Wonder Blunder

India lacks innovation. Does this come as a rude shock to you. You must have read numerous articles about how proud you should be as an Indian as India has a very rich history of innovation. The number system was developed in India, Astronomical treatise like Surya Siddhanta was comprised in India, great thinkers, academicians, philosophers, mathematicians were part of acient India. World renowned universities belonged in India. All this 'WAS' and not 'IS' is the sad part.

Looking back over the past century we see India going through a lot of change. We were born from a century and half of slavery in colonial India. Our young nation was now handed the strings of managing its own affairs. Our leaders belonging to the colonial era had developed strong social values which they put ahead of everything else, monetary gains were frowned upon as if being evil. Gandhisim dominated. India was land of poor and we needed to elivate the poor, that was the prime goal. Public Sector Industry was encouraged. Infact it was the norm of the day that government should run industry to ensure that all is fair in new India.

With such positive values where do you think we went wrong. After more than 50 years of independance we still are faced with 70% poverty (or even more), 40% illetracy and many other social evils with population being the biggest. We still need time is the general argument, but are we moving ahead in the right direction. Yes comes the prompt answer, we now have good metropolitan cities, more jobs, a greater and stronger middle class, a powerful army, more than half a billion population under the age of 25, IT out-sourcing industry and positive world opinion. We have to achieve a lot but we will, give us time.

Yes true, we have the potential to be everything a super power needs to be, but we have our own set of challenges. Education and Infrastructure are the crucial pillars of modern society and currently India lacks both. Indian universities have the capability to provide all this, but we do lose most of our great minds to west for it is but human to strive for a better standard of living. India till now focused more on the poor of the country and now suddenly the focus has shifted to the middle and upper classes. We need to give back something to the tax payers after all. Now every year we get to see a good representation for the middle class in the country's budget where it was mostly ignored for the past 50 years or so.

India needs innovation and not immitation. This decade has seen a lot of multinational giants like pfizer, IBM, Intel trying to open R&D shops in India. They say India has the brain we need to tap it. I believe Indian strategy should be encourage more of research oriented outsourcing to the general outsourcing. This will attract all the intelligent minds back to the sub-continent. And great minds is what shapes the society. India needs young dynamic leaders who have a vision for future. Yes we need a CEO for our country, who sees the country as a big organization and plans and acts accordingly. We should organize ourselves as a industry and market and project our glabal image accordingly.

We have seen some development happening in this area as well, we now have a minority of young Indians prefering to stay back in India and work in diverse fields like education, agriculture, horticulture, microfinancing, NGOs and defence. The Indian mindset will need to change, now the youth are given a strict guideline from their parents. Indian parents and students alike believe that the way to individual glory is IIT-IIM-MNC. Social sciences and other relevant facts are mastered only to achieve this goal. We need people to think not be mechanical. Inspiration is the mother of Innovation. Inspire others to aspire, and we will not be feeding on second morsels.