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Our Bureau

Chennai, Sept. 14 The American aerospace industry is eyeing India for getting its work done here. “I believe this development is going to be good for both US and India,” says Mr John Douglass, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Aerospace Industries Association of America.

The average age of an American aerospace worker is around 50. There are around 7 lakh workers and a majority of them will retire within the next decade. Schools in the US are not producing engineers and scientists quick enough to fill up this gap, he said in his address at Connect2008, the annual ICT (information, communication and technology) event of Tamil Nadu organised by Confederation of Indian Industry in association with the State Government.

In the US, there is another serious problem. The airports are saturated and there is not enough space to build airports. The country’s air traffic control systems are over 50 years old and there is no capacity to bring new airplanes into the air space without a complete reengineering of the air traffic control systems. “We are about to do that and are cooperating with Europe. We have a project called NextGen Air Traffic Control System and Europe also has such a project that is being harmonised with that of the US,” he said.

The US Federation Aviation is also working with the Indian aviation department on the re-engineering. The new system is going to be computer and IT-based and India is going to be one of the places for lots of design work to take place, said Mr Douglass, who is also an advisor to the Senator, Mr Barack Obama, the Democrats’ Presidential candidate.

Any nation that is going to be competitive in the global economy has to have an educated workforce that is competent in science, engineering and technology. Clearly these are developing in India, Mr Douglass said.

On infrastructure, he said India should have the ability to manufacture goods and deliver them to customers around the world. There is much work to be done here to improve infrastructure. However, the good news is that things are improving here with roads being built and new airports coming up, he said.

Innovation is a mixture of education and productivity and demands a free society. People have to be free to think in the manner of their own to come up with good ideas. This may be India’s greatest strength. “You are the largest democracy in the world. Your people are free and can think the way they want to think. This is enormously important for the future,” he said.

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