Can India Become A Knowledge Superpower? 568
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. "
Some questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about europe (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Things are happening in that region ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Innovation as well as knowledge??-A Risky Affair. (Score:0, Insightful)
That's because we have the legal base to allow people to take the risks involved in being innovative. Hate IP all you guys want. Results speak for themselves, and countries that don't have the base (lacking or no enforcement) are less prosperous.
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Things are happening in that region ... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:The diaspora already is (Score:5, Insightful)
Until India and China build institutions comparable to the best in the west they will never become true knowledge superpowers.
Re:Things are happening in that region ... (Score:1, Insightful)
And you're a scientist? It's a well known fact that every "scientist" who says that global warming is not caused by human action has ties to oil and gas corporations. On the other hand, the evidence [bbc.co.uk] supporting human induced climate change is mounting.
But you're absolutely right about Kyoto. It alone is not going to save us from global warming. We need much more drastic action and NOW, but Kyoto is a good start. Shame on America for putting economic growth first.
Best of both worlds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Four words (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Time will tell if this government is any different.
It's a cultural thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Indians and higher education (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:3, Insightful)
THe US is punished in these tests by the diversity of it's population.
By 'diversity' you mean that some are clever and some are completely thick, whereas in other countries most of them are clever?
Re:Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about China? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, as the Economist points out, they are only nominally communist. They're actually fascist- fairly free markets but centralized, authoritarian political control- although the Economist (looking at the glass as half full) says that's a good thing, since fascist countries can make a successful transition to a Western model. Spain made the transition for instance. As awful as it sounds, cracking down on the students may have been necessary. Russia broke down the old system, but with nothing to replace it, oligarchs and crime lords took over and people have generally been worse off than under communism. Likewise, the American attempt to knock down Iraq has proven to be misguided, since they had no plan for what was going to follow it. Destroying the old order is easy. Building the new one is what's hard. China's changing, but in a stepwise evolutionary fashion rather than an all-at-once revolutionary fashion. The result is that freedoms will be slow in coming- but the problems that accompany transition to a more Western style government can be taken one at a time, instead of all at once.
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that is what the chinese government had in mind when they ordered the student revolts put down brutally.
Re:China .vs India, China Wins... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:As Someone who just came back from India... (Score:1, Insightful)
Explain?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe...not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hypocrisy abound!
The hypocrisy is in those who love war heroes, but instead vote in a coward who's ready to send someone else's kids to die for his own stupidity, while knowing full well that if he were in those kids' shoes (as he was [awolbush.com] during Vietnam) he would have done whatever it took to dodge the very same war he created. Shrub was a war dodger [pbs.org], although he was paradoxically a hawk [pbs.org] on the war. Now that's hypocrisy my gullible friend.
His rationale for choosing to join the National guard in 1968 instead of gambling on Vietnam via the selective service lottery:
"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada, So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
GW Bush - 1990 interview with the Dallas Morning News
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
He promised free electricity, free water, more rural funding (via loans and such), and so on. He delivered nothing. It was just two days ago that I spoke with a farmer from Ongole who was forced to move to a city into a life of manual labour. The suicides have not stopped, they have just been hushed up.
Naidu did not discourage rural AP. He has, in fact, done more for them than any of the previous CMs. He has never ignored it.
How is this relevant? Naidu's policies affected everyone in the state directly (positively) through a "trickle down" effect (as I have heard it called). This can be done at the national scale. All this requires is a bit of backing from the government in making the country more lucrative to investment, and encouraging education at all levels. Do not ever make the mistake of putting someone in power who claim they want the best for rural India. History has shown that they are lying. Oh wait, it's too late. We already voted the Congress into power.
And BTW, it was during Naidu's tenure that my grandparents in Rajahmundry (small rural town near visakhapatnam) had access to the internet for the first time. I've stayed there for a while, so I'm not talking nonsense. Now all the place has is 8-hour-long blackouts and a severe water shortage (even though they have recorded the highest rainfall over the past few years this year)
Re:Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The facts are that the USA recruits students heavily internationally as well as faculty, to a degree that other major universities do not reciprocate.
It is rather difficult, for instance, for a student from the USA to attend a major research university in Europe (much less Japan or China though the language problems are far more difficult).
In faculty hiring, again the USA opens the pool to everybody, but nearly all other nations significantly favor their own (in Europe, it is usually pan-European favoritism).
In the USA, the Universities get significantly more money from foreign students (they have to pay full tuition), and in addition, the foreign students are entirely dependent on staying in the good graces of their department and advisor in order to avoid being deported. Hence they are favored institutionally and professionally.
The foreign students often get their own source of money from their own governments to study in the USA. There is far less of this available for US students to study abroad---at least for lengthy graduate technical education as opposed to one semester of "personal enrichment".
However, the primary reasons the foreigners are going back is very simple: there are jobs for scientists overseas, and there are fewer and fewer here, most especially if you don't want to work on new ways to kill or spy on people.
Lack of competitiveness in the USA is NOT in technical education, it is in technical employment!
US students go for technical education precisely to the level the rewards are worth the very heavy costs.
Beefing up primary and college science education only will generate only more disillusioned graduate students, not more US productivity.
Industrial labs are sending jobs to India and deleting them in the US. Indian students don't need a work permit to work in India---they are citizens.
Motivation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I liked this one... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is exciting in their design is simplicity, and maintainance. With lack of resources, their design had to be robust. You may laugh on Ladas, but Lada Niva, Russian SUV is a good car. Russian mechanical watches, optical devices were pretty robust.
Their military equipment followed these rules, too (and I am officer in reserve). Unfortunately, it does not mean that their devices are efficient (as they always had a lot of cheap fuel - there is even a joke in Serbia told for someones who spends too much - "to spend like Russian vehicle"). It does not mean they are ecological - all their eqiupment has NiCd batteries, but NiCd batteries are best (exluding being highly toxic).
Compare AK47 (ok, it is a bit old design - from '47 as its name says) with M4 (I had both of them in my hands). M4 is subtle, but AK is robust. It means that it can be mass-produced with inexpirienced technicians. M4 requires a lot of maintance, AK does not. Result - M4 is less heavy, which is good for its purpose, but most typical problem with AK can be solved using your boot or even hammer (ok, handle, not the head). Don't try that on M4.
Unfortunately, I think that these two design patterns will tend toward each other, ot more precisely, that Russian model will follow Western one. Lack of some resources, with cheap other resources (in Russian case, metal and oil) gives inovative ideas. But now, when resources cost everywhere more or less the same, designs will everywhere be the same.
I would still suggest, just as a part of education, every engeener to take one standardly built device with one comparable device developed while resources were expensive. Just like AK - M4 comparison. Or, for instance, study all devices made by soldiers on front lines, or ilegal devices designed by prisoners. There is a lot to learn.
Re:I liked this one... (Score:2, Insightful)
You cannot compare corruption in the West to India.You have NO idea what corruption is until you see it in a country like India. [blonnet.com] As soon as you get off the airport, ask the taxi guy what does he do when a cop stops him. Start with him to learn about corruption there.
At least in the US, corrupt officials do not play with peoples' lives. In India, trains, bridges, airports, buildings, electricity, water, military equipment, hospitals, schools, relief to disaster victims, etc.. EVERYTHING is substandard. Lack of money is not the main cause of this... its the mind bogling amount of corruption involved.
If you know the right people, or have money, you can get away with murder, rape, genocide... ANYTHING you want.
Re:Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:3, Insightful)
In many cases the language issue is the main barrier. In France, for example, one has to write one's dissertation in French, except at some EU-run places. But European universities have plenty of foreign students all the same, Indian universities have long had a large student population from Iran and some African countries, and I recently met a German student doing her Ph.D. in China.
At the postdoctoral level it is even easier -- there is no dissertation requirement so the language barrier is much lower. I myself did a stint in France.
At the faculty level, there could be some preference for local candidates. However, in all these cases, the two main attractions of US universities are, and will continue to be for some time, quality of research and level of funding. Salaries and grants are far higher in the US, and that won't change soon, especially in the developing world.
Many Indians are willing to take a pay cut to return to India (especially since they know that living costs are extremely low, so in real terms the pay's not bad.) Many non-Indians will not be willing to do this.
I also have the feeling Americans (and English-speaking people generally) are intrinsically less willing to travel abroad, especially to non-anglophone countries. I run into hardly any English-speaking foreigners where I live in India, but there are several continental Europeans. This is also true in the major tourist resorts around here. The few English-speakers are typically Brits -- practically no Americans around.
Re:It's a cultural thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, other cultures just actually do it, rather than pretending that they do. I mean how many black presidents has the US had? How many women? How many working class? It's not like Poland or the UK or New Zealand or other countries where normal people can become president; you need to be a multi-millionaire to have a chance (since TV advertising is expensive).
Re:As Someone who just came back from India... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa there. Caste-based discrimination was outlawed back in 1950 when independent India's new constitution was adopted (less than three years after independence) and has in fact nearly vanished in the cities (except in some things like marriage), though it persists in many rural areas. Now check out how long after independence the US persisted with slavery, how long after that the US failed to extend civil rights to blacks, how long after 1950 it took for the civil rights movement to have an impact, what the current state of racial relations is in the major cities of the US, leave alone the rural south. Then come back and comment on India's Dalits.
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
They machine gunned crowds of unarmed civilians and ran them over with tanks...Would you consider that to be a prudent and necessary step?
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, much as a I want to agree with you, there is no strong correlation between democracy and economic growth.
For example, 40 out of 48 African nations have held multiparty elections since 1990. At election time, they mostly swap one corrupt bunch for a different one. There is little sign of any democracy-dividend there.
At the other extreme, there are prosperous, sort-of-free-market, definately authoritarian places like Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. In Europe in the 1930s, the fascist countries delivered much more impressive growth than the democracies.
The real drivers seem to be low levels of corruption and proper law enforcement. It isn't particularly related to how often people go to the polls.
Re:What about China? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:As Someone who just came back from India... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US comparative advantage? (Score:2, Insightful)
bet ur satellites and electricity wouldnt amount to much without it!
Re:What about China? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but yes, there are clear signs that that is wat they had in mind. They said so at the time, it has remained the official explanation, and it is plausible.
Remember that China has had a Loon in power that tried to break down the old system and put in a new system in one fell swoop (or big leap forward, as he called it). That was called the Cultural Revolution, and it killed millions of people in re-education camps, starved millions of people, and generally was a terrible, terrible failure. Even the Loon-in-Power later admitted that, although of course very much later, and not too loudly.
I'm certainly not defending the crushing of the student revolution, but it is better to understand your enemy. And I must give them my grudging admiration for the evolution they have implemented. Many other dictators have shown less wisdom.
Re:censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Innovation as well as knowledge?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about China? (Score:2, Insightful)
We first create monsters when it suits us (enemy of our enemy is our friend, or just because alot of money can be made by selling weapons to them), and then turn around and say they are dangerous because of those weapons, when we need reason to get rid of them (because they are not US-friendly and make it difficult for us to get to their oil, and use their country to expand our markets)..
It's all so damn predictable.
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is slightly worse than Tianamen Square.
Was this prudent? Different countries evolve at different paces. We in the US have a fine history of enslavement, genocide ( Indians ), child labor,dropping nuclear bombs on civilians, firebombing civlians etc etc etc.
At the time it was felt nessasary to enslave Africans to lower labor costs. Prudent business practice?
We are in no position ever to judge other nations.
Our President only now speaks to invited supporters with no protesters allowed near. The police brutally beat and suppress dissent. Is this prudent?
Re:As Someone who just came back from India... (Score:1, Insightful)
Who are you kidding? Copying a constitution from the British code of law does not eliminate a 4000 year old system.
India is NOT a free country (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:What about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have absolutely nothing on totalitarian regimes. They kill civilians by the tens of millions while pacifists cheer them on (well, politely ask them to stop).
The police brutally beat and suppress dissent.
So, are the cops knocking at your door right now, or you just spouting the usual rhetorical histrionics?
Re:What about China? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What about China? (Score:4, Insightful)
2 years. How long did the same process take in Japan and Germany after WWII? How long did it take for the Soviet Union/Russia to move away from pseudocommunism to whatever it is they have now?
When do YOU think the elections should have been held? What day would have been acceptable to you?
If it had gone much faster, people would be bitching that the Iraqis were not given enough time to hold the election.
I do not agree with how this second half of the 13 year long conflict got started. But now that the US has gone down this road, it must be seen to completion. Anything else would be far more cruel than what is going on now.
Re:India is NOT a free country (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about China? (Score:3, Insightful)
No. We BOTH get something. That's why the wage earner bothers working. Its a form of reciprocity. Do you think he just stuffs dollars under his matress? No. He later trades them for goods and services.
So it's not slavery. It's trade.
Let me ask you something: why do "free markets" always mean that labor has almost no value? Yet, interestingly - labor must surely carry the force of democracy, there simply being more laborers than owners.
Labor has almost no value because labor is common and labor accomplishes little without organization or the right equipment.
I can dig and hole and fill it back in, claiming that I worked hard, but what has been accomplished?
And so what if labor must carry the force of democracy? Democracy is just a collective decision making procedure and as such often produces mediocre results. There is no magic in democracy. There is nothing special about a bunch of people getting together and claiming authority over all because they have the larger numbers.
So why aren't laborers more in charge of the world as we know it?
Because they are ignorant. Not stupid, mind you, just ignorant. The people in power know how capital works. Labor is kept in the dark by capitalists that fear competition from more potential capitalists, and by "labor advocates" that don't know shit about how capital works and don't care. Hell, they promote ignorance of how capital works. They're always promising labor some utopia out there if we just throw the capitalists out.
Maybe there's a wealth and power factor I'm just not considering...
What you should consider is the real improvement in the lives of chinese labor. Forget the unconfortable feeling you get when you consider the small wage the laborer is earning. That feeling isn't logic or reason. That feeling is blinding you to the genuine improvement in the life of a person that would otherwise be a rural peasant with no options.
It reminds me of the experiments done with people where a person is given the option of taking $10 or not. The catch is that the person is told another person will receive $10, or $100 or $500 if they choose to take the $10.
It's interesting how the average person acts. The average person will often refuse the $10 if the other person gets $100 or $500.
When economists are tested, however, they almost always take the $10.
I submit that you should act like an economist and let the Chinese peasant have his $10 rather than nothing.
I repeat: show me one free market anywhere on earth. Just one. Pretty please?
There are degrees of freedom. China looks to be moving towards greater freedom in it's economy and it seems to be working.
Re:What about China? (Score:4, Insightful)
You see in the macro position, your position makes no sense. Millions have died in the Sudan but there is no Oil. Zimbabwe has much death and repesssion but there is no Oil. Both were/are worse in terms of human suffering than Iraq was.
The Sudan was not threatening to sell products in Euros ( not thet they have that much to sell). Your current living standard depends on the world using the Dollar as a reserve currency. Oil is denominated in Dollars. Iraq threatened the US not with Weapons but with ripping asunder the preeminent position where Saudis sell Oil in Dollars not Euros or Rubles.
We are not in Iraq for Democracy. That is the fig leaf you choose to buy into.
You rambling about democracy and war are that....ramblings. We as Americans have a fine history of using war to impose our desires on other nations.
When it became clear that Ho Chi Mhin would win a democratic vote in Vietnam, we pulled out of supporting any vote and forced the division of the country and propped up a corrupt leader (Diem ) and called this abberation democracy. We then killed millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians to prop up our distortion of democracy.
You need some new history books.
India and China are using trade to defeat us. If we are threatened with economic defeat we will use military force.
Re:What about China? (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhat. I'm a bit of a constitution lover myself, but it has been perverted and undermined as time goes on. Its just that everyone is getting screwed now equally.
Amendment I has gone from absolute to interpreted. "Fire!" in a crowded theater is not protected. The list of things not protected have gotten longer and longer over time.
Amendment II is effectively gone. Firearms ownership in this country is now about where Stalin, Hitler and Mao Zedong would have it. With registration and arbitrary and capricious limits on ownership, this amendment is gone - pissed into oblivion but a foolish society that doesn't respect its own Ace in the Hole on Doomsday:
- Federal Judge Alex Kozinski , Ninth Circuit. (Romanian naturalized US citizen. Its funny how those like Rand and Kozinski that had to live in the horrible state of Communism appreciate our own rights more than we do.)
Amendment IV: Gone with the patriot act.
Amendment V: Gone with the patriot act.
Amendment VII: Gone. This amendment says any dispute of $20 or more can be brought to trial. Cell phone scum bag companies wouldn't be such scum bags if they had to face a jury of screwed over customers every time they cheated someone.
Amendment VIII: If the death penalty isn't cruel, I don't know what is.
I could go on, but its boring and sad.
The great US of A is the last bastion of freedom, and its crumbling under an unreasonable bureaucracy and a stupid, undisciplined public who have so much time they invent issues (see gun control, "Pro-life", gay marriage (solution: government gets out of defining what marriage is ALTOGETHER)etc.) Welcome to the end of the least-worst system.
Enjoy your little politically correct gay marriage no-guns no-terrorist cartoon world that can never exist but you'll destroy what's good about America to get there.
- Sad non-authoritarian centrist libertarian.
India has already been a knowledge superpower (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
I really don't remember When was the last time I used a software research and developed in India. Yes components of VB.NET were built in India but Microsoft is NOT an Indian Company. Adobe Photo Album software was designed and developed in India but Adobe is NOT an Indian company. Google, Intel and other are doing R&D in India, but when was the last time I came across ground breaking paper in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or for that matter even in Computer Science.
I really laugh my ass out when someone says India is an IT superpower, I have friends at CSC and Infosys they are ready to admit that the only reason that they have got jobs is because of cheap labor in India not only because they are skilled programmers.
Facts:
a) In India you will have to pay at least Rs 500 even when you want to register a complaint against police. Better commit suicide if the criminal has a relative in @Govt@ department.
b) Educational system is pathetic. Never does it encourage one to think. Yes we have IIT's but did you know that every year 250,000 people attempt to get into IIT and only and only 3000 get through. IIT's definitely are great but look beyond it.
c) R&D is pathetic, too much focus on encouraging the service sector is only causing harm to the overall skill level. Today as Americans are willing to go in for higher graduate studies, a lot but not all are satisfied in India to work at call center.
d) Politics, As you mention every year we come out with these policies like providing
Rs 250,000,000,000 to the poor when more than three quarters goes to the pockets of corrupt politicians like Laloo. He spends what
Rs 200, 000,000 on his daughter's wedding when is monthly salary is
Rs 25,000
e) And where is the Internet growth, What are your figures on Broadband in India, still 0.01%. I live in North, there is still now sign of any one offering affordable broadband. That is all when in US you have more than half of the total population and more than 75% of the students having brodband.
Several reasons put into india being an IT-superpower
a) English speaking nation, this is by far the most important reason. Nobody would have been here if half of Chinese could speak English.
b) Skilled labor, this also can't be ignored but doesn't China has that it certainly with its R&D facility stand a better chance to beat us.
My advice to people coming India, come be my guest but do visit Bihar or any other place than Banglore. If you are able to come out of Bihar @alive@ please come and have coffee with me.