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Some Asiatech readers complain that Im anti-India, that I spend too much time comparing India to China, and that in these comparisons all too often India comes out looking bad. But of course lots of top Indian officials do the same thing. For instance: Gangan Prathap, the top scientist at the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Banaglore. The C-MMACS, which got its start in the late 1980s by Indias Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has its offices on the campus of the National Aerospace Laboratories, so its safe to say that its not peopled by a bunch of India-haters. Yet Prathap, the scientist-in-charge of the center, the other day made headlines with his unfavorable comparison of India to China. According to a report in Indian newspaper The Telegraph, Prathap says that India is more than a century and a half behind China when it comes to sci-tech human resources. According to the Telegraphs report, India will take at least 163 years to match Chinas research workforce of 850,000 even if Beijing were to freeze the number today. More: Prathap has now used simple school algebra to show that even if Indias 4,500 annual science doctorates were to join the 115,000-strong science and technology workforce, the country wont be able to touch the figure of 850,000 until 2170 AD.
And Prathap is not the only Indian scientist pointing out that people shouldnt fool themselves into thinking that success in IT outsourcing and generic drugmaking mean Indias rise as a high-tech power is a sure thing. For instance, the Telegraph quotes Rajesh Kochchar, former director of the National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, saying Weve lulled ourselves into thinking were doing great things. The Telegraph also quotes C.N.R. Rao, head of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister, bemoaning the situation: Indias share of global research publications in science has dropped to unbelievably low levels. Fortunately, Indian officials like these realize that its useful to compare their countrys progress (or lack thereof) with that of the other would-be Asian superpower.
India ? 163 years behind China? - BusinessWeek
And Prathap is not the only Indian scientist pointing out that people shouldnt fool themselves into thinking that success in IT outsourcing and generic drugmaking mean Indias rise as a high-tech power is a sure thing. For instance, the Telegraph quotes Rajesh Kochchar, former director of the National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, saying Weve lulled ourselves into thinking were doing great things. The Telegraph also quotes C.N.R. Rao, head of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister, bemoaning the situation: Indias share of global research publications in science has dropped to unbelievably low levels. Fortunately, Indian officials like these realize that its useful to compare their countrys progress (or lack thereof) with that of the other would-be Asian superpower.
India ? 163 years behind China? - BusinessWeek
