Veiled Indian Power

Yesterday as I was reading a news article on NAT GEO human brain series, I was both happy as well as sad to read that 4 Indians would be featured as a part of the series. This is a special programme of National Geographic Channel, an in-depth series "my brilliant brain" exploring the human mind and what makes a genius.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20071118024945&Page=H&Headline=Four+Indians+to+feature+in+NAT+GEO'S+%22human+brain%22+series&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=0&

I was happy to see Indians listed as a part of a series that would be served for the global audience. But looking at what we can do and what we are doing I feel sad about it. As many articles suggest Indians are a bunch with lot of potential, which is not used to the fullest.
Two things that have caught my attention in the last month or so are TATA’s Eka and the whole issue surrounding Nuke deal.

In 1988 when India faced the denial of Supercomputer from USA, it led us to build our own. Now we have one which features in the top 5 list in the world. Indian supercomputer Eka (meaning one in Sanskrit) built by the Pune’s Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) of the Tata Group is the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world! Great going!
Though it has taken nearly 20 years for us to build a world class one which is amongst the top in the world, we made it happen. There is too much of talk going around whether India must go in for a nuke deal with US of A. There was too much of fight which even challenged the stability of the ruling Government, this has led the whole issue to be put in the back burner. There are many who say that its something that the Government shouldn’t have done and that it might prove to be an obstacle to progress.

But looking at it in a different angle I think it’s a blessing in disguise. This might prove to be the bullet that triggers the progress. Now India can look at developing its own technology for generating nuclear power. We should take inspiration from the story of Eka and try to develop our own technology. This will lessen our dependence on US. Had the deal got through it would have also created a scenario where in India would have been forced to open up more sectors for foreign investment. With no immediate need for energy through nuclear plants, we can look at developing our own technology that will aid us achieving the result, instead of depending heavily on US.

I am not someone who is pro left and trying to justify their act of opposing the deal, this is just a thought that struck me when I was reading through the article on NAT GEO.

RJ