What India can learn from China

This post points to one from the archives.

I had described an extremely insightful and thought provoking talk by Prof. Leslie Young comparing and contrasting India and China. In the talk, Prof. Young covered the history and philosophy of the two nations and attempted to connect that to the long-term economic progress of the two countries and also discussed the state of capital markets and corporate organisations in both the countries.

I had linked to a transcript of the talk, but that link is now dead. Fortunately I had a copy of the speech saved on my local hard disk. So I've now posted the entire text of the talk on my blog. Definitely worth reading - go, read it!

In another post, I had linked to a talk by Dr. Mashelkar, Director General of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) in which he said, "Our technology innovations must be now redirected for solving the major problems that the nation faces today." Prof Young, in his talk, says that unlike China, we in India have been too theoretically minded from time immemorial and haven't provided enough practical leadership to solve the  problems facing society at various points in time in history. An observation, I find hard to disagree with. An example provided by Dr. Mashelkar and another by Prof. Young drive home this point well.

Comments

[Lakshmi]

A very very interesting post Satya. I have lots to say in this context. I can point out so many such small small innovations that people do. Like for parking the car in a garage, it is sometimes difficult to judge how much more one can move forward. Somebody here came up with this ball attached to a string that can be hung on the roof of your garage at the right place so that you don't pull too much to the front. I think people here are at good doing things with their hands and they take that extra initiative to innovate, however small it is. I think the way they learn is one of the reasons for this.

[Satya]

Yes, the U.S. has had, and continues to have, a strong culture of DIY and small practical innovations which manifests itself in the number of useful (and useless) patents in the U.S.

[Lakshmi]

I like what you call it - DIY culture :-)