would be very low. The prime concern of the innovators is safety and no risks are being taken anywhere in the world to rush it for use. But in future even aircraft could use hydride. Decentralised fuel cell power packs using agro alcohol have also been developed to electrify rural and remote areas. To encourage and support grassroot innovations a National Innovation Foundation has been set up with a corpus of Rs. 50 crore. There were 1000 applicants in the year 2000 but by the end of 2003 more than 40,000 applications will be considered from Indian innovators at home and overseas, especially the USA. The Government is offering Swarnajayanti fellowships to young scientists and each fellowship is Rs. 25,000 per month for research in frontier areas of science. Two science awards have been announced for women besides awards for school children. India has set up an optical infra-red telescope with an aperture of two metres at Hanle in Ladakh at an altitude of 15,000 feet above sea level. It is the highest astronomical laboratory in the world. It is operated remotely via satellite communication and the control station is located at Hoskote near Bangalore. India is presently developing a 14-seater multi-role transport plane and it will be ready soon for a test flight. In the area of health, India has achieved several leads to cure cancer, malaria, diabetes and ulcers. A poly herbal formulation “Asmon” to treat asthma, a common ailment in highly polluted urban areas, has been evolved to bring relief to thousands of people. An Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, set up during President Clinton’s visit, is engaged in collaborating in frontline areas of science. An Indo-US Meteorological Data Centre has been set up in Delhi and its data will be available for research and analysis by scientists of the two countries. Tags: bihari vajpayee, breaking new ground, coming to india, critical input, depths of the earth, e mail, electronic mail, fruits of science, hand held computer, high technology, independent india, indian corporates, indian institute of science, indian institute of science in bangalore, man in the street, mission to the moon, poor farmer, screen functions, self confidence |