Void of IdeaThe major concern of the present or future Govt. is/will be to put India on a path of economic growth which can be sustained for a long time. Central NDA govt. claims to have found a solution which includes - skilling the youth, thus harnessing the demographic dividend, and reviving the manufacturing industry by bringing in foreign investment which would be aided by governance reforms and organizing some stage shows of our new poster boy in foreign countries. The railways is identified to propel the economic growth and is being energized by the huge chunk of public investments. The strategy might look full proof on paper and backed by many growth theories put forth by neo classical growth theorists who assumed that economic growth can be explained by growth in two factors of productions namely labor and capital. But as time passed their models were unable to explain the divergent growth in some of the then developing countries with almost same growth of labour and capital – Singapore and Taiwan grew at an unprecedented rate while Balkan countries didn’t.

The new growth theorists like Romer and others explain this on the basis of technology which can be defined as pool of ideas. This major part of jigsaw puzzle of economic growth is missing in Indian context. The current central Govt. lacks a clear vision in its long term education and research and development agenda. With the current policies the Indian tiger will roar but it might not be able to make a kill. These policies needs to be coupled with a strong political will to direct the education and R&D sector in a direction where it can compete with the best in the world. But, the current picture looks gloomy where we are being told that the education needs to be ‘Indianised’ and the funds for the ‘National Higher Education Mission’ flagship higher education programme, which focuses on expansion of capacity and R&D, being cut by 60% for FY15-16 from proposed spending. One would counter the claim by pointing at the startups flourishing in Banglore and Gurgaon/Delhi and there capacity to be provider of technology or ideas for the sustainable growth.

At first, it looks like Indian startup culture is drawing most of its inspiration from the US SIllicon Valley but that is mistaken. The US Silicon valley was initially fuelled by manufacturing industries (ICs, Microprocessors, Computer and other peripherals) and later it graduated to the services based startups. The Indian startup scenario could be characterized by – many graduates trying their luck with their ideas mainly based on either trying to create an online platform for other services (travel, transport, grocery, travel etc.) or making a mobile app which would be sold in foreign market and many VC, Angel investors who are gambling with them, as always. Off course there are few who are engaging with the rural people with their brilliant ideas and products this creating a positive impact. Given limited demand from the middle and higher class from the tier I & tier II cities and limited ideas for new venture the new entrepreneurs are bound to step on each other’s toes. The lack of limited ideas is the manifestation of the flawed education system of the country which have created few islands of excellence (IIXs) which are isolated from the rural masses and their concerns and problems. Given the current nature of services based startup culture, it will face problems of demand and supply; thus will be unable to sustain the charge of economic growth for a longer time.

So, rather than Indianising the education system the govt. should make a commitment to invest in education and R&D and make a long term education policy which will equip the young researchers to solve the problems specific to Indian scenario. This could be done by investment in the R&D sector, with making favorable atmosphere for tie-ups with foreign universities, standardizing the research output by

weeding out the duplicates and low level research from the doctorates, more autonomy to the researchers and administrators.