Slashdot Mirror
Can India Become A Knowledge Superpower?
krsmathews writes "
New Scientist, in its latest issue, has a special report on India.
It provocatively calls India the next knowledge superpower, though in a
introductory
story the caveats are laid out. It's
a reasonably comprehensive look at India's high-tech
research, pharma, bio-tech, space, and nuclear
industries. The U.S. R&D expenditure is bigger than the next five
countries put together, and India is
nowhere in the picture. "
No nation that re-elects Bush can be trusted.
Rubbish. While US school boards are still arguing about whether to teach evolution in schools, US school students are being creamed in science and math competitions worldwide. Where the US scores is in university education, especially at the graduate level. As you go up the educational ladder in the better universities in the US, the proportion of foreigners steadily increases, exceeding 50% in many departments at the postdoc and faculty level. People are still going to the US for graduate study and postdoctoral work (though even there, reportedly numbers from Asia have fallen over 25% in the last year or two). What's changed is they're not hanging on in the US after that: they're going back home.
From what I'm seeing, it seems to me that India WANTS to be a knowledge superpower. Following the massive outsourcing of IT to their country, they are seeking for ways to do it again in other hot fields, such as bioinformatics, drug development, etc. As the poster suggested, I think they are spreading their resources too thin. Will they succeed? Only time will tell. But from what I'm seeing on most bioinformatics related boards, most young Indians wanting to get in the field are not enough informed; most of the time, they want to study in bioinformatics without knowing anything about it, just because they've been promised jobs (it's a hot topic, you know?). Most of them don't speak English fluently too, which doesn't help us informing them.
................Thankyou."
Typical example taken from the Bioplanet forum:
"hi everybody,
i did my b.sc. in biotechnology(with 78%) from India & presently doing PG diploma in bioinformatics, but i confuse what will better for me, shall i do m.sc.. But i want job,so please help me by sending information about biotechnology & good colleges for doing m.sc. in Biotechnology & finally give me your valuable suggestion.
Tons of posts like this one on bioinformatics boards, daily. I hope this represent a minority and that most Indians are better informed. There's a difference between outsourced tech support, where what you answer to the client or whether you fix his problem doesn't really matter, and being a 'knowledge superpower'. Now don't get me wrong, I hope that they'll succeed; developing fields like bioinformatics (and R&D in general) can always use more brainpower, and I don't care where it'll come from. But R&D needs money too... and tons of it.
It's a gamble India is taking with this. No guarantee of success, but at least they're trying, investing in the future.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Mod parent up. China is still largely a centrally managed economy on the macro level with policies set for political reasons, not based on sound principles. China has been stinting development of infrastructure so badly that there are problems expanding manufacturing due to power shortages. Lack of investment in capital has meant that China is actually losing manufacturing jobs faster than any other country on earth to more modernized nations because automation will always will out against manual labor once wages reach any reasonable level.
With massive foreign loans and suicidally low currency valuations in order to stimulate exports China has backed itself into a trap where it must let currency valuations rise to pay off debt and raise capital for infrastructure investment, yet it cannot afford to let valuations rise because that will destroy it's export driven economy.
Anyone who has really studied the current Chinese economy realizes that they are headed for a period of retrenchment, if not an out-and-out recession/depression in the not too distant future.
The first sun ceo, I think.
Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.03 male(s)/female
total population: 1.07 male(s)/female (2004 est.)
Those are quite reasonable figures, and quite comparable to the United States' figures. I think you're confusing the figures in India with those from the PRC.
Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2004 est.)
Common Europe is a formidable economic powerhouse, comparable to the United States: Further evidence of global economic conflict between Common Europe and the United States: Iraq switched from US dollars to the euro in 2000: However, following the US invasion of Iraq,
-kgj
-kgj
I always hate writing out rebuttals to posts like the parent who talk like paper tigers "There cannot be glitzy progress ignoring 75% of the people". Tax rates are pretty high in India. Everything is taxed to kingdom come. But still the poor are just that, poor.
India is going to go to hell unless they control their population.
"At least, we don't have to sweep unpleasant facts under the carpet". Yes, for 50+ years now we having been wallowing in self-pity because we like to keep these facts in front of us. I cannot or should not make money because the person next to me is still poor. This is the attitude past govts have employed. Look where India is today.
Did you know that if the Indian govt directly gave 2.2 $ to every Indian who was classified as living below the poverty line, India would have no poverty at all. India spends a 3+ $ on these programmes and yet the poor Indian probably does not see more than 5-10 cents of it.
"In the absence of any corrective measures, I am sure even India can be like China. It has been acquiring a steady 6-7% growth rate for the past 5 years."
Yes, India will be in 2020 what China is in 2010. Mark my words, 2008 olympics is in china, 2016 is in india.
I haven't been to AP in a few years but what I do know is that Naidu did make Hyderabad liveable and attract a lot of companies. These companies create high paying jobs, meaning there is a trickle down effect in the economy.
Would you rather have Naidu who courts companies or some populist leader who dances to the tunes of farmers for their votes?
Being a former US resident, and a current bangalore resident, let me assure you that the bangalore(karnataka) govt went out only because of the drought. The previous govt was so much fucking better than the current dharam singh govt in place.
If you read the newspaper, you will see that the current govt is fucking pathetic in all aspects.
They have made bangalore a living hell with traffic mismanagement, no funds for infrastructure. All the chief minister does is give empty promises. His rural promises are also ring hollow.
Think about it. Bangalore's industries provide 70 % of the state's revenue. Why will you want to mess with that and the govt has taken bangalore and its citizens for granted. Many software companies are expanding, but not in bangalore. In other cities and states.
Read India Today" Dec 13 2004 issue "No Bang for the Buck" to know about blore. The current govt is going to pay for their lackadaisical attitude.
Now let us talk about China. It has one govt(whatever your opinion is on the political issue, lets focus on the economic one).
One govt means that it can focus on economic issues without political distractions. The chinese govt is putting a lot of its energies into building the infrastructure in China, be it power, communications, highways etc.
Just compare that with India. Here politicians cannot end squabbling among themselves, economy is down on their list.
Do you how many small cities in China are getting their own airports? How long is it taking to build the bangalore airport? See "indian bureaucracy is least friendly in asia" july, 04 in the deccan herald.
Democracy is a beautiful thing. That is why see what Bihar is today. Democracy works when your population is under control, not out of control with 30 million births a year.
Compare the infrastructure: in, cn. For amusement, take a look at just one feature in Iran's factbook, ir
Compare the number of runways above 3000m that India has and the number that Iran has.
That will give you an indication of how pathetic indian infrastructure is even when compared to a economy like Iran which has been under sanctions for 20+ years.
At the current rate India is progressing, it w
" i did a "search discussion" and it seems no one has mentioned the sexual repression and severe censorship of all media"
What, sir, are you smoking, and where can I have some of it?
Seriously though, the only media that is subject to censorship is movies since all movies have to go through the Central Board of Film Certification to get a U (universal) or A (adult) certificate. (There are more categories). (If you do watch Indian movies though, you will find that it is a very loose form of censorship).
No media including newspapers, or magazines or the Internet is subject to even the feeblest form of censorship in India. And I have spent a good part of my life in India and I know what I talking about.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
So? (to use my most common cliche on slashdot) I wasn't kidding when I said that taxes are very low in the US. Most GDP gains ends up in capital investments in business while most taxes are on income. It surprised me when I found out about it.
Hmmm, also I wasn't counting state and local taxes, except to say those taxes can vary quite radically from location to location. Here's an OECD table that shows the US tax burden at roughly 25% of GDP (which compares with other members of the OECD).
Also the public school system in the USA is so bad because it's paid for in a way that has absolutely no direct accountablilty. You don't see these problems in US private schools. To the extent that India uses public schools, thy'll end up suffering these problems too.
Most countries don't have the sort of problems that the US does with public schools. But yes, I agree. Private schools are a lot better.
The Lancet study is bogus as it is based on flawed sampling of the data. To arrive at the figure of 100,000 Iraqi dead, Lancet simply *interviewed* 998 families in 33 communities. The resulting extrapolated death toll ranged from 8,000 to 194,000. Well done.
Lancet Civilian Death Report Kills the Truth
You could have fooled me. India already has a Nobel laureate for literature (Tagore), and a world-famous controversial author with a fatwa against him (Rushie). Then there's Seth, Roy, and the great ancient grammarian Panini. It's amazing how many Indian authors I can call to mind when I can't name more than one or two from the sexually-liberated Netherlands. I don't think you can assert a correlation.
True, but India's population is growing more than twice as fast as China's. CIA World Factbook gives annual rates of 1.44% for India, 0.57% for China, 0.92% for the US and Canada, and -0.45 for Russia.
Note that there are advantages to being a member of the untouchable castes in india today due to the government policy of reservation of govnt jobs. So much so that many non dalit youths resorted to self immolation in protest against the mandal commission report. Basically being untouchable is looked at by many as a free meal ticket and there used to be a rampant industry of fake caste certificates especially in bihar.
Linkedin http://in.linkedin.com/in/robinsaikatchatterjee