India's contribution

Today, I am thinking about being critical of India. :-)

Yesterday I was watching hindi movie named "Purab aur Pachim" (East and West) by one of my favs Mr. Bharat (Manoj) Kumar. Pran (movie villian) provokes him in the party and questions India's contribution. Our HERO starts with "zero diya mere bharat ne..." (India gave '0' to the world). Now zero was contributed way back in 3rd century. We also boost on providing world with "sanskriti" (culture). In recent days, we say India is a big IT contributor.

Indians are treated as one of the brain-iest of the species. Then why do we have to struggle if asked to count the number of innovative technologies created by Indians. Even Mr. Bharat Kumar couldn't think of anything but something that was contributed in 3rd century. Are we not applying our brains to innovate but just resolve the problem at hand?

I think the answer also goes back to our schooling days. Everybody was somehow trying to finish his/her job. The school teachers (I have the highest respect for all the teachers in my life) had a course material to complete and they were busy with that. Students, including me, were trying to pass the examination somehow, even if it was Std 5 exams or the engineering exams. So many theorms were asked to be proven, so many practical exams where we tried to prove what was already known to the world.

In my opinion, students should be allowed to pick up one subject (of their interest) for research apart from what they are doing. Research doesn't mean that you expect the student to come out with new formulae, but just to let them start thinking about innovation from early childhood days. Teachers are an experienced and learned lot, if a student is given quality time with his/her guru when they are just trying to understand concepts and talk about new ideas, without any exam/scoring fear, I think it will do wonders.

Then we should be able to see 20 something CEO's in India creating new teachnology such as Facebook.

I think we will get there one day, but the path needs to be planned now.