India Calling

In today's world there is no difference between telecom, television, broad-band and computers - software and hardware. All of these areas are merging and boundaries have already blurred. In early days, telephone was on wire and television was on air. Now telephone is on the air and television is on the wire. Pretty soon, we will have wireless cable TV. The other day I saw a cartoon which said, 'Honey, will you answer the television, I am watching the telephone'. That summarizes where we are.

As a social leveler, Information Technology ranks second only to death. It can raze cultural barriers, overwhelm economic inequalities, even compensate for intellectual disparities. In short, high technology can put unequal human beings on an equal footing, and that makes it the most potent democratizing tool ever devised.

But this whole information revolution has not been clearly understood by people in India. They think they are somehow not going to be affected by it. But I think we are going to be severely affected by it.

India, like most of the Third World has been using its priceless foreign exchange to buy the West's abandoned technology and install obsolete equipment that doomed the country to move like a telecom snail while Europe, America and Japan were beginning to move like information greyhounds. The technological disparity was becoming greater not smaller.

India and countries like her were falling farther and farther behind not just in the ability to chat with relatives, or call the doctor but, much more critically, in the capacity to coordinate development activities, pursue scientific study, conduct business, operate markets, and participate more fully in the international community.

Thus there are two reasons we need telecommunications and other information technologies: they can not only help Indians create wealth in every walk of life, they can also create wealth of its own. Unless we have both, we have no future as a nation.

Information technology plays an indispensable role in promoting openness, accessibility, accountability, connectivity, democracy and decentralization - all the 'soft' qualities so essential for effective social, economic and political development. India needs the capacity to network people, ideas and initiatives. Telecommunications is as critical and fundamental to nation building as water, agriculture, health and housing, and without it, India's democracy could founder.

And that's where I have an interest in linking our people in the US, with the people back home. There have been a lot of interesting things going on in India that Indians in India and Indians in the US don't know about.

Take for example, NICNET, developed by National Informatics Center (NIC). They have been able to connect all of the district headquarters, through a computer data-link on satellite to a supercomputer in Delhi. Thus we have a massive database. Today our annual budget is prepared by NIC on computers. To make everything available as an organized database at one place is itself a major accomplishment.

Another example is the computerization of land records. It is an area as basic as computerization of railway reservation. Look at what the Center for Development of Telematics (C-Dot) has done in terms of developing software for telephone switching using Indian talent. Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has been developing 'Param' a whole family of supercomputers with parallel processing. The Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO) is doing excellent work in Defense Applications. Thus, there are many government agencies doing well in developmental activities. In the private sector it is remarkable what companies like NIIT, Wipro and many others have achieved.

In the Indian situation one has to be interested in the process as well as the product. Technology may be complex, but human motivations and interactions are even more so. India has great young engineers, and I believe there is nothing that they can't accomplish if we challenge them and give them a proper environment to work in.

Besides government and private sectors, another area that is of great interest to me is linking computers to social needs. For example, at the Rajiv Gandhi foundation, with the help of NIIT we have developed a software package for handicapped children who can not push keys to access computers.

At the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts, a project for the computerization of the records of Indian art is in progress - a massive task. I believe that the knowledge of these projects would be very useful and educational for Indian professionals all over the world. It will connect them to their roots, and will motivate them to bring something useful back home.

Technology professionals of Indian origin have a major contribution to make to the country's social development. It is not just hiring some software programmers and earning some money. That's fine. I have no problem with that. But in the process there are lots of little things to be done, which connects to our roots, and I think that's where the excitement is. There is more to this information business than business. And my interest is how do we bring about social transformation through this, whether it is in art, culture or dance, or in the mind-set, or in education of our children, or ... in developing new games which are India based - why can't Hanuman be as popular as Mickey Mouse ?

Yes, a lot of things are being done. But the problem is that our efforts in India are in many ways mediocre. We don't have that quality focus. In India everything is there but it is not there. Everybody knows everything but they don't really know anything. This is a country where no matter what you say, you can say exactly the opposite and get away with it. It's a land of contrasts. People may do good work in Information

Technology or multimedia, but the proof of the pudding is in sales. Can anybody claim to have sold a product in millions ? If you sold five thousand its not worth it. It is the high volume market reach that matters.

Are we really noticed in the global market ? With all the expertise, is there a single globally successful software product today that says 'made in India' ?

A lot of us gained a lot from our educational institutions in India and the US. I don't think we are paying our dues to our educational institutions. Its sad that after making millions, these guys don't look back and say, 'I am where I am because of IIT, or any other school I went to. Let me look at what's happening in this school or university. Is there some way I can improve it ?' None of them are on educational boards. They are on corporate boards for sure. I think its time to look back at why we are where we are. And the only reason why we are were we are is because of education. If we don't participate in shaping the future of education, its not going to be what it was.

The Indian business people in the US, like everywhere else, have to make money. In the process they have to link up with India - bring investments and expertise. They know that, one, the talent in India is very good, comparatively inexpensive, hardworking and sincere - and they can make money from it. Two, India is a potential market for their products and services. Three, there are frustrations in India -bureaucracy, bottlenecks, procedures, hassles - but that's given - that's part of life.

I am not one of those who say to professional Indians abroad -come back. The message I have is to be sensitive to your roots. To bridge the distance, you don't have to physically come back. You have to come back emotionally. There are a lot of things you can do while being there. You can have a virtual presence and be a virtual resource. You need to continue doing whatever you are doing, but spend some time and energy to focus on social needs here. Whether it has to do with improving education, software, or giving a talk to a bunch of school kids next time you come to India -create dreams for a lot of younger people here so that they can look up and say that when I grow up I want to be like that fellow from Silicon Valley because he is from my village. So, don't cut yourselves off. Don't isolate yourself, saying I have nothing to do with India