Software sector has been the prime engine of growth in our country. There is no denying the fact that this sector gave the much needed impetus to see India shinning in truest sense possible and showcased its talent to rest of the world. With Aryabhata contributing ‘0’ to the world, we are marching to rank ‘1’ in world when it comes to talent, clearly a toggle between the two numerical as highlighted in binary form in Indian software industry. Indeed a matter of pride!!!
We are living in turbulent times which have made it impossible for us to proclaim that our economy is a decoupled economy from rest of the world. Indeed, Globalization and financial integration has linked us to the outer world, and hence allowed both direct and indirect tremors to rein in our territory. The decisions of the most cherished leader in today’s time are be-fittingly misplaced especially when it comes to safeguarding the interests of his nationals, the Americans. The decision to prune the extent of outsourcing to other countries like India (implicit) may sound ambitious today but is highly impractical in long run. The revival of any economy is recessionary times lies in public investment and by creating avenues to increase demand, consumption and production. If the companies in US cannot afford to pay high pay packages to local technocrats why would it not want to outsource the project to offshore entities at highly cheaper rates? Today, the growth is so inter-related and inclusive that factors like outsourcing just can’t be ignored. It acts not only as a revenue earner for firms but also helps in job creation for local masses. Growth of Indian companies like TCS, Infosys, and HCL has resulted in providing employment opportunities not just in India but abroad by setting up centers in Mexico, Brazil etc. Hence, a bilateral growth for both the home and host countries.
However, there are few measures that need to be adopted by India’s corporate sector during the times of crises. Since India has a strong pool of talent in form of software engineers, hardware engineers, techno-brats like hackers, and researchers, what needs to be done is to truly decouple the economy from turbulence in rest of the world, at least in one particular domain determining the growth. There are a few intrepreneurial characteristics we need to mobilize within ourselves not just to alienate self from global impacts, but to provide the much needed public investments in recessionary phase. This could come in form of an autonomous research organization/entity that could be set up by employing the best talent mix from such a strong intellectual industry which will get the necessary government grant for conducting research in coherence with existing institutions for providing domestic solutions for our country. Yes, calling I.T companies to provide solutions for country in as much importance as they do to others. The conceptualized research entity would provide solutions like connecting all the hospitals in country through online networking making it readily available even to the people living in most isolated areas. This may not cater to the needs of internet illiterate masses, but would certainly address the need of public investment in short run and improvement in health index in long run. Another solution the entity could offer would include designing state level centralized web-portals for meeting the regular needs of households like securing a gas connection, refilling of gas cylinders etc. This would help in making it highly convenient for a net savvy population in both short and long run and also address the issues like fuel thefts and usage of household cylinders for business purposes. Another solution the research organization would offer would be to provide education through networking in rural areas, semi-urban areas etc. The after effects of all these solutions will have a multiplier effect on the economy and pave the way for industrial development especially in manufacturing and infrastructure sector. This would truly make India the I.T hub of the world and an emerging market with no string attached.
