From: vikc@digital.sps.mot.com (Vikrant Chaudhry)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: IIT's and REC's. Training factories for US?
Date: 29 Sep 92 21:39:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: digital.5b7730b7.1b2f0
Organization: Motorola, LICD, SPS, Mesa, AZ

In article <1992Sep29.153452.19484@ennews.eas.asu.edu> sridhar@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu (Sridhar Venkataraman) writes:
>
>amit@canon.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Amit Gupta)
>writes on soc.culture.indian:
>
>)The important point: Before the decision-makers legislate, they should
>)look at the consequences of the legislation.  Is the current situation
>)*very* bad?  It is quite debatable.  Many IIT (and REC) graduates have
>)gone  back, and contributed to the Indian economy.  Many stay in touch
>)with the researchers back home, and help them in many different  ways.
>)Plus,  the  overall  contribution  to the world economy also helps the
>)Indian economy (e.g.  let us  assume,  hypothetically,  that  all  the
>)computers were made by graduates of Indian schools.  Clearly, the (use
>)of) computers helps the Indian economy.)
>
 
Sorry ! but I don't agree with you. Use of computers doesn't help the
economy, selling the computers and making profits help the economy.
Assuming that you are talking about, export of software and assembled
hardware, than again its a long shot, and the turn around time kills
you in capturing the market.

>
>No, I am not arguing for any laws or whatever. It sure is upto any
>person's conscience to see how ethical he is in using all the
>resources (and if he gave back any for what he took). IMO, giving back
>money is hardly a substitute for lost technology. If you want to blame
>politicians or the person sitting next to you, you can do it
>all the time.
>             

I agree with Shridhar, the point is, that the country needs to attract
the technical manpower the same way it attracts people into administra
-tive services (IAS) or private sector (MBA's). Look at what engineer-
ing graduates want to do in the country ? Most of them either want to 
get into IAS or do an MBA ! I don't think that its a healthy trend, we
inherited an age old administrative system from British, and still 
hanging on to it. With only few exceptions the system has let a expert
rise and head a government body. Two years back I met the Secretary of
Dept of Electronics, probably a very bright person in his field - law,
talked a lot about what he was doing in changing the age old laws of
the country. But had very little idea about the future of the Electronic
Indusrty. There are countless examples of a system gone wrong, a bad
human recource management. You can find very talented people in these
services doing little productive work, but made to do paper work and
that too in a field they know little about. I personnaly know lot of 
IAS offices who totally got flustrated by numerous transfers and by the
fact that they are assigned depts they know little about, and by the 
time they get a grasp of things and attempt to do any thing, they are 
transferred again to another new dept.

I think its about time that we attract people to stay in the field they
like and fluorish in that field. Brain Drain ( not just to US, but also
to other fields) won't and shouldn't stop by any regulations, but by
proper environment of growth in the country itself.

>I would welcome any other viewpoints which doesn't have money as the
>only factor for argument. In my list of priorities, money is certainly 
>not the first though it is one of the entries. 
>
>Let us not forget that only little drops make an ocean. India needs
>hundreds if not thousands of Sam Pitrodas if it were to become an
>economic miracle. I certainly hold much hopes for it happening.
>

Sam Pitroda was probably able to cut the bureaucratic crap, you won't
find very many people who have contacts/resources/patience to do that.
Though we need many Sam Pitroda's, we also need removal of that crap.

>)-amit
>
>Sridhar.

Vikrant