75th Independence day – former chairman of the Department of Atomic Energy

India @75 and @100

On 15 August 2021, India celebrated its 75th Independence Day. On this occasion, IE presents the perceptions of a few distinguished personalities on India@100. These are top think-tanks in the fields of education, technology, academia, nuclear energy…

The questions:

1. Five major landmarks in the march towards the 75th anniversary of independence
2. Your vision on India at its centenary, ie. 25 years hence.
3. Three areas to focus through the next 25 years
4. Views on the current federal structure. Is it stable and strong?
5. Key electoral reforms you consider necessary
6. How to catch up with the missed opportunities through science and technology?

Anil Kakodkar,

AICTE distinguished chair professor, Chairman. Rajiv Gandhi S&T Commission & Former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission

Major landmarks

1. Emergence of the public sector in playing a key and balancing role in fulfilling important national objectives (Defence, infrastructure, core industries…)
2. Green and white revolution leading to India becoming a food surplus country
3. Emergence of IITs as key institutions for nation building with global impact
4. Economic reforms in 1991
5. India emerging a self-reliant country in key high-tech areas such as atomic energy (nuclear weapon state, nuclear power technology and applications), space (satellites, reaching moon and Mars), defence (missiles, nuclear submarines, tanks, LCA, ALH, etc.)

India@100

The quality of life in India becoming comparable to or better than the best in the world. This would necessitate both wealth creation and its more equitable dispersion significantly reducing disparities which seem to be growing. Inculcation of better human values. Far greater empowerment of people at the grass roots through quality education, health awareness and conducive innovation ecosystem in the society. A much better lifescape in 2047.

Focus through the next 25 years

(i) Majority of Indians live in villages despite one of the fastest migrations taking place. With the knowledge era around us, opportunities in the rural domain should be bigger as compared to the urban domain. This is because rural areas can contribute to all the three segments of economy – agriculture, manufacturing (decentralised, 3D printing…) and services sector (work from villages leveraging IT and other exponential technologies)  – better as compared to urban areas. The prerequisite is to capacity – build rural youth through education, skilling, local research, technology awareness and entrepreneurship through nurturing a right ecosystem which I call CILLAGE. This should enable average rural income to become on par or better than cities’ and contribute to significant growth of the economy with reduced disparity.
(ii) India’s scientific research should become better networked with each other and linked with industry to enable rapid translation of new scientific discoveries into new game-changing technologies ahead of other countries. Nurturing the ecosystem necessary for the purpose will enable India to emerge a technology super power given our demographic dividend.
(iii) To quickly adopt green technologies for meeting our growing needs in a sustainable way with continuous enrichment of the local, regional and global environment.

Federal Structure

Our constitution has given us a good federal structure. It is a question about how we implement it in practice. Co-operative Federalism in true spirit is the way forward.

Key electoral reforms

Leveraging technology, we should realise location  – independent, fraud-proof, voting procedures. This should make possible for frequent referendums as well as recalling elected candidates should they lose voter confidence. There should be separation of the policy making arm and implementation arm of the executive from each other leaving the policy making functions to the politicians and implementation to professionals.

India’s future in leveraging S&T

We need world-class, large-size multi-disciplinary research universities essential for globally competitive technological advancement.

India needs universities like Stanford University  with faculty and alumni generating jobs and adding revenues. Going by Academic Ranking of World Universities (2019), out of top 500 universities in the world USA has 137, China has 58 with India having just one.