INDIAN’s CAN INNOVATE
Why has this issue cropped up ?
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s said that Indians cannot innovate.
Can we not innovate ?
• Woznaik’s comment is wide off the mark. It is just that we are unable to convert great ideas and brilliant prototypes into world-beating products.
• Long before the iPhone made its debut in 2007, the Simputer, developed at the Indian Institute of Science, was for quite some time the most talked about technological product from India, frequently figuring positively in the international media. It was a most elegant device. An aspirational product like that required scale that only government could provide, but that never came.
• The electric car is another story. The Reva electric car had limited success in India but was quiet a hit in foreign markets, emerging as the best-selling electric vehicle in the U.K. where a lot of them still run. Distressingly there wasn’t a single enquiry or expression of interest from the State government.
Way forward
• Innovation in India needs timely government support and the right kind of promotion. This would have enabled the Simputer, not the iPhone, to emerge as a much sought-after communication device.
• Generous tax breaks would have seen Reva evolve as a mass electric vehicle, spawning a world-beating electric car industry right here in India, long before it struck roots in the U.S. or China.
Conclusion
We must learn to nurture the innovations emerging from India, rather than sigh with Mr. Wozniak, that Indians as a people are incapable of innovation.
Relevance : GS 3
Try this probable Mains question :
Historically , India has not been a nation of innovation. Comment. [ 200 words ]
