Links maketh the image

NEWS MAKER: Sam Pitroda

Some people collect images of Ganesha, some collect watches and others pens. Satyanarayan Gangaram (Sam) Pitroda collects business cards "" he has more than 20,000, and they reflect his network of influence across the world. Networking and communication, you could say, go hand-in-hand for the chairman of the Knowledge Commission (KC) who voiced his views on reservations and excellence quite bluntly last week.

Pitroda was first invited to India by Indira Gandhi (not Rajiv Gandhi) to set up the Centre for the Development of Telematics (C-DoT). When Rajiv Gandhi came to power in 1984, Pitroda was appointed secretary of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), and later appointed as chairman of the newly constituted Telecom Commission. Six Technology Missions were set up in such fields as oilseeds and pulses under his charge. But he was dogged by niggling doubts that the image was bigger than the man.

The then telecom minister K P Unnikrishnan's public differences with Pitroda led to the technocrat's messy exit from the corridors of power in 1989, amid wrangling over autonomy issues.

Pitroda returned to Chicago and was lately engaged in two moderately successful businesses: making electronic circuit boards and software. When elections were declared, a small committee was formed to assist Rahul Gandhi and he became a member.

When the UPA government came to power, he was chosen to head the KC, a body with a mandate that is expansive and unspecific. The central issue before it appears to be to give meaning and definition to higher education in India. But no one is sure exactly what it is supposed to do. Judging by the number of workshops the KC has held on different aspects of e-governance, it considers this crucial to education capacity expansion. But e-governance and telecom are no longer daunting challenges. And does India need capacity expansion, ask critics, when quality is the issue?

Managing the knowledge economy is going to be crucial in the years to come. How should India ensure it doesn't sell itself cheap? How to price intellectual property? How can a specific service "" say, animation "" contribute to the global market more effectively?

As the KC's report is due but hasn't been submitted yet, there is no way of knowing what it has addressed. But reservations is a sensitive issue. The Prime Minister's "silence" on the suggestion that quotas could dilute merit has raised hackles about the activities of the KC. It was Congress politicians who scuttled some of the early reforms attempted by Rajiv Gandhi. Under provocation, the same set of people could pick the KC as their new target.