Slashdot Mirror
Third World Research, Development & Innovation
tovarish writes "It is nice to see that countries like India are trying to research communication techniques in backward and rural areas. While tech savvy people like us enjoy the latest gadgets it is quite a challenge to develop gadgets which actually help the poor and illiterate. While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news are already covered in slashdot umpteen times, sometimes her sensible achievements should be covered too."
Her sensible acheivements should be covered too? Can we mark the article blurb as flamebait? Lets keep the bias out of the story. Please.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
"It is nice to see that countries like India are trying to research communication techniques in backward and rural areas." Who are we to call part of India "backward"? The Indian people are making enormous progress in a comparable short ammount of time. The Indian people have launched satalites for purley educational purposes and are determined to fight illiteracy in their country. In many ways the Indian attitude towards education is superior to our own.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
... to be a nuclear power, a spatial power, to be the biggest democracy in the world and still be considered a 'third world country'...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Shouldn't the topic be "India's, Development & Innovation" instead of "Third World Research, Development & Innovation" ???
In my opinion, well-managed microloans are *the* way to bring developing nations out of poverty -- not necessarily large-scale foreign investment. Large-scale projects generally seem, to me, to have a 50% chance of failure, with the cost of failure being rather high. In contrast, these smaller ventures tend to be more successful because they are more compact and can deal more quickly with changing conditions (which is also the reason that small businesses in the United States pretty much power the economy even if they only make a small fraction of overall revenue). Also, the cost of failure for these ventures is much lower (although generally the failure is on a more personal, tragic level).
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Come on guys, why do you even bother posting this stuff on here ? Everything on 3rd world tech turns into a huge troll for all the knuckleheads who say they don't need technology or electricity, they need food, water, english and some form of the xtian religion noone finds too offensive.
When you're surrounded by China and Pakistan, in probably the most hostile region in the world (I'm discounting Israel because Iraq, Iran, etc DO NOT have WMDs), you have to innovate to survive. Just because some sections of the society don't hae adequate food, water and shelter doesn't mean that funding into scientific research is completely stopped before all come up to speed. Most of the time, science is what uplifts the poorer sections of the society.
It is my considered opinion that the editors of Slashdot deliberately post stories about India's achievements and their sole reason is to invite slashdotters to make fun of India.
Stories about China's achievements get applauded as "humankind's" achievements while the same about India are booed as someone trying to achieve high status. A projection's of the reader's thoughts is what it is.
You guys and girls don't even know the history of India and you don't know what a belief her people have in her "tryst with destiny" (Nehru's speech on midnight of India's independence). Why are these two things important? Because
(a) history teaches us something. For those whose concept of ancient-ness is 200 years, this concept would probbaly have no meaning. Consider this, for most of its history, India was a rich country which was a subject of invasions and immigrations. It was called a "bird of gold." But Indians became complacent and gave more attention to arts, poetry (and probably sex - an ancestor of mine wrote Kamasutra). It got invaded so much that it was under non-Indians' rule for 1000 years.
And now when we develop nuclear weapons to prevent repeat of history, you history-less people have the gall to tell us we are wrong!
(b) we achieved higher things before and by doing technological innovation we are only going back to the same level, we don't aspire for any high frikkin status. That will come with time and accomplishments.
Here is the bottomline, take it or take it.
We will continue to use technology.
We will continue to develop further technology.
We will continue to do whatever it takes us to protect the borders and peoples of India.
If you dislike it, close your eyes, stop reading about India, and keep licking China's a$$.
Some standard is being set in India which prioritizes how work is expended. Right now, that standard is NOT the well being of the people of India. Who cares if 100,000 people get to research all they want when 300,000,000 can't even read? Who is advocating ignorance here?
Which is like saying I shouldn't buy an ipod while there are people starving anywhere. Or wait, I should't buy a cell phone. Or a CD. Or even another pair of shoes if my first pair has any wear left - as long as someone somewhere is hungry.
If one of the 100,000 was going to do research in USA or India, let them choose to do it in India. Don't make them be a primary school teacher, they make hate it and put people off learning altogether.
Its a tempatation when dealing with figures to step too far and make decisions regarding peoples lives and freedoms - remove an arm here, make someone work in a coal mine there - as if its OK because the over-all picture is neater.
I think the other guy had it right.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com