We had this interesting thread on our reply-all chain mails regarding industry oriented research and where does India stand wrt that. And I ended up writing all this in response to mails by my friends kauti, viju and amol. After finishing it I thought I should put it on the blog and discuss it with other friends too. So here I'am...
"I agree with u Amol when u say every research in industry oriented. and if its not then it can not survive. So ultimately its industry which shud initiate this research thing.
Now cut to India...
Yes we are service oriented. Services form a considerable chunk in our GDP. And there is nothing wrong in being a services oriented nation. As far as R&D is concerened that can still happen...provided there is a suitable environment for it. By environment i mean political, social, economincal and technological...to add few dimensions let there be ecological and legal too. Something which we call PESTEL … we say that Indian corporates are not putting money in R&D. Their R&D budgets are low and they are not filing for patents. But why? There has to be some reason behind it.
Look at it this way. Indian financial markets are still not matured enough. We do have dependency on global capital markets and to be specific on dollars. Yes we are an emerging market but with scarce capital. And R&D seems a distant dream till the time we become capital rich nation. R&D expenses do not form a major chunk in balance sheets of our corporates because there is no guarantee that the results will be fruitful. All the big companies like intel, apple n so an can indulge in R&D activities because they themselves are capital rich companies and belong to the capital richest nation USA. Our Indian companies are still finding it hard to remain unaffected from global cues. Then research is certainly not on their list as research is not going to solve their current problems of capital scarcity.
Moving on to chandrayan and other such missions…yes it’s a show-off but a much needed one. It’s a way to demonstrate our knowledge, our strength and our competency. As an Indian even I feel that why to fund such huge projects from our pockets. How is it going to help a poor to earn bread & butter anyway? But when such projects happen it attracts a lot of attention. This gives rise to synergy extension and knowledge sharing. We are no more dependent on other countries to launch our satellites. That has cut down the cost of communications considerably. And we can say it’s a result of competency gained from our so many other projects which may not have impacted common man’s life directly. Yes there has to be some cap on the amount of money we spend on it. That’s why we have budgets and elections.
Research does improve our standard of living and more importantly our standard of technology. It provides competitive advantage to a country. But what’s the use if we cant sustain it. We are a country of 1.15 billion and our per capita income is still not attractive enough. So before moving on to industry oriented research we have to build a strong base. Our industries should become more powerful to dispense money from their pockets towards research. For that they should have strong balance sheets with huge capitals and profits. They will earn profit if there is demand for their products and services. The demand will be there if there is more disposable income with the customer. There will be a higher amount of disposable income if salaries are high. Salaries will be high if the skills demonstrated are good. Skills will be good if proper education and training facilities are available. So we come to basic need of high quality education and learning facilities. GOI is putting money in ambitious infrastructure projects which will help in facilitating flow of know-hows and in turn strengthening industries.
So with all this we can say that yes, we are on right track. So what if our industries are not putting money in research now. They will do it once they get enriched with capital and get the suitable environment. We are the 2nd largest growing economy and we are capable of turning the table around. With n-deal on cards its interesting to see how we will be using it to the best in our interest. "
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