The Hindu Business Line : `India must harness strength of large talent pool'

RIGHT from the former GE chief, Mr Jack Welch, to Mr Jeffery Sachs of Goldman Sachs, several thought leaders believe India is the future. And its strength lies in harnessing the power of a large talent pool, said Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

Delivering the convocation address at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, on Saturday, Dr Mashelkar said, "In fact, Jeffery Sachs believes India could possibly get into the top three league with the US and China, much ahead of the year 2050 earlier projected."

Referring to a recent chat he had with the Nasscom President, Mr Kiran Karnik, the CSIR chief said there is a steady growth in the number of Indians wanting to come back to India. The challenge before us is to convert this trickle into a torrent and the Government can do a lot more by creating an environment to support this.

About 150 major US and European companies have established research, design and development centres in India in the last five years. They are not small. Some of them employ 2,000 to 3,000 employees. These include Boeing, Daimler Chrysler, DuPont, General Electric, Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Unilever. And more are being added by the day. Interestingly, they employ many Indians who are coming back home.

"If one cent out of 10 dollars is donated by about 3,000 NRIs in Silicon Valley, this will amount to about Rs 300 crore that can be used to fund about three lakh students. This is assuming that, on an average, they earn $2,00,000 (a year), amounting to $60 billion," said Mr Mashelkar.

Dr Mashelkar told newspersons that it is a pity that India produces just 30 IT PhDs, and effort is on to create a base for research.

From the National Science Research Fund, it is proposed to create two more Indian Institutes of Science, one each in Pune and Kolkata.

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