India gave the world the most important contribution in the field of mathematics – Aryabhata's zero. And then we fell silent. We discovered religion and politics, and we realized there was much more fun to be had there.

Infosys founder Narayan Murthy burst our bubble when he pointed out that there has been no great invention in India in the past 60 years that has become a household name globally. Murthy, who was speaking at the convocation ceremony at Indian Insititue of Science, Bangalore, said, "Is there one invention from India that has become a household name in the globe? Is there one technology that has transformed the productivity of global corporations? Is there one idea that has lead to an earth shaking invention to delight global citizens?" 

(C) Reuters

Murthy talked about how the Massachusets Institute of Technology has given the world some path-breaking inventions like Global Positioning System, Bionic Prostheses and Microchip in the past 50 years. "They demonstrated unusual courage to achieve the plausibly-impossible. The story is similar at many other western institutions of higher education,” he said about MIT.

(C) Reuters

“On the other hand, let us pause and ask what the contributions of Indian institutions of higher learning, particularly IISc ans IITs, have been over the last sixty-plus years to make our society and the world a better place?” he said.

“Our youngsters have not done much impactful research work despite being equal to their counterparts in intellect and energy in Western universities." 

India is the land of Aryabhatta, the land that mastered the science of surgery way before the rest of the world – it is no secret that learning and genius has flowed freely in the Indian sub-continent. And yet today, we lag behind. Our best brains, the ones that are slogging it out in India, are not able to make a dent in the universe. We are too consumed by our everyday struggles; we are too invested in taking political sides, we are too distracted by the socio-political tumultuous society we live in to focus resources on R&D.

H/t - ET