"AGONIES OF CONNECTION
- How a new government in the US may affect India"
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080428/jsp/opinion/story_9187038.jsp


The article talks about the coming changes in the US political scene and how that may affect India. One point it mentions is that our IT flow of income may die down if the US politicians really take a very hard conservative stance. This admittedly is not very likely, often promises made in campaigns are carefully reworded to allow for loop holes, however, in case it does, and in any case it does not, we as nation that boasts as highly trained personnel as its main export need to consider how we can survive if tomorrow the external demand for our export weakens.

The article calls out for alternate economical means that we need to invest in so that we can go forward in the future. Apart from general infrastructural reforms I think the biggest reform that we need is to integrate a culture of excellence that through quantitative incentives encourages technological growth through research and development. That is, we need to invest in a univeristy/ private research system that finds, hires, and retains quality talent and encourages them through global incentives (like money, publicity i.e. participation in global conferences, highest quality research infrastructure, and respect) to progress our technological capability through research. And what do you know, the base infrastructure for this is already present in India, think of NAL, NCL, ISRO, IUACCA and other such labs. A couple of things that could be done is that these labs could be linked centrally somehow (atleast NAL and ISRO and IUACCA should be) and need to be linked to global platforms such as global universities and a stronger presence in reputed globally visible journals in the field. This will allow easy transition of technology between the labs, and a platform for maximizing gains from shoot off technology. Another thing that could be done is to encourage a culture of patents.

Putting a strong emphasis on growing our home capabilities in nurturing and keeping the best talent is what I think is important. What say?