Sunday, May 22, 2022

Book Review: Indian Innovation -By Dinesh C Sharma

 

Jugaad An Insult To Indian Innovation?

By SHIVANAND KANAVI

( https://www.rediff.com/money/column/shivanand-kanavi-jugaad-an-insult-to-indian-innovation/20220506.htm? )

May 06, 2022 10:54 IST
'When resources are few; when frugality demands repairing a broken thing rather than replacing it with a brand new and expensive option, enterprising commoners in rural and urban India improvise on a daily basis and solve their problems with whatever they have,' observes Shivanand Kanavi.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

I am certain that anyone who reads Indian Innovation, Not Jugaad: 100 Ideas That Transformed India will learn something he or she did not know about several ideas that have changed life in India in the last 60-75 years.

I did, despite having spent a good part of my life tracking innovations -- both in India and globally -- and writing about them.

Dinesh C Sharma, a veteran science communicator and the book's author, as well as the publisher, Roli Books, should be congratulated.

In a slim volume of 350 pages, Sharma packs in the history behind literally a hundred ideas. He introduces us to the men and women who brought these transformational thoughts to fruition and contributed to nation-building in a country that was ravished and impoverished for two centuries by colonialism.

These innovations are an integral part of the Indian renaissance (rebirth).

Come to think of it, that's about three pages for a revolutionary or transformative idea.



That's also the beauty of the book.

It tells the story of each innovation succinctly, throws in the main characters behind it and makes us say 'Yeh dil maange more' since each idea probably deserves a book or at least an elaborate case study.

The author has taken pains to define ab initio (from the beginning) much used and abused words like innovation, jugaad, revolution, etc.

He is clearly so incensed by the prejudice that all Indian innovation is jugaad that he makes it a prominent point in the book's title.

Certainly, it would be inappropriate and even derogatory to many of the genuinely innovative ideas in the list if they were to be called Indian jugaad.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

As an aside, however, one need not be very prickly about the word jugaad.

After all, when resources are few; when frugality demands repairing a broken thing rather than replacing it with a brand new, shiny and expensive option, as we often observe in richer economies; when the State's capacity to deliver many services are limited; enterprising commoners in rural and urban India improvise on a daily basis and solve their problems with whatever they have, often exhibiting remarkable lateral thinking.

Of course, such jugaad cuts corners and the solution is generally not robust or long-lasting or even safe. But it helps them survive and carry on as they often have no choice.

At the same time, for example, it leads to the creation of a new gadget like the original Punjabi version of jugaad -- a small village transport with a diesel water pump from the farm acting as the engine!

The author has cast his net wide to gather the list of 100 innovations and has consciously not confined himself to only S&T (science and technology) innovations.

Thus you see that the Indian Premier League, the Navodaya Vidyalayas, Air Deccan, the Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Chipko Andolan, Binaca Geet Mala, Ready Mix Gulab Jamun, Amul, etc, jostle for space with hi-tech and digital initiatives like SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment), the IITs and the IIMs, computerised railway reservation and Aadhaar.

The stories are well told and informative.

If one wants to quibble about the list then I think he could have added the nuclear radiation of agri-products like mangoes, onions and potato for a longer shelf life and export purposes; Bombay Plan of 1944-45 (also known as the Tata-Birla Plan); the development of affordable parallel supercomputers for complex calculations in the eighties, starting with FLOSOLVER; CDAC's GIST which revolutionised all publishing, including the Indian language publishing through DTP in the nineties; DNA fingerprinting for forensics, etc; the Tsunami Warning System 2007-2008 that is helping the whole Indian Ocean littoral; the UPI-based digital payment system which has crossed $1 trillion a few days ago; TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research); the Indian Statistical Institute and so on.

But then, perhaps marketeers would say that would break the catchy figure of 100!

The reader will be pleasantly surprised by the case studies of the Blue Revolution (marine products), the White Revolution (milk products), the Egg Revolution and even the Yellow Revolution (oil seeds).

However, Sharma cryptically says oil seed production led to 98 per cent self-sufficiency and then fell apart but doesn't elaborate.

Considering the present crisis in edible oils even before the effects of Ukraine-Russia war were felt, one would say a 'Yeh dil maange more' explanation was required from him.

The author has written acclaimed monographs on the history of India's IT industry but disappoints here with a perfunctory treatment of the same, considering that Indian IT exports worth nearly $200 billion are footing our oil and gas, coal and electronics import bill.

All in all, this is a good handbook of Indian innovations to read and refer to.

The writing style is simple and accessible to a wide spectrum of readers.

Shivanand Kanavi is a former VP at Tata Consultancy Services and the former executive editor of Business India. The award-winning author of Sand To Silicon: The Amazing Story Of Digital Technology, he is adjunct faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

Sunday, February 6, 2022

N Chandrsekharan (Chandra) brief profile

 This Chandra shines on his own

(appeared in Lokmat Times, Jan 29, 2022)

 


Chandra, the moon, in Indian languages, doesn’t have any light of his own. The pleasant moonlight enjoyed by us all is reflected glory say scientists. But N Chandrasekharan, (59), the young and dynamic Chairman of Tata Sons shines on his own hard work, diligence and leadership qualities in Indian IT and Indian industry as a whole.

Chandrasekharan or Chandra, as he is fondly called by his colleagues and friends has been honoured with Padma Bhushan by the Government of India on this Republic Day, Jan 26, 2022 for his contributions to Indian Industry.

He has had a meteoric rise in the Tata Group, which he joined as a trainee in 1987 in the IT pioneer TCS (Tata Consultancy Services). He went on to become its CEO in 2009 when it had nearly a lakh bright engineers. In Feb 2017 he was chosen by Ratan Tata to head the more than 150 year old Tata Group comprising a hundred companies making software to steel and tea to trucks. It is a dream run by any standards for any young aspiring Indian.

Chandra was born in Mohanur, a village in Tamil Nadu in 1963. He studied in a Tamil medium school and later got a degree in Applied Sciences from Coimbatore Institute of Technology. He then studied computer programming and obtained Master of Computer Applications in the Regional Engineering College, Trichy (now NIT Trichy). He joined as an intern in TCS in 1987 and later became a fulltime employee.

Within a couple of years Chandra attracted the attention of senior management with his hardwork and never say die attitude in completing his assignments in time to the satisfaction of his seniors and the clients of TCS. In the 90’s Chandra was sent on particularly problematic and difficult missions by S Ramadorai and F C Kohli who were then leading TCS. And Chandra proved himself.

S Ramadorai who took over as CEO of TCS in 1996 told the me that Chandra was “Mr Reliable” and successfully completed complex tasks and client projects which many of his peers would have hesitated to tread. Thus he became first unofficially and later officially as Chief Operating Officer, the number two in the company.

TCS became the first Indian IT company to achieve a $1 billion in sales in 2003. Tata Sons of which TCS was till then a division, since its founding in 1968 by JRD Tata and Nani Palkhivala, decided to convert TCS into a company and then take it public through an IPO. The IPO was a great success and the company hasn’t looked back since then.

Today TCS has become the jewel in the crown of Tata Group with nearly 14 lakh crore rupees in market value and last years’ profits of nearly Rs 31000 cores. Chandrasekharan has played a stellar role in its rise as CEO and later Chairman in the last 13 years.

TCS which is vying to be the number one IT services company in the world, and is very close to getting there, has also played a major role in creating a modern digital India by building a large portion of India’s digital infrastructure; its stock exchanges, its dematerialized share depositories, digital banking, Passport Seva Kendras, online reservation of Indian Railway tickets, tsunami warning systems etc etc; in short it has done valuable service in Nation Building while earning valuable dollars through exports.

In 1944-45 J R D Tata and G D Birla were the lead authors of Bombay Plan. In the words of former PM, Dr Manmohan Singh “it (Tata-Birla Plan) defined the framework for India's transition from agrarian feudalism to industrial capitalism. In many ways, it encapsulated what all subsequent Plans have tried to achieve.”

India in the 21st century needs a new plan and vision for its growth and prosperity and all round welfare. Chandra has tried to contribute to preparing this vision through a thought provoking book, “Bridgital Nation” ( 2019).

Since being appointed as the Chairman of India’s largest industrial Group -- the Tatas, five years ago, Chandra has been trying to reshape the group to face the challenges of the present day world and also seize on new opportunities.

Tata’s diversification into defence production, takeover of India’s flag ship airline Air India, entry into the brave new world of semiconductors, electric vehicles etc while trying to reduce debt in older Tata Steel, Tata Motors and make the group more nimble all have his idelible imprint.

The award of Padmabhushan to him preceded by those awarded to Ratan Tata, F C Kohli and S Ramadorai show the role this storied group has played in modern India.

Shivanand Kanavi

(The author is Adjunct Faculty at National Institute of Advanced Studies; former VP at TCS and a business journalist and author of award winning book “Sand to Silicon”)