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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. "
Hah ! I'm sure Indian researchers had personal history deletion patented *years* ago.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What I've been saying all along. We are telling brain-power to stay over there in India, rather than come over here to the United States. I wonder what it would be like if people like Vinod Khosla were told to work over there and don't come here to innovate.
It has everything going for it. Growing economy, a collection of research labs of U.S. and domestic companies, and a desire to pace with and outdo anything the West can throw at it. I'd put my money on China before I put it on India.
A blog like any other.
The US R&D expenditure is bigger than the next five countries put together, and India is nowhere in the picture.
Granted, that's impressive spending, but how much of this has to do with a higher overall cost of living in the US, and therefore, higher salaries for your workers? Also, how much of that spending is directly related to the military?
Just wondering how much overall dollar output directly relates to one's place on the R&D totem pole.
that the population believes that a supernatural being being created man by pointing a finger and created woman from a rib of that man.
Much better.
No nation where cows do not fear Ronald McDonald cannot be trusted!
The Indian diaspora, like the China diaspora, is already a knowledge superpower -- as a look at the nationalities of the IEEE Fellows, the US NAS and NAE, and the equivalent academies in other countries will attest. All we're discussing here is the current mailing address of the talent.
The one area where the USA has excelled over the decades is in cooking up innovative ideas and turning them into profitable businesses. The basic model of education in the USA has been based in large part on creative thinking. As tax-cut mania takes over and US schools do less and less educating, we can expect to see other countries start catching up in the area of innovation. However, since most places, India included, prize rote memorization as the best way to educate, I can't see them ever turning out large numbers of innovators the way the US has.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
It does seem that Money = Arrogance though.
"The US R&D expenditure is bigger than the next five countries put together, and India is nowhere in the picture." If you consider Europe as a country like entity then i am not sure the U.S. are so superior.
As long as the corporate funding for R&D in schools is as low as it is now in India, I don't think India (not Indians) will ever become a Knowledge superpower. I'm an Indian who is now in the U.S. It's just amazing on how many new things the undergrads in the US can work on when compared to how little the grads in India can work on. The difference is in extremes. Here in the U.S, even small univs undergrad team builds solar cars, in India, even the grads don't get enough money to work on something useful. Most of it is theory in India. Sad, but true. I wish corporates in India put enough money into R&D in Indian schools.
-ItsME
In my experience (USA working with OEMs doing high tech products) the cost of doing business with Indian Engineers is too high. They have a long (45 day) import delay for prototype hardware. The engineers who hire with companies I'm familiar with stay for training and then jump jobs. The communications difficulties (time shifted from USA offices) and language/cultural difficulties (different holidays, different work culture) make doing business awkward and less efficient than working with rural Americans (for instance).
Eventually Indian companies will run their own engineers and see some efficiencies that way. Then USA OEMs could see some serious competition. The only thing that would hold Indian OEMs back is internal costs of doing business, duties, taxes, crime, limitations on cooperation due to secrecy, government corruption, etc.. . Like here in the USA. The top dog world wide is going to be the country with the greatest efficiencies of doing business. Time will tell.
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
I am talking about scientific facts. Atlantic conveyor belt effect is what keeps Europe warm. It's driven by a saline gradient that WILL change when the polar ice melts. Hence, the conveyor belt effect would change and Europe would get as cold as Siberia. It's science, but you seem to be hell-bent on burying your head in the sand and go for the short-term economic gains - it will be our children who'll have to pay the price for our greed.
Hell, even in the extremely unlikely case that we'd later find out that the global warming was not caused by human activities, acting now is just common sense: emissions are bad in other ways too (health issues) and reducing them results only in economic loss. In fact, I don't understand how anyone would put economic gains first over loss of human life and environment.
This I should mention includes inflated costs and bribes for bureaucrats. The Russians do much more and produce very durable space and nuclear equipment for less than one-third of our cost as Americans. This same reasoning presumes that if an individual lives on less than a dollar a day, they must be very badly off. I visited Uganda where a meal costing 4 US dollars was more than enough for me for two days!
Yes, India can and will be superpower whether we like it or not. It's not how much money one spends guys. The latest Russian aircraft costs less than half as much as our most advanced one, yet delivers more power and is even easily maintained. I wish our politicians get this into their heads.
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
But how much of that US R&D expense is being spent in India, and how much of the produced knowledge will stay in India?
--
make install -not war
So Sweden paid to provide a valuable learning experience to Indian undergrads?
I like to look at India like my precious daughter. She is growing 5 times faster than I am now, but she will likely not grow taller than I for quite awhile. The fundamental things holding back the USA are taxes, regulations, intellectual "property" restrictions, and just plain too much restrained freedom.
Eventually India will reach these barriers too, and so will the rest of the world until someone finds out how to persue and implement the "next generation" of freedoms. So even though they might eventually outsize the US because of sheer population - they will probably not surpass it per/capita until the next frontier of freedom is reached. (it will probably be ocean based communities in international waters)
Most companies in India are certified CMM level 5 (the highest level) using the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) conceptual maturity model. Most companies in the US are certified CMM level 3. This says a lot.
I took a trip to the south of India (Kerala, Banglore, and Channai (Madras). I spent a month and for the most parts avoided the tourist areas. My inlaws live far away from the nearest town in Kerala.
discoslure:
I'm a 31 year old white male whose worked in the computer industry since I graduated from college.
A few General Observations:
What India has going for them....
1) I've never seen a country so utterly focused on education (remember I spent my time in the South). Education is the only way out for Indians. The pressure is unbelievable for young people to perform in school. Everywhere you go you see signs for schools / education
2) English is spoken fluently among the college educated. English is the language of business in the south (in major cities, white collar type of work) b/c there are 19 "official" languages with an unbelievable number of dialects. Combine with the business process outsourcing (BPO), and you get a lot of focus around English language skills. I tried to learn the local dialect, but everyone wanted to practice English...
3) India graduates over 1 M engineers a year. There schools are extremely competitive. Areas such as Kerala have a 100% literacy rate, this meets or exceeds any Western country...
4) Motivation and drive. It's amazing what people will do to better themselves. This motivation and drive provides the foundation for the above. Spending a week in Bangalore was absolutely refreshing (and the food was great). To see all the young people full of life and excited was contagious... I can't wait to go back. I love seeing all the tech companies signs....
5) Economics. The largest middle class in the World, in sheer numbers. In India, it takes 2,000 USD a year to achieve a middle class lifestyle, that's ~1,500 EUR and ~1200 UK sterling. This middle class will drive the world's manufacturers to provide low priced quality goods, and the whole world will benefit.
6) Politics. Democracy works, although its not neccessarliy the kind the US imagines. A diverse group of cultures / languages get a long in a basic sense. Is it perfect no, but it gives me hope for places like Iraq.
What Challenges are ahead for India
1) Education: The focus on engineering has led to a culture that is not entrepreneur focused. It takes a diverse set of skills to move out of the BPO / Manufacturing mindset. Take Apple's IPOD. It took American design and a world wide supply chain to make this happen. The key is the design. That's what makes a product sell, manufacturing is important, but if you don't move up the chain, you will always have difficultly. Note to engineers: Get jobs that are customer facing and can't be outsourced...
2) Gaps There are 100's of Millions still in dire poverty and extreme education. If the middle class and the rich get too far ahead of the rest of the country, I think there will be a lot of social unrest.
3) Environment. India is a shit hole to put it nicely. If they don't clean up sooner rather than later, India will face a lot of health care cost for the population. Also, in Kerala, fresh water is an issue.
It's the old problem of changing mindsets. The tech version is a company that sold hardware and now wants to sell software or services only. Its huge change and most fail.
That's it I look forward to replies to others who have been to the south and I'm curious what your opinions are...
I loved it and I can't wait to go back......
"It's technical in a psychometric kind a way" -- C. Parish
I agree with you totally.
We have a culture where anybody can innovate. Look at all the companies that started out in someone's garage. There is the idea that anyone can do anything, the idea that a kid from the worst ghetto might someday become the president. Other cultures don't have that idea. It's a precious idea. The greatness of our culture and economy are based on it.
Having said the above, innovation requires certain conditions. People need enough economic surplus to be able to devote their time to something that may not pan out. People need a good enough education to be able to innovate. If we have a society where you go to school and then have to work two jobs to pay off your student loans, you don't have the surplus (time, money) to innovate; you have become a wage slave. If you have to sell your business to pay your doctor, you can't innovate. If you can't get a decent job because you grew up in a ghetto and the cops made sure that everyone had a criminal record, you can't innovate. If the Microsofts and Walmarts crush your budding business, you can't innovate.
The bottom line is that while I agree that we out-innovate the rest of the world, I sure wouldn't take that for granted in the future.
The above mentioned countries have a population of 53 million and generated 12.7% of papers, while America, with a population of 288M, published 34%.
One might speculate whether the social democracies with their high taxes and well-funded universities do more hardcore research. Here in America it seems that research is aimed more at the low-lying, commercially-viable fruit.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It could be very interesting to know how much is used for non-military R&D, and compare that to the rest of the world...
How many of them honestly desire a higher education versus how many just desire the status with being a PhD? To me, it seems like a status symbol more than anything else for a lot of the asian grad students at my school. Some of them aren't really even interested in the research, they just do what you tell them to in the hopes that they will get their PhD. It's the equivalent of a Mercedes where they come from.
Monstar L
Most of the bigger companies have research centers based in India.And HUGE onnes.Most of them are based inthe south, in or around Bangalore.Theres GE,IBM,HP,Microsoft etc..
Not only does the American company benefit from these R&D centers due to the cheap & skilled labour(does research count as labour?) but so does India as it takes almost as much from the R & D as does USA.
Lord of the Binges.
Earlier and even now, all the smarties come to US and contribute to US advancement in technologies. These technologies were invented by Americans+Indians+Chinese+Minority and not just Americans alone. In order for US to become a superpower, it trapped all these smarties, made their life comfortable, relaxed visa regulations, gave them green cards, etc. Even now, there is a special quota, around 20,000, for US employers to hire International MS/PHD students only besides the normal 65,000 quota reserved. Now, more are staying back and contributing to India's advancement in technologies. America is recoginizing India's power and not just cheap labor. So, it is setting up R&D's in India, to save cost and make the smarties still work for them, which again contributes to US advancement in technologies. Comparing China and India, China will become the superpower in hardware, while India will become in Software. Even though we are nowhere in position to compete with China in Hardware, but, by 2035, when India's population will be greater than China's, we will be a serious competitor. But, India's role exists in both the countries. So, does America's.
Great. Maybe this will force American students to get off the couch and start learning things.. Or maybe not. Sputnik was a great impetus for learning science. Nine Eleven was one for learning Arabic.
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.)
How the hell did "Can India Becmome A Knowledge Superpower" turn into "Hippies Vs. Red Necks"?
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
how about 'o' ? the decimal system ?
bet ur satellites and electricity wouldnt amount to much without it!
Errr ... maybe that's because of the severe censorship of all media? ;)
... agreed, stuff like bureaucratic slowdown, corruption, intercaste violence, and poverty are rampant, but sexual repression? Most of my friends back home seem to be quite sexually active, afaik ... severe censorship of the media? Several cases of rampant corruption have been uncovered by media-coordinated sting operations in the last few years ... the caste system, well, I'd argue that the mental associations are much worse than any legal measures (who actually follows in the law in India anyway?). I have seen older relatives checking up on which caste and subcaste someone who married into the family is, but never heard that kind of stuff from anyone in my generation yet, so hopefully we've heard the end of that matter.
... we are still a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic. And in a world of dictatorships, political instability and racism, that is something to be proud of)
I'd love to see evidence of any of the above, though
India has a LOT of faults, but I don't think the ones you mentioned are.
(Of course Gandhi failed. He was trying to hold everybody up to impossible standards of perfection. But I agree with you: he would have prefered to see an India "where truth prevails", although I'm sure he'd appreciate that however bad things are, they could have been a lot, lot worse
Cows are sacred. Or didn't you know? ;)
" 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)
India is not free country either. India is an ultra-conservative society where people are routinely coerced into arranged marriage, and gays are persecuted. Homosexuality is illegal, a crime punishable with live in prison. That's between 100 and 50 million oppressed gays, more repressed people than any other country in the word , other than China.
None of the expected advantages of democracy can be expected on a country that represses sexual minorities; the intellectual vanguards can not flourish without sexual liberation. Further more, sexual repression inevitably translates into AIDS pandemics. India HIV numbers are going up, fast and steady. Keep in mind that this is a society where you can't talk freely about a condom, let alone buy one on your local village store. Answering straightforward questions about your sex live to an AIDS prevention outfit or seeking help for AIDS may translate on ostracism, being cut off from your family, physical attacks, and/or live in prison, without access to medicines.
Other countries on the region (China, Thailand) actually respect sexual minorities, and are managing to reign over AIDS expansion much better. Yes, India may have managed to get an impressive engineering work force, but how good is that if your workforce is going to be decimated by AIDS on a few years time?
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.
Consider that over 3000 years,Inda was a cultural and scientific power house when Europe was still rolling around in its own shit. eg. Pythagoras theorem was proven in Inda before 1000BC - ovef 400 years **before** Pythagoras was even born.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
A lumbering democracy is much preferrable to a draconian system which can take drastic steps in any direction. The key is debate. It takes time. I want to be able to live in a livable country, not necessarily in a superpower.
And did you overlook the small fact that Iran is an oil-rich country?