Ingeniously Indegenised

Date : 12th September 2030
Location : Mumbai, India

Our not-so average inquisitive, studious 13 year old urban school boy... (not into durgs, still a virgin) switches on his swanky new pocket server, activates the voice command function. A little while later he bursts out.."Connect to the net". The palmtop echos back in a 1950 american radio jocky ishtyle "Online".
Boy : "Search India's roadmap to becoming a super power"
Jazzy palmtop : "30,322 searches found"
Boy scrolls down and says "Give me more details on search entry number 23"
Jazzy palmtop : "One moment please"
After a while page is loaded, boy goes through the webpage and shouts at the jazzy palmtop in a enthuasistic tone, consciously making an effort that his excitement does not change his accent, "Engage Bluetooth"
Jazzy palmtop : "Bluetooth engaged"
Boy : "Print page"
Jazzy palmtop : "One moment please.....Page printed"
Boy - (after getting the print) "Disengage bluetooth"
Jazzy palmtop : " Bluetooth disengaged"
Boy : "Initiate shutdown"
Our boy has now completed his history assignment for the next day, so hits the intercom and calls Bunty.
---------------
This is what our able defence ministry is trying to achieve, India- a superpower in the near future. I completely vouch for this dream and am totally comfortable with the fact a major chunk of the tax I pay is being utilised for this purpose.

Now question them as to, how this dream shall become a reality, they reply " Presently the Indian armed forces are looking to interact with the burgeoning Indian Industry. Through this interaction we intend to build competetive units that shall indegenously manufacture sub-assemblies and equipments that go onboard aircrafts, ships, tanks etc. Through this excercise we intend to become self-reliant, and self-reliance is the first step to becoming a super power."

Point well taken. Indegenisation, self-reliance all nice terms to use, sounds very nice. Well.. on the outset you would think.."Yaar its possible."

Then you look at the list of items these folks want to indegenise. You look at the list and say "Hey,wait a minute... this list consists of basic spares... ummm Valves, gaskets, bearings, bolts, fasteners....."

Bingo!!! The very technological advanced Indian industry is only capable of manufacturing spare parts. NOT CRICTICAL SYSTEMS..!!! When confronted they sheepishly say, "Indian Industry does not have the capability to build such critical systems, It is the question of human lives and survivability..(oh.. and my personal best...) mission criticality."

The sad part is that we still depend upon the Goras for critical systems and invariably place blind faith in the quality and "mission criticality" of the same . Ohh and we so.. dont know about the Russian submarine disaster and Columbia space shuttle disaster and other such misadventures. Well as far as i remember the component that failed and caused these catastrophies... wasnt labled "Made in India."

Moving on.. we also seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that the Goras are taking us for a ride. And yet we are the same people who take pride in writing software for the Goras tax managment consultant and unknowlingly justify the amount of tax the average Gora is paying for the development of "mission critical" systems, by purchasing them for protecting our ass. Ohh and please to be noting the same software engineers' income tax is used to purchase these mission critical items.

Whatever happened to the real meaning of indegenisation which involves rigourous design and development programmes to come up with a good quality INDIAN mission critical system. Its not that we dont have the grey matter in the country. If they can claim to write the most efficient tax managment and complex supply chain managment softwares, they must be having commendable amount of thinking matter.

Only thanks to our current president this theory may become the order of the day.. Soon. Yeah by soon i mean a time frame in years equivalent to the number of days i took to shift to New Mumbai.!!

---------

(Mr Blog : You made me feel miserable for not being able to upload stuff for a couple of days. Hope this update pacifies you for the time being)