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This month we celebrate the 60th anniversary of our independence. Recently, I was privileged to interview an 87 year-old freedom fighter, Thangavel Mahalingam who had participated in the Quit India movement and spent two years in the Alipuram prison. When I asked him what he thought of India today, he replied: "Our country has changed. No one cares about freedom anymore!" It made me wonderhave we truly progressed, especially in the technical sector? Do we really care about freedom and independence in our careers? Are we truly free?

Development Vs Growth
Bangalore is called the Silicon Valley of India. This is a misnomer as the Silicon Valley in the USA created and manufactured new products for the world. Most techies in Bangalore and elsewhere in India work in "highly paid" service jobs that require no innovation or production. This is also true for most engineers in the manufacturing and energy sector where the same thing is produced and reproduced again and again. If you doubt this statement, ask yourself, how many new IT products have been created and produced by Indian companies in our rise to "India is an IT superpower"? Ask yourself, as a consumer, how many products from abroad do you use that are not made in India. Does an Indian hold the copyright to a new robot that can detect bombs, maybe a new software that helps disabled students learn in school or an emergency response system installed in the country which will help co-ordinate services to help the affected people? What about a bio-diesel or even a multiple fuel automobile or water desalination and delivery system that operates on bio-mass electric plants? What about a "Made in India" fully-fledged computer game that is a worldwide success?

So, what we are going through is not development which would make us leaders, rather an economical growth for a certain section of our society, where we opt for jobs that offer maximum money for boring work. Growth doesnt necessarily mean development. Even then, we spend time stuck in traffic jams, idling in our AC "Made in Korea" or "Made in Japan" cars, staring at our Swiss watches, and listening to the Chinese or Korean sound systems. What we are essentially doing is getting trapped in consumerism of "foreign" products. This is not wrong, but what we are doing in essence is becoming hi-tech coolies who can afford good quality products.

The tap of employment due to relatively cheap labor will and can stay open only for a limited amount of time. Once people elsewhere can do the job for lesser money, the tap will run dry. What do we do then? Do we try to go abroad like we did twenty years before? Add to this the digital divide with over 600,000 villages that lack basic amenities including water and power, we are talking economic growth for a section of the middle class, rather than Indian development. This can be addressed only if we make products and find solutions that can bridge the divide, and at the same time make money, which results in true development. Currently, most work in the tech sector is essentially sweat-shop work.

The University-Industry Disconnect
This doesnt mean we are not innovative. One look at various project thesis submitted by final year BE students in engineering colleges all over India, will prove that ideas are not only creative but doable. Unfortunately, it is collecting dust in universities across India. This university-industry disconnection needs to be addressed first if India plans to be a real force in the global scenario. WLL phones is a case where university-industry collaborated and resulted in the successful creation of a new product. This sort of collaboration along with a whole new set of Indian entrepreneurs will alone make India a technical power to reckon with in the global scene. Products we manufacture should be able to address problems faced by people in developing countries. This would mean a market of 3 bn-plus customers. Instead of looking at the developed world as our market, Indians need to dust off research projects and create products that sell to a much bigger market. We would not only be improving our own earth but also making money.

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