The need for research in India

I am writing this post on my view point for engineering research in India.

I wont do this all at once because the reason India should take part in Engineering research is not one.

I used to say that Research is required in India and one of my friends would say that it is not necessary and India can do good without it. He would argue that "not everything need to be done in India. India is good in Software exports and also in engineering services to an extent. With this being India' strength,  we should capitalise on it and grow. "

I have also heard that Indians have very good managerial skills. They can sell by speaking. I have even heard from guys of my age who sell technical products in their careers taking this approach and even suceeding. Now, you may think that I am deviating from the topic of India's need to do research and speaking of selling technical products.. But here is the link. The products engineered in India were not of very good quality in the last decades and the engineering, marketing and business fraternity did not pursue the hard approach of improving their products in a scientific and engineering approach. The short cut that they took was to sell the products in the market by fooling their customers to an extent. This can also said to be a reason for the prolifiration of bribes in many places as the products were not up to the mark required by corporate customers. One example being the low quality in products that are manufactured by government agencies.
 A cloud of secrecy was one easy way these guys escaped. If you ask technical questions to them, they would simply say them to be trade secrets and hence they cannot reveal them. This is one reason why research in India should be improved. I will put the onus of this position in research in India to the Engineering Colleges including those famed IITs. They are not deemed to be called Indian Institute of Technology. They can be called Indian Institute of Technical Education. The amount of research that they have done doesnot stand.
One can argue that the students of IITS lead the world, for ex Subra Suresh, who heads NSF in USA. Actually this is the point I am trying to make. these IITS develop world class engineers. But where they fail is world class Engineering. Now, how can this be possible. To be best in teaching but not to be the best to do.
Indians are good at it. They have sat and looked at the sky and developed the most complex concepts in Astronomy but they didnot bother to prove it to all by fact which the europeans did very well. This is said in the words "In God we Trust. For everything else, give us data". This is the reason, Europeans developed the rockets, the particle accelerators, microscopes and telescopes. Now, one can argue, what is the point in putting so much effort to prove a point where I can prove it with my knowledge and wisdom, it is so. It sounds good philosophically. But this resulted in the following situation. Indians say, we can plant the crops, grow food and feed the poor. When we know the solution, what is the point in doing it. I hope that now we really understand the need to do things than to speak about things.

I would like to expand my view with a case in point. The development of Railways in India. With the second biggest Railways in the world, India should have ideally been the GE or Siemens of Railways. But, any Indian  Engineer would say any Indian Railways has failed in this.
Can any Indian Railway Engineer prove me wrong?. Please do so and I would be the happiest man alive.
If not, please resign your job and stop cheating your country men.

I would like to expand on this topic whenever I find some facts that support my point....

The Indian way of Engineering Research

Hi all,

This is a topic that is very close to my heart. By education, I am an engineer and have been in this field for three years. The need of research has been always downplayed by the indian engineering community. I wanted to know the reasons for this. India was labelled not to have produced any worthwhile real engineering products for quite a long time. The exceptions being the space and nuclear technology which was born out of the hardwork of really exceptionally people ranging from Homi J Bhaba to Dr. Abdul Kalam. These two fields have improved the quality of life of a average indian to a great extent for sure. But why havent this kind of engineering marvels havent happened in other parts of engineering, science, humanities and social sciences.

I have always wondered the difference in the working style of European and Indian Scientists. I believe I have got a hint of what it is. Indians think in a more complex way compared to the Europeans. Indians in general are believed to think in a two dimensional way, which essentially means to alter two parameters under study to reach the optimum. The advantage being that the path is always the most efficient and costs the minimum. The disadvantage being the path to be travelled everytime with a certain level of uncertaininty as the effect of the individual parameter is not evident after the study is conducted.

 The problem actually starts when scaling is accounted. This is a huge problem in engineering. It is the basic P=nP problem of mathematics. ie if a problem ( P ) is solved, can n times the problem P be solved in the same way and is it feasible. In our case, it has been easy for us, humans to think in case of two dimensions. What will happen when the problem to be solved is a multiobjective multiparameter problem. I would like to explain this with a small example.

       First problem       ( P )   : Making  a tea.

      Second problem ( nP )  : Making a full fledged sumptuous Indian meal.

Now if both problems are categorised to be a food processing problem, then a person who is able to make a tea should be able to make a full fledged sumptuous Indian meal. I leave it to the readers for the rest to be thought about.

The case with the European way of thinking and analysing the problems in more linear.

ie they assume that one single parameter affects one output. In this way, they learn more about each parameter and its effects. This helps in the long term for various reasons.

Now to the point of how these affect the way research in india gets affected. The Indian community has always failed a number of times in many engineering practices as they have taken more than their capability to handle at a time. This is not to tarnish the great Indian scientific community. There are always exceptions to anything in this world. The great engineering Indian Community has always been dominated by these people.

Although this, on one hand is good and to be proud of, it leads to a situation, where the problems always have to be taken to these exceptionally talented people to be solved. This is the reason IISc, IITs and IIMs are always called upon to solve the problems faced by the Indian society. They definitely provide great solutions. But the implementation of these solutions to the field is definitely a great challenge in itself just because of the term "FIELD".  India with its diversity is, on any given day, a huge nightmare for engineers to handle. 

So, does this mean we have to copy the European way of thinking. DEFINITELY NOT.

Then what would really be the solution. For me, that is a million dollar question.

I would like to get some points from the readers on my views on this topic.

The ideas that are presented are my personal and are bound to change without any notification.