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."

Comments

Flame

[Anonymous Coward]

Her sensible acheivements should be covered too? Can we mark the article blurb as flamebait? Lets keep the bias out of the story. Please.

Re:Flame

[Draoi]

Considering how many satellites are launched in the US and just how much of *that* goes to "actually help the poor and illiterate", given how many poor and illiterate people there are in the US. Using terms like 'backward' and 'third-world' are just a little offensive, no?

Glasshouses and stones and all that ....

Re:Flame

[Joey7F]

No they aren't, they are minor aggravations. 97% of men and women older than 15 can read and write. In India it is 60%.

12% of our population is below the poverty line, in India it is nearly twice that.

Plus, our definition of poverty is different from most countries. To give an example, my grandmother is below the poverty line. Her life consists of living in a reasonably nice house, balanced diet (even goes out to eat with my mother), shopping, watches tv and just generally takes it easy. Once a year she comes with us to Disney World or some theme park and she spends a week at the beach with us. I dare you to say she is impoverished.

We don't really have true poverty in the United States. Think of it this way (this is not original, an instructor of mine gave me this gem) we think of a poor family as being in a small house, having one car that is usually older, one tv set, going out to eat on very rare occassions etc.

You just described a middle class family from 1964.

Sure there is a little bit of true poverty (and we can never get rid of it) but we are doing damn well as a nation and more importantly as my Indian friends like to tell me 'everyone here has a (good) chance at success with hardwork.'

When was the last time you paused to think how lucky you are?

--Joey

Query:

[FooAtWFU]

While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news are already covered in slashdot umpteen times, sometimes her sensible achievements should be covered too.

Query: What's so darned not-sensible about a satellite launch?

Re:Query:

[blowdart]

"What's so darned not-sensible about a satellite launch?"

Ground control staff have to wear groucho mark fake glasses and moustaches. It's the law.

Re:Query:

[Anonymous Coward]

While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news are already covered in slashdot umpteen times, sometimes her sensible achievements should be covered too.

Outsourcing too .. what's not sensible about creating employment and encouraging education ones country ?

Can you imagine a country refusing outsourcing? How stupid would *that* be?

"No thanks, we want our economy to be shit and our people to starve so we dont want money and jobs."

What would our own congress do?

Newsflash!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

India isn't 3rd world

The Sudan is 3rd world

Re:Newsflash!!!

[jbgeorge]

As an indian.. let me assure you.. the place you are from might be 3rd world.. but where Im from definitely not 3rd world..

peace.

Re:Newsflash!!!

[haluness]

> As an Indian, let me reassure you, India is very much 3rd world

Maybe in infra structural terms (that too in certain parts). But attitude wise, I don't think so

Re:Newsflash!!!

[pointyhairedmba]

India: Over 25% of India's population is under the poverty line. India is 62 out of 221 nations in infant mortality India is 152nd (out of 236 nations in per capita GDP 9.3% of kids in India die before age 5 (54th out of 193 nations) Sudan: Sudan is 52 out of 221 nations in infant mortality Sudan is 186nd (out of 236 nations in per capita GDP 10.7% of kids in Sudan die before age 5 (46th out of 193 nations)

Re:Newsflash!!!

[metlin]

Well as an Indian, let me assure you that you both are in the third world. Third world refers to which side you were on - capitalist or communist. India chose neither, and therefore is a third world.

D'oh! Perhaps you meant developing/under-developed/whatever?

Re:Newsflash!!!

[gray peter]

No, you're wrong. That was initially the meaning, but in the 21st century 3rd world refers to "developing" nations, that is, those nations which still have a huge percentage of their population living way way way below the poverty level. India is absolutely 3rd world. Maybe when the rest of the country more closely resembles the developed areas (Bangalore for example...) it will become a first world country, but are you really going to tell us that the average person in India lives at the same level as the average person in Western Europe, Japan, or the USA?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with an Indian woman at work who came from a very wealthy family (she was the only woman in her class at IIT). She tried to tell me that since the Caste System had been "officially" abolished there no longer *was* a caste system in India. Clearly not the case. The caste system is still very much alive in India, "officially" or not. Kinda like how there is still racism in America even though we've outlawed slavery.

Economic Uses

[principor]

There's a book that gives a good use of communication in developing nations. It's by CK Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. It gives the example of how installing an internet terminal in rural Indian villages has helped them set the market for their livestock. They can log on, check the prices for the day and then head to market as more knowledgeable sellers. This keeps them from being taken advantage of and does a lot to help both their confidence and economic prosperity.

Are we allowed to

[Lifix]

"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.

Re:Are we allowed to

[greenhide]

In many ways the Indian attitude towards education is superior to our own.

Unless things have changed drastically in the past few years or so, while the attitude towards education may be great, their willingness to supply the funding behind that attitude is not.

In my opinion, technology does not, in and of itself, solve any problems. There must be attitudinal changes, particularly in the government. Closer to (my) home, this explains why, despite spending more and more each year on computers and other technologies, the US continues to lag behind other countries in education and in how much most current students know and how well they apply that knowledge. It's an attitudinal problem. We train our children to be too focused on education as a means towards a high-paying job, so they don't value knowledge unless they feel it directly translates into acquiring wealth. And that's the *successful* students. Many others, mostly raised in poor environments with limited educational resources and households were both parents *must* work in order to feed their children, have resigned themselves to working in the service industry for the rest of their lives and thus don't take any interest in education.

I'm not sure if these same psychological dynamics have started up in India yet.

Re:Are we allowed to

[qbzzt]

Hi,

Who are we to call part of India "backward"?

We do this because a large part of India is still where the west was centuries ago. Shortage of clean water, primitive communication, small scale inefficient agriculture, etc.

The Indian people are making enormous progress in a comparable short ammount of time.

I agree, and I'm also very impressed with that. But the fact that they are working hard to get close to where we are now means they also identify their current situation as backwards in many ways.

In many ways the Indian attitude towards education is superior to our own.

Poor doesn't mean stupid. The richer the country, the more the people think they can afford to be stupid. That's one of the reasons that previously rich countries tend to lose their status.

Must be hard...

[Yvanhoe]

... to be a nuclear power, a spatial power, to be the biggest democracy in the world and still be considered a 'third world country'...

Re:Must be hard...

[Reducer2001]

What about the US? How about we stop building weapons and educate our children? I mean, come on! Who are we going to use our nucular tipped bunker buster bombs against? A couple of tired 'terrorists' hunkering in a cave on the Pakistan border? Seems like using a shotgun to kill flies to me.

I think a few well trained special ops teams could do the work of many of our over-powered weapons.

You know, or not.

Re:Must be hard...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need more education on Indian Politics. We DO NOT elect an individual. We elect a party and then it is the decision of the party to field a candidate for the PM's post.

We also cannot have an un-elected leader so our current PM has to win a seat in either our lower house (Lok Sabha) or the higher house (Rajya Sabha).

Please keep to the topic.
We are a democratic country. As for achievements is concerned, here is one - Electronic Voting Machines that was used for our last general elections without any trouble. While a developed democracy is a laughing stock of the world because of its 2000 presidential ballot problems in Florida.

Re:Must be hard...

[swb]

What about the US? How about we stop building weapons and educate our children? I mean, come on!

It sounds like a great analogy, but I think most studies have demonstrated that increased per pupil spending doesn't accomplish very much.

Besides, in the US at least, the increased spending generally goes for social welfare type programs (meals, social workers, kids dubiously labeled "learning disabled") within the schools instead of increasing the quality of education itself (better teaching, better teaching materials, etc).

The schools which seem to have the biggest problems are usually inner-city schools with large numbers of minority students and immigrants -- no amount of money short of individual tutoring will help them. Anytime you aggregate all the poor kids together, they're typically going to just demonstrate the social backgrounds they live in. Bussing doesn't help -- white families simply move outside the administrative authority of the bussing regeime, and some minority leaders have also complained that integration "undermines their cultural identity" (the result being "right to be ignorant and unemployed.")

It has been suggested that inner city schools could be "saved" by shipping their students to boarding schools in rural locations. It solves many of the social background issues the kids have (crime, neglect, diet) while putting them in an environment where education is their biggest priority. Minority leaders decry it as concentration camps, and conservatives won't pay for it, and it leaves some meaningful questions about family life. Strangely it's worked well for the British aristocracy for centuries.

Overall, you're right that big-ticket weapons systems are a waste of time. Nukes are a valuable big stick to carry around, but primarily the money should be spent on mobile tacitical troops, although Iraq has taught us the value of APCs and tanks in urban combat.

I'd spend the military savings on domestic infrastructure -- urban transit, telecommunications and environmental cleanup. Spending more on the school is just too problematic to get a payback.

Re:Must be hard...

[Anonymovs Coward]

...and to still expect handouts from first world countries because they're so poor.

Rubbish. India has been self-sufficient in food since the early 1970s. Some aid for health, education and infrastructure does come in, but even that is mostly loans, not "handouts". American and Japanese aid comes with too many ridiculous strings attached, India learned long ago not to get too entrapped with it. As for the nukes: America was worried about war with a country on the other side of the world. India has gone to war with two countries on its borders, one of whom (China) is truly the 800lb gorilla of Asia with whom there continue to be unresolved border disputes, and is an acknowledged nuclear power. You saying India has less right than the USA to nukes? I don't like nukes either, but let's abolish them all, maybe step by step, rather than say the big five can keep what they have and make more while they're at it.

Priorities?

[BigChigger]

Wouldn't it be better to not teach these people to read and help them with water and food qualiity first?

At least do that before we can get them electronic gadgets like CD and MP3 players so they can transfer they money to the RIAA.

BC

Wrong Topic ???

[allden]

Shouldn't the topic be "India's, Development & Innovation" instead of "Third World Research, Development & Innovation" ???

Re:Wrong Topic ???

[tovarish]

though this article does highlight India's r&d other countries like brazil and china are also doing quite a bit of research in these areas

Re:waitaminute

[Anonymous Coward]

India invented the term 'third world' to
refer specifically to itself. They INVENTED
the term.

US + NATO == first world
Russia + Warsaw pact == second wold
Non aligned == third world (including the swiss)

Definition of "Third World"

[eutychus_awakes]

Here is a short list of web definitions for the "Third World". You might be surprised - it wasn't originally meant to mean what we now think it means.

Re:Definition of "Third World"

[Yvanhoe]

Ok, I don't have the exact quote, I am not a specialist of the domain but here is what I learned, in France, about the expression "Tiers-Monde" (Third World) :
It would have been coined by a french journalist who made a parallel between the poor countries of the World and the "Tiers-Etat" (Third state) which were the official representation of the french people before the revolution (the 1st state was nobility and the 2nd was the Church) it was under-represented (1/3 of the voices in debates but it represented 98% of population) mainly poor people (peasants for the most) and almost starving to death due to large taxes. The problematic the journalist was raising was : For how long will this "Third World" undergo its poverty and injustice ? Will it revolt like the "third state" did ?

So here it is. From this definition, I would say that the characteristics of a third world country would be that it is under-representated in global negociations and that there is a certain level of wealth to be attained. Each criterion is very subjective, India has clearly a great weight in world decisions but it has also a very important poor population, less than most african countries though...

I tend to use more the words "under-developed" countries and "emerging (or emergent, how do you say that in english ?) countries" if most of the population is poor, it is under-developed or emerging. If it has a strong economic growth (like china or india), it is emergent and, if we have faith in capitalism, it means the poverty will finally fade away.

Third world seems to have a strong "under-developed" connotation. Or maybe it is just me...

Re:Definition of "Third World"

[Zareste]

It basically goes by the following:

1. number of nuclear weapons
2. kill count
3. military size
4. countries destroyed
5. number of broken treaties
6. skin lightness
7. number of deaths by pollution
8. number of McDonalds establishments

Add them up and if you score high enough, congrats! You're a first-world country. Let's go kill some Iraqis.

Worlds

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

What qualifies a country to be in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd world? You always hear about 1st and 3rd world contries, but what is a 2nd world country? Are there any examples? China and India have bustling cities that have the comforts of a 1st world contry, but also areas of vast poverty. So where do they belong? My gut would say that should be the definition of the 2nd world countries that we never hear about.

Re:Worlds

[savagedome]

Click here

Re:Worlds

[mOoZik]

It goes back to the fifties and was coined by the French Alfred Sauvy, being analogous to the social classes in pre and post-revolution France. The first world is the U.S., Canada, W. Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc: they have highly developed economies, relying very little on agriculture, are very industrialized, and I'll venture to say democratic. The second world at the time was the U.S.S.R. and perhaps even E. Europe, depending on how you define it; they were also heavily industrialized. Thus, there no longer is a Second World. And finally, every other country was third world, which are often countries which are rural, not heavily industrialized, and generally poor.

I remember a story

[earthforce_1]

About a microloan program, where very small loans would be given to poor individuals in remote areas, who wanted to start their own businesses. One woman in a remote village used such a loan to buy a cell phone. Prior to this, there were no phone service at all. She would charge her neigbours to place calls using the phone, hence becaming the defacto phone company.

Re:I remember a story

[greenhide]

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).

From a recent article in India newspaper...

[Infinityis]

infinityis writes "It is nice to see that countries like United States, etc. are trying to research communication techniques in nerdy and technical areas like http://www.slashdot.org/. While rural people like in India enjoy the simlple life it is quite a challenge to develop technology that gives Americans more time to relax. While the USA's lack of shuttle launches and outsourcing problems are already covered in news outlets umpteen times, sometimes her senseless technological advances should be covered too."

Third World..

[digital.prion]

really just means Non-White.. I say this not to be abrasive but true.. Take a look at your nearest world map and start pointing at every place that "qualifies" as THIRD WORLD (what ever that means) - then to contrast point at all the places that qualify as "FIRST WORLD". BTW.. Where is the Second World?

What I saw...

[bayankaran]

Last year I was travelling the length and breadth of this vast country.

In the last ten years, the biggest changes in India are the spread of ATM's and mobile phones. When the state run BSNL started cellular services in 2002 in rural Indian towns, there were stampedes to get the application form.

What you dont find is decent broadband and good roads. Broadband may happen soon with Reliance Infotech putting fiber. But no chance of roads getting better.

And the country proves the trickle down theory favored by World Bank and IMF will not work. I am yet to see anything trickling down. And the country is liberalising for the last 10 years.

Does that mean liberalisation is bad?
No.

USA is a 3rd world country in science research

[Cryofan]

Yes, it is true. America does less science research per capita than do many of the European nations, especially the countries that Rightwingers love to call "socialist", i.e,. Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc. All these countries and some others in Europe publish more science papers (in peer reviewed journals) than does America (some of them publish TWICE as many papers per capita as does America). Gee, I guess that blows away that neoliberal/laisseiz faire argument about America capitalism being the "driving engine behind improving technology, quality of life" etc., and how all those welfare states in Europe are just parasites on America....yawn....

Also, America is even behind 3rd world countries like India & China in terms of science research papers when looked at on a per-capita-wealth basis (numbers of papers per unit of wealth per country). Note on the graph how much to the right America is when compared to, say, India. India publishes more peer-reviewed science papers more capita wealth than does America.

THis is all based on the study entitled "Scientific Impact of Nations" by King for 2004. You can get a link to the pdf version of the paper and see a graph of science papers per per-capita-wealth here.

Well, you learned something today, huh? Now go watch the debate Wednesday and listen to Bush and Kerry tell us about how America is the greatest nation on earth.....

Re:USA is a 3rd world country in science research

[Zibblsnrt]

I think it is quite relevant, and I think you ad hominem attacks are rather uncalled for. What you are implying is that the US should be spending on research at least as much, on a per unit of wealth basis (still as of yet not defined to my satisfaction)as India is currently doing.

I await your pointing out where I said any such thing. I'm a patient man, but I suppose I'll be waiting for some time.

There are some highways, but it is not a comprehensive national system by any means. Highways in India are what we call roads in the US. Roads in India are any man-made attempt at surface equalization. Packed earth counts as a road. Gravel counts as a road. Even the World Bank indicates only 500km of highways in India are actualy more than two lanes.

Yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on this one. 500km out of 3.3 million kilometers of highways are more than two lanes? Puh-leeze. Give me more sources to back that up and I'll consider it accurate, but until then I'm gonna flatly reject this.

Why don't you go ask the starving children, dozens of whom will come to greet you the moment you step foot in that country, if that research means anything to them. I have no doubt that perhaps some interesting research goes on in India, but clearly there is disconnect between the ultimate goal of research, ie building a greater civilization, and the research that is currently taking place.

Heh. Calls me on ad-hominems and then starts throwing false dichotomies around as though they have a connect with the real world. How cute.

My usual question is to ask you where you get the idea that a nation of one billion people is only capable of either doing "useful" research, or the stuff you're dismissing as frivolous. You imply that they shouldn't lift a finger to do anything other than the most basic-needs type of stuff and discard anything else because it doesn't have immediate practical benefits.

People keep making this asinine claim that the United States and a couple of other western countries are the only nations which should - or should be permitted to - undertake any kind of advanced research, with this general overtone of "you're not ready for this kind of knowledge yet." That strikes me as little more than despicable, hateful condescension, and I give it little more than the tiny scrap of respect if almost deserves, and nothing more.

Researching obscure technologies is a luxury for advanced civilizations, which comparitively, India is not.

So what, are you advocating that Indian researchers should be told what they may and may not learn about? And who gives you the right to define what is an obscure enough technology for us Civilized Folk to be able to learn about to the exclusion of everyone else?

Research for the sake of research is a modern sickness.

No, it's a very old and beneficial one. The current sickness is the active defense of ignorance. Unlike knowledge for its own sake, this one is actually dangerous. The ignorance involved in condemning the idea of 'pure' research is astonishing, to say the least.

-PS

Good lord not again !

[PsibrII]

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.

India's space activities, a short summary

[asimulator]

It appears to me that atleast a section of the slashdot crowd seems to think that satellite launches in India are a recent phenomenon. At the risk of repeating the obvious, let me say that India launched her first satellite back in 1976. And has been launching satellites regularly since. The largest number of them are weather and communication satellites (the INSAT series). There are also remote sensing satellites (the IRS). The INSAT series satisfies all of India's communication transponder needs and some transponders have been leased to other entities, bringing in money. INSATs were largely responsible for the communication revolution India experiences in the mid-80s.

India also launches satellites meant for polar orbits (the IRS series, for instance) from her own soil, has been for some years now.

The latest news in India's space program is the launch of a geo-synchronous satellite (Edusat) that seems to have gotten attention at /.

But that's just the latest news; as I said, India's been in space for nearly 30 years now.

Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[reporter]

Here is an assortment of some Slashdot articles about India?

1. GPS to coordinate the trains.
2. low-cost broadband into remote villages

In 1960, Japan was low-tech. It was just emerging out of a textile-based economy, yets its quality of life is much higher than the quality of life in India in 2004 (40 years later). Japan had no GPS to coordinate the trains, yet they were always (and still are) on time. Educational levels in Japan at that time were high. Kids in remote farming enclaves in Hokkaido learned algebra, physics, and chemistry.

The solution for India's problems is not found in hi-tech. Consider the fact that the ratio of male babies to female babies in India is 1.20. In Japan, the ratio in 1960 is 1.05, which is normal. Low-tech did not cause this lopsided ratio in India, and hence, high-tech will not fix the problem.

Look at India's huge investment in the space program and nuclear weapons. In 1950, Japan had almost no investment in such wasteful programs. The Japanese were committed to a program of emulating the West and engaging in practical enterprises to raise the standard of living as quickly as possible.

India is a failure because its culture is a failure.

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

India:
Population: 1,065,070,607

Japan:
Population: 127,214,499
(from wikipedia).

Please keep these facts in mind before saying anything.

Look at India's huge investment in the space program and nuclear weapons. In 1950, Japan had almost no investment in such wasteful programs. The Japanese were committed to a program of emulating the West and engaging in practical enterprises to raise the standard of living as quickly as possible

India faced three wars immediately after partition. Two with Pakistan and one with China. Japan didn't face any. Nuclear weapons were a necessity for India.

India has 21+ different official languages. Japan has one. The space program helped put educational and weather satellites in place. And India now sells satellite launches.

It's extremely convenient to compare India and Japan, but it's really a wrong comparison.

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[harisheldon]

Ya, but Japan wasn't looted to the extent India was by the British either. The British left India only after they had finished stealing all the wealth that was in India. In 1950 just after the British were done looting, the female life expectancy in India was pushed down to 38 years. In Japan in 1950 it was 63.1 years. In 1998 in India it increased to 63.7 while in Japan to 83.3.

In 48 years, the female life expectancy went up by ~26 years in India while in Japan it went up by 20 years and ~12 years in the US.

So India just was pushed much behind by the British and had a longer distance to climb.

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[harisheldon]

Oh so pointing out the truth make me a RACIST? I am blaming the people who ruled England at one point in time. I am not blaming the people in England today and I am not blaming the poor factory worker in England then. I am not blaming the caucasians in USA, nor Russia, nor Iceland. Heck, if it was not for USian influence, the British would have starved lots more Indians to death at the end of WW2. Go grow a brain, moron. Not everyone thinks in terms of races.

Re:Why stale references to MLA?

[tovarish]

There were other reasons for this. The employees at MLA were earning lot more than the average salary and not producing enough. A friend of mine working there was fired and then rehired for much less.

Go ahead mod me down (ha ha)

[Anonymous Coward]

I had occassion to look beyond my nose this morning, and you won't believe what I saw! There's a whole world out there, not just America, and there's many things in it. Like , countries !?! and they have *gasp* different forms of government!! and telephones, and TV? And the youngsters go to places like school and college and all. I didn't know college existed outside the good ol' US of A. God knows what they teach there. Should we bomb them out of existence before they become a threat to world peace, you think?

when you're in asia, you gotta innovate

[ShakuniMama]

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.

Just $3200 ?? !!!

[dwipal]

"Priced at about $3,200, a single K-yan can tutor a large classroom of nearly 100 students in schools that cannot afford multiple personal computers."

$3200 is insanely high for any indian school to afford. this is probably more than the entire IT spending budget in an year for a small school. u can buy cheap computers in india for around 250$, but computers are still cheaper in USA for similar configuration.

The main problem with india is there is that most of the people in rural areas dont even know what the internet is, forget a computer. they definitely cant afford a computer, and internet connections are waaaayy too expensive, even for the "city" people. do u know any indian who stays online for "24 hours" from Home ?? Its just not affordible.

So i guess the first thing to do there would to reduce the cost of internet/infrastructure (just like they did for cell-phones) and then look for finding innovative devices to use it.

BTW, just in case u dont know, the price of gas in india is around 5$ per gallon (people in rural areas earn around 30$ per month) ! So much for "low costs".

Stories about India are flamebait

[PaneerParantha]

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$$.

Re:Stories about India are flamebait

[rmanocha]

I totally agree here. Never in India's history has India ever seeked or waged a war against another nation in the hopes of enslaving/gainign territory.
Indians have lived for over 1000 years under foreign rule and yet have managed to maintain their languages, religions, culture and lots more.
India always was a golden bird, to many people from the persians to the British.
Hence to label India poor is incorrect, especially since most of it wealth was literally stolen by the British during their 200 years rule over India, a large portion of which was done during the second world war. Many of us feel sad for the holocaust during the WW II. The british have openly condemned this act. However, what they very comfortably manage to ignore is the fact that due to the "stealing" of money from India, over 3.5 million indians died due to starvation between 1942-1943. Some Indian historians have called this the hidden holocaust. Hence, before praising the allied efforts in the war, we might want to check all the history related to war, invloving countries which werent directly related to it.

or buy an ipod

[samjam]

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