Already, major international telecom companies like Nokia, Ericsson, and Alcatel have set up research and development (R&D) centres here, and the latest to jump on the bandwagon, networking giant Cisco s Scientific-Atlanta is setting up a research and development facility at TidelPark in Chennai.
March 2005, a French telecom player Alcatel partnering Centre of Development of Telematics set up a global R&D centre for broadband wireless products in Chennai, and Chennai s ascent as an R&D hub began. Currently, it is estimated this joint initiative employs 1,000-engineers to work on Wimax based technology.
Following close on Alcatel s heels, Nokia, the Finnish mobile handset maker announced a manufacturing base near Chennai at Sriperumbudur investing $150 million in the venture.
And, March 2006 saw Swedish telecom equipment maker, Ericsson inaugurate its first R&D centre in India at Chennai. A 100-person facility, it will focus on developing applications for the pre-paid and multimedia segments. While, according to Mats Granryd, Managing Director, Ericsson India, work on the global prepaid segment will also be partially transferred to the Chennai centre from Sweden.
And, other the other academic linkage to drive all this investment higher is the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, which in partnership with corporates is in the process of setting up a 1.4 million sq. ft. industry research park in Taramani, with the first phase of 400,000 sq. ft. expected to be complete by end of 2006. Ananth, Director, IIT Madras informs: The focus of the research park will be information technology, telecom and biotech.
With IIT alumni the prime contributor to the park, it can only mean one thing i.e. more companies will be heading to Chennai for R&D work. Zoom in to the India that was post-independence and post British Raj, a broken, shattered India that found it difficult to offer employment at suitable wages for its educated mass of doctors, scientists, teachers, engineers et al. A situation that led to the biggest brain drain any country can have encountered. A brain drain that put USA and other European countries on the high road to dominating the world due to high-tech wizardry.
Now, that India has come into its own, millions of Indians who graduate each year, find themselves being snapped up by multinationals dangling lucrative job offers, even before they have sat for their exams. Indians may be using their brains for the MNCs, but they are now doing so in their own country, no longer second rate citizens, no longer forced to adapt to an alien culture at the cost of their own, no longer pagans at the mercy of Born Again Christians or radical evangelists in USA, UK etc
Who would have thought that Indian academia would draw in, as much, if not more investment than the industrial and business sector. Not surprisingly really, as the one thing India can bank on are brains, brains and brains, of which Indians have plenty and more! And, science has proved that macher jol does increase brain power, no wonder the Bengalis reign supreme in that department. But, what do the South Indians eat that causes them to churn out so many engineering and science graduates? There should be some R&D on that, as well.
As for the Punjabis, it must be the badaam shardai along with frothy tumblerfuls of lassi and rich in fat buffalo milk! I mean, what else could it be, as North India drifts away from its agricultural and armed forces tradition and takes to academia like a duck to water, as it sends its Jats, who can no longer be made the butt of Sardarji jokes, as they work in R&D and other pursuits for the highly qualified educated.
Once again, India is reviving the glory days of its past, when it was the seat of learning for the world! Indians are beginning to use their brains as they were meant to be, by rejecting the Eurocentric education, a legacy of the British Raj. India dominated every field in the past and will do so in the future!
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