Notwithstanding the controversy surrounding the collapse of the joint venture by the Govt of India with the MIT in the Media Labs Asia project, a few lessons are to be learnt. First it has brought the disparate Indian scientific community working in isolated islands and sometimes duplicating valuable research into closer collaboration under the umbrella of the MLA project.

Second and a greater realization is that, if the mandate is to bridge India’s digital divide, then Indians are best suited for the job. We do not need foreign collaborators dictating us how to go about getting things done. Oh yes, we may need the technical collaboration in many aspects, after all why re-invent the wheel? And that is where the new model proposed by the Ministry sounds infinitely more practical than the much-hyped Media Labs Asia project. The Minster’s assertion, "We need the flexibility to collaborate with different expert institutes" bear lot of significance in this respect.

Both Professor Krithi Ramamritham of IIT Mumbai and Professor BN Jain at IIT Delhi leading the project at the respective institutes, echo the view that MLA brought about a greater degree of collaboration between the IITs doing research in similar areas. This includes research on multi-lingual computing by IIT Kharagpur, Mumbai and IIT Delhi. Earlier each Institute was addressing the issue at their own level but the project helped in adding different dimensions to the research.

To that extent, to be fair in the appraisal of the project, MLA did partially achieve one objective of being a catalyst among the Indian research community. And this is one fallout which the community would like to continue. Says Professor RS Sirohi, Director of IIT Delhi, "We would like to the continuation of the project with a coordinating body whether it be from the Ministry or another body with representative from the academia, govt and industry, I do not know. But I think it is important to have an anchor in a project of this scale and with noble aims."

As a result of this closer collaboration, Indian researchers learnt another lesson. That being Indians and closer to the aspirations of the Indian masses, they are best suited to think of solutions that would benefit masses. Although one of the important mandate of MIT was to provide the methodology for product innovation and for taking research to the to end users, in practical application MIT’s could not come up with any credible inputs.

"Perhaps, MIT’s experience was not valid from an Indian standpoint. It is difficult to expect MIT to play a role in issues in which it is not exposed to directly. If we have to solve our problems we have to delve inside the country for solutions and create value propositions which are appealing enough to make it a marketing success," says Professor Jain, Dean of the project at IIT Delhi.

Prof Jain is right in so much so that all the projects under the MLA were actually initiated much earlier before MLA came into the scene. Under the circumstances, it did not make sense for MLA employees to call the shots in project execution even when there was no direct involvement in any way.

What went wrong?
The project started on a wrong foot because of the mismatch in expectations. The Government was led to believe that the MIT brand has strong equity in the R&D world and would help attract development funds. But MIT had been astute enough to remove clauses from the MoU that would commit itself in raising funds for the project. "Those in charge of the project was led to believe that with people like Nicholas Negroponte and Alex Pentland on board private funding would be available," said IT Minster Arun Shourie, in an interview later. The government had made an in-principle approval to a Rs 5,000 crore project in which the government put in Rs 65 crore during the first year as seed money. The rest of the money was to be raised by the project from the industry over a period of 10 years to conduct research and the government was to chip in Rs 65 crore every year. But other than the seed money, the project was unable to attract any funds from the industry. Other than TCS, no other private company gave any fund to the project even though an exhaustive list of corporate sponsors was given when the Lab was set up. An important indication of the way the project was heading is that Azim Premji who was on the board left and Narayan Murthy closely associated with the project also made no contribution.

Bimal Sareen, the CEO of the project has gone on record saying that the critics do not take into account the time required for raising funds for such a project. "The charge does not take into account the challenges in raising funds for a research based model." IIT Professors also agree that raising funds for a research based project does take time and that charge may have been a little harsh just yet.

What really irked Ministry officials and the Indian scientific community was the huge salaries and perks enjoyed by the MLA team. Estimates say that of the Rs 65 crore sanctioned by the Ministry some Rs 35 crore was mostly spent on marketing and salaries and the rest is lying in the bank. The Ministry’s investigation revealed that the salary structure of MLA employees were far higher than what they were delivering. Minister Shourie contends, "The CEO’s salary was 15-19 times higher than Dr Kasturi Rangan who manages India’s entire space programme…If it had to be a govt funded project as it was turning out to be then you can’t be way out of the line government scales." Sirohi agrees, "Yes, I think one of the main contention from the IITs was the huge salaries being paid to MLA staffers particularly when the R&D work was being done by the IIT people." Adds Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Department of electrical engineering, IIT Chennai, "We went against it as soon as we came to know we were paying for this. Academic collaborations are not based on money being paid,"

"What’s in a name?"
The final denoument started in March when there was pressure on Arun Shourie to release $5 million to MIT to retain the exclusive relationship or else the name Media Labs Asia could not be used. This set Shourie thinking who wrote back saying, "Why should I issue $5 million for an name? Supposing we give the money to the IITs wouldn’t they do better work?" This brought in a revised proposal from MIT asking $1 million for a year for the next ten years. But Shourie remained unrelenting with his now legendary quote "What’s in a name?"

Says RS Sirohi, "Some ten months ago we allocated 2000 sq ft of space in the campus to MLA to begin their operations which is still unoccupied." Jhunjhunwala is more forthright, "I do not think we received any technical inputs from MIT. The inputs from the IIT fraternity proved to be the final undoing as Shourie decided to pull the plug on the collaboration.

The road ahead
As the curtains are drawn on one of India’s most hyped technical collaboration, the IT Ministry’s stand seem to be vindicated.

The project will continue under the Media Las Asia name as it legally turns out to the name of an Indian company and MIT has no exclusive right over it. The government has sacked MLA’s employees and moved operations under Ministry officials. Its proposals for the restructured entity awaits the Cabinet’s approval.

The new proposal envisages it would be purely government aided research and development outfit. It would have an Indian board; a technology advisory committee of Indian scientists; no exclusive relationship with any company and any tie-ups will be put to specific deliverables. Employees would be expected to work on government scales. Academicians are rallying behind the Minster’s decision and are keen to continue with the project under the umbrella of a co-ordinating body. Wiser with the learning from the two years of experience, everyone involved is betting that this time round the project will succeed.

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal
CNS