A FRUSTRATED INDIAN!!

Well its the World Aids Day. We are all singing to wear red ribbons. But did we notice that simultaneously it has been marked by a spate of clinical research trial "tie-ups" seeking to perform clinical trials on human beings. I mean is this the perception of Indians in the world??
Right everyone is going ga-ga over our service capabilities, BPO to software (and might I add service ...since rarely indigenous coding is done in India). Every year we hear of so many reports some Mckinsey's some Morgan Stanley, every report vouching for the fact that India is going to become a super power by 2025. Agreed the relatively young population that India has is a big advantage to West where the average age of the population is 35-40 but still we depend on them for most of the technical know-how. And something tells me that very soon that when those who serve march ahead to join the ranks of the masters then masters have the plug too pull to prevent this. I am not calling US a master.
But let me tell the effect of independence of knowledge country can have on a country. Consider the nuclear scenario. India only lacked in resources i.e. raw material like Uranium and plutonium, otherwise India is very much independent in terms of technical know-how. Instead she had her own technology of developing FBR which although has a weapon grade mineral as its intermediate product but would have been sufficient to meed the energy needs of India for the next 30 years. This thing had rocked US for quite long until recently when it got India to sign an agreement with it.

Well thats the point if we have the knowledge then we can shake any super-power of the world. Already with outsourcing we are taking away "their lunch" ( as claimed by Bill Gates in one of local seminars in USA), so the effect would be multiplied 1000 no. of times if we were totally knowledge economy country. Right now the lower-end jobs are outsourced to India like payroll accounting, maintenance work. The knowledge enriching work like developement is still offshore.
Not that we are not contributing, but we are contributing at a very slow rate. Gurcharan Das a noted graduate from Harvard ( of the same bactch as Manmohan Singh) has watched the transition in Indian scenario from eras of MRTP to present age of liberalization very closely and claims that India will never be a Chinese tiger. Instead it will walk like an elephant, ambling along going slowly but steady. Why? because earlier we were a socialist country and now we have become free-market country. So whatever decision we make has to take all the participants ( in other words political parties) with it and that makes India a white elephant. The point is if India really can't spring like a tiger she has to make all the right moves to march ahead.
So how can I say that Indians are lagging behind in strengthening knowledge. One indicator is no. of patents held by truly indian companies, no. of papers published every year in India and so many other things.Let me give one example to further my example. We have been mainly dependent on agriculture with out vast knowledge far ahead of what others can claim of. We know very well what variety of mango will be produced by stem grafting of any two varieties of mango. We have been using innumerable natural resources like Neem, Haldi, Milk, Dhania ( I don't what's that called in English) for medicinal as well as daily use purposes. But we never marched ahead to claim to the world, " although we never believe in privatisation of knowledge but if you all are hell bent on it, here is my knowledge" and our complacency has resulted in granting of patent of neem by European Patent Office to the United States Department of Agriculture and the chemical multinational, W.R. Grace, in 1995. The patent was awarded for preparation of a fungicide derived from the seeds of the neem tree when our farmers have been using since unknown ages to prevent warm clothes; the oil has been used to prevent fungus by farmers.On March 9,2005 noted economist Vandana Shiva ( I once happened to attend her lecture during one of my courses in my college) succeded in getting the patent revoked. But still there is a dearth of patents granted to other people when we are more worthy of it. there is still a long way to go to get the patents revoked for ther products like Haldi(turmeric), spinach.
Now the real plight of farmers is with patent regime ushering in and multinationals holding patents to producing better varieties of seeds from two seeds. In India this had been passed down the genration like earlier the Vedas used to be transferred-the "shruti" way, thorugh hearing and learning it by heart.

So I really fear that one day when we really wake up we might have nothing to call our own and then we will definitely be a "service-dependent-super-power". How does this make sense: is there a super power which is dependent on somebody else. We have tied our future to them instead of shaping our own. Remember how the market went crashing in countries post 911 in countries who were depending on USA for so long ( this thing was slightly offset in our case at that time we were not so much dependent on them).

I am not saying that we should break all ties with other countries and work on our own. That would be a regressive step taking us back to Nehruvian age of socialism when he wanted every requirement to be manufactured in India. No service is good but we are neglecting progress in an area which is driving this services sector and that is research. China is a speeding exactly for these reasons. Low cost labour, cheap material is one advantage but it definitely has lot to claim in terms of patents, global companies. China has always adopted an agressive approach. In China whatever steel is produced is absorbed for domestic needs and it needs to import another half to meet the demands. How does China go the research way. Out of so many promotional measures, a chain of state level committees are responsible for research which is then absorbed for domestic uses(Source: The Great Indian Dream by Arindam Chaudhary, co-authored by his father Malay Chaudhary). So no wonder trade has grown in China @104%, china dominates manufacturing ( same was corroborated by Bill Gates when asked a question on a visit to India). Agreed that service industry is 60% of US economy, and manufacturing only 14% but in the long run the 14% would be crucial to sustain the 60%.

I think I should call it quits before I bug enough that people leave it in the middle. I would be very happy in you correct in case I am wrong but if correct "say-na-something".