It has been a while since I blogged. Mostly because it has been a busy time with last year shenanigans, and also because my department has not moved ahead with time. Today marks a special day, not because it is Techfest Day 2 or because I finally saw 'No one killed Jessica', but because I finally heard from a man I have disliked for a while now- Kapil Sibal. Before I get to that, let me just put the word out that the new swanky convention center makes you feel special as soon as you enter. Now if only they maintain it well and not let it rot like the new hostels!
Sibal gave a very good talk on how India needs to radically transform itself in the next quarter of a century in order to truly grow, and how education, knowledge and innovation are the basis of this change. Though Sibal was all over the news recently for questioning the charges of corruption being thrown on the telecom ministry and for pulling the CAG into the mud, his Harvard education shows in the way he can pinpoint his achievements and make you wonder at what could have been if this guy was put in charge of affairs much earlier.
It is very true, India needs to step up in terms of the number of children finishing school and moving on to higher education. The Right to Education act, 2009, (with all its pending expenditure woes) is a bold and definitive step in this direction, and deserves a mention even though nothing is on the ground yet. It is also true that we need to speed up our educational infrastructure development because as the number of students clamoring for a seat in higher educational institution grows, so should the number of institutes providing such education. Otherwise there is simply no point in making the 12th board exams optional and then making the poor hapless student slug it out for a seat in a college.
Perhaps the most important the GOI is taking (or at least plans to take in the near future) is investing in innovation at the institutes of national importance. Some sectors pointed out by Mr. Sibal, like healthcare and energy, require massive amount of human innovation capital, which surprisingly is available in surplus in our country. The industry needs to step up its participation in such efforts, but would they like to, given that most of our institutes still resort to red-tapism and the silos becomes too much to tackle for a budding entrepreneur? What is being taught is often miles away from what is required at the moment, and until the gap is nullified, I don't see why the industry would like to invest in research at IITs. Rather than promoting free-spirited innovation, we are bogged down by impressions on old minds and the so-called right school of thought. Of course, the students share some of the blame, but if some of the brightest minds in the country opt to choose banking over designing better products, the need to introspect lies elsewhere.
4 comments:
awesome sir... :) truly impressive
Thank you. I'd advise you to attend suck institute-level talks in the future.
Excellent piece of writing. But lemme warn you, these politicians are just too good in impressing people with their words.
The last line is indeed debatable. The system as I know is striving its best to attract the top talent, the blame has to be put on the human greed that forces them to choose banking over innovation.
Greed can be countered by a hunger for recognition, which usually accompanies a top-notch discovery or innovation. Although yes, the folly of our system is that we fail to leverage on the available talent, and talent cannot be held back.
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