Guwahati, Saturday, October 13, 2007
EDITORIAL
A knowledge economy for India— H N Das
In the past half-a-century, there seems to have been a spurt, almost an
explosion, of knowledge which has surpassed in magnitude and dimension, if not
in significance, even the Renaissance of the 15th century and the Industrial
Revolution of the 18th century. This has resulted in a sea change in the way
people live and work. Bill Gates had described only a part of it when he made
the famous prediction that ‘business is going to change more in the next ten
years than it has in the last fifty’ in the first sentence of his best-seller
Business @ Speed of Thought’. His reference was to the digital nervous system
and particularly the internet and other scientific inventions in the field of
information technology. But tremendous changes have been taking place in many
other fields of science since the end of the Second World War.It is fortunate
that the recent developments in science and technology have been properly
absorbed by the discipline of Economics. In fact the term now used to describe
this particular branch is the new economics of knowledge. One pioneer of New
Economics is Paul Romer, whose 1988-90 epoch making paper, ‘Endogenous
Technological Change,’ made the greatest contribution to the theory of growth.
Romer asserted that ‘it was knowledge, not physical factors, whose accumulation
was the really important thing.’ However, the management guru Peter Drucker was
the first to stress the significance of a knowledge economy in the early 1980s.
It was also realised that technological progress is at least partly the result
of economic forces. Some even claim that ‘technological change was a thoroughly
economic process’.The newer textbooks today reflect the economic consequences
of these advances and also the inventions which have been made because of
economic necessities. These textbooks are designed with the object “to initiate
students into a standard curriculum of currently accepted views”. They also
analyse and synthesise an enormous fund of knowledge. Moreover, “thanks to a
useful new distinction between atoms and bits” there has been a “redefinition
of the basic factors of production” so that “land, labour and capital” have
become “people, ideas and things,” according to David Warsh’s 2006 masterpiece
entitled “Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations.”Six decades have passed by since
Paul Samuelson’s textbook was first published. The world, in the meantime, has
changed beyond recognition.Tremendous advances have been made in science and
specially in the emerging fields of information technology, telecommunication,
pharmaceuticals, entertainment, bio-technology, nanotechnology, aeronautics,
optoelectronics and in a host of other areas. Unlike in the past, university
students are now taking up inter-disciplinary syllabi specially to each one’s
particular requirements. I become aware about the spread of the new phenomenon
when I had the opportunity to visit the Using Hua National University of Taiwan
which is located about 46 kms away from the capital city of Taipei. This
University is considered to be one of the best in the world. It has produced as
many as three Nobel Laureates and a fourth one got the Wolf prize in
Mathematics, which is rated as equivalent to the Nobel. In American
universities also, the number of students following inter-disciplinary courses
have increased considerably in recent years. The time has now come when India
must upscale the standard of its universities and research establishments so
that their products cannot only vie with the best in the world, but also can
devote themselves to spread of knowledge among the lower strata of society in
order to create a vibrant knowledge economy.So far, however, the recent
explosion of knowledge has not been used to the extent possible for rural areas
in India where 72.22 percent of the people live, and among whom 21.8 per cent
still remain below the poverty line according to the latest Planning Commission
estimates. In some of the advanced states, certain sporadic steps in this
direction have been initiated. But according to NR Narayana Murthy, chief
mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited, India is “grossly unprepared for the
knowledge economy.” According to Murthy, “our performance on a composite index
that measures our ability to create, absorb and diffuse knowledge is 98 in a
tally of 128 countries. This index is based on education, ownership of patents,
copyright and access to knowledge economy tools such as computers and
internet.” (The Economic Times May 7, 2007). While the country itself is
lagging behind, Assam is even further behind.Meanwhile, the Government of India
have appointed a National Knowledge Commission (NKC) with Sam Pitroda as
chairman in 2005. The objective is the “development of a knowledge based
society. This entails both a radical improvement in the existing system of
knowledge and creating avenues for generating new forms of knowledge.” It has
also been started that “greater participation and more equitable access to
knowledge across all sections of society are of vital importance in achieving
these goals.” Elaborating on these objectives, Pitroda recently said that, “the
result of the Commission’s work will be visible in areas such as improved rural
schools and libraries, better agricultural and medical research as well as
improved access for small and medium-scale industries. Each of these areas has
direct bearing on ordinary people’s everyday lives.” (The Assam Tribune, May
30, 2007. NKC has submitted 12 reports so far. One of the issues under its
consideration is “envisaging their use for solving problems of the poor and the
underprivileged.”Some feeble and spatially restricted attempts have been made
in Assam in the past, through a few projects to pass on knowledge to the rural
people. These are essentially of extension education type. The Assam branch of
the Indian Tea Association’s Gramin Krishi Unnayan Prakalpa, in collaboration
with the Indian Space Research Organisation, in 10 selected village clusters
cover a population of 1,20,501 only. Similarly, the Aryabhatta Science Centres
proposed to be set up by the Assam Science, Technology and Environment Council
in all 219 development blocks of Assam is yet to be operationalised. It is felt
that the most important step taken in this direction has been the two science
laboratories and the three knowledge centres at Gahpur cluster under the
Chaiduar Development Block. This has been possible with finance from the
Government of India’s schemes of Provision of Urban Services in Rural Areas
(PURA). This should spread to the other 218 development blocks of the State.In
order to absorb the changes in science and technology it is imperative that the
leaders of society should be properly initiated into the new developments in
the relevant disciplines. This can be done only if the curriculum in the
universities and schools are updated in step with the changes in ideas,
theories and practice. The new batches of graduates then would be able to
engage themselves in diffusion, transfer and transformation of knowledge to the
rural people.
(The writer was Chief Secretary, Assam, during 1990-95)
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