India can outshine big brains in innovation

BANGALORE, INDIA: India is looking at innovations that come from overseas while we forget to see and appreciate our own innovations, feels Samir K. Brahmachari, director general, CSIR. For him India has as big brains as other developed countries do.

Giving an example of his point, Brahmachari said, “Twenty-five years back, our Prime Minister was denied of the technology sharing from a developed country. We took that opportunity and responded to them by building our infrastructure and now we talk about multicore processors.”

He was speaking on the topic, ‘Challenges of Innovation in India; Imagination and Technology', at EmTech 2010 conference here today.

Brahmachari thinks that the achievement of Indian defense was possible only because of its successful journey from the very first aircraft Saras, then Hamsa and now the upcoming fighter planes.

“India is a country of innovations right from Taj Mahal to the other architectural enigmas; we have shown innovation, but could not patent them. India has done brilliant innovation in architecture, computing design and many more things. We look at innovation overseas but we don’t look at our own innovation,” he added.

Another speaker at the session, PS Subramanyam, Director, Aeronautical Development Agency, said the Indian defense sector is moving high in technology.

“During 1990, we were challenged to build the composite wind design. Today we have not only overcome that challenge but also can design the carbon fiber that goes in the aircrafts,” he pointed out.

He showed a five-minute video on India’s indigenously built light combat aircraft - Tejas. The new aircraft is expected to replace MIG 21 and compliment MIG 29K in the near future.

Taking stock of the present scenario, Subramanyam added that today there is huge participation from the private sector.

“Out of the computer-based system used by the defense sector, a majority come from the private sector which are finally assembled in today’s environments. Moving ahead we are working on the unmanned aircrafts for both combat and surveillance,” he said.

However, Subramanyam opined that we still face some technology challenges.

“We need to work on the low observation quality. In other words we need to work on getting accurate signals on the radar and also through the infrared, which are getting invisible for the radars.”

Drawing the session to a close, Brahmachari said, “Innovation need not always be a blockbuster like Tejas, a micro-innovation like solar rickshaw from CSIR can also make a big difference. The TR 35 is a brilliant initiative by Technology Review magazine to promote such small-scale innovations that can make a difference.”