Back in July, in his convocation address at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, N.R. Narayana Murthy threw down the gauntlet to the Indian scientific establishment. What, he asked, were the contributions of the products of such institutions? Had India produced a single invention in the past 60-odd years that could be said to be indispensable to lives across the world? C.N.R. Rao, distinguished scientist and chairman of the scientific advisory council to the prime minister, has responded to Murthy in Current Science, pointing out that though the government has hobbled scientific research for its own sake with its insistence that engineers and scientists focus on solving specific problems or building on existing technology, private enterprise has failed to step into the space vacated by government.
Murthy was right, but so is Rao. Several of the truly groundbreaking inventions from the last half-century or so, such as the internet, cellphone or the global positioning system, originated from research subsidised by the United States military. But besides Darpa, the US defence research agency, the common thread running through many of these technological innovations is private partners. The US government played entrepreneur, taking risks to support such future successes as Tesla Motors and Apple. And Google Maps, for instance, owes its existence to an MIT project funded by Darpa. The Indian government, on the other hand, has chosen to apply its energies to reinventing the wheel with the doomed Akash tablet, for instance.
