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India
is IT the future?

Ubiquity, Volume 2000 Issue May, May 1 - May 31 2000 | BY R. Raghuraman 

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Full citation in the ACM Digital Library


The price of becoming a technology superpower.



If not the tabloids, at least Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, the "tech-savvy" Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, makes IT a point every time he gives an interview.

This is one area where India dreams to be a superpower, where it has pinned all its hopes on. But then in this mad rush for IT, we have failed to answer the questions that are standing stark naked before us.

These prodigal sons are now the blue-eyed boys for the paparazzi, government and last but not the least, the people themselves. Many colleges are queueing up to start courses like MCA (Master of Computer Application) with the "supreme" aim of making people ready for the IT "revolution," not to forget the thousands of computer shops that promise to teach an Economics student C, C++, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Java, HTML, XML in a month and are "assured" of a "decent" job for a "paltry" sum of Rs. 30,000!

What more can you ask?

Lastly, the people adore, adulate, worship these gods, I mean, the Info Tech guys and gals.

I am fortunate enough to work in this "superior, in thing" field but I am depressed by the lack of sensitivity of media, governments and people toward the other issues that need more attention -- this is a clear and present danger.

Why should the software profession be exempted from tax when subsidies are being cut? Why should we provide sop to a software company when we are closing down a fertilizer industry which is more capital-intensive?

Why should we talk about 0.01% of the people who are reluctant to part with their salary as tax when we have 5,000 times more people who are not even getting a salary?

Fellow Indians, IT may be the future but let us not forget the present!

R. Raghuraman works in the VLSI Test Team of the ASIC organization in Texas Instruments (India) Ltd, Bangalore.


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