Innovate, become entrepreneurs: Swamy tells IITians

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has exhorted students of IITs to innovate, become entrepreneurs but never settle for a job which is how they can contribute to the nation's economy and make India a true global, economic and political power.
"Students take engineering degrees from different streams and later pursue business courses in IIMs or some might settle down for a job. Now, to resolve India's situation, we need to understand that to become a global economic power, there are two possible ways.
"One is to follow steady growth by increasing capital and labour which is always associated with diminishing returns and less growth. But if one wants to jump growth curves, then the only way known in economics is through Innovation" - new ways of doing things", said Swamy while delivering the keynote address at Techniche at IIT Guwahati yesterday.

"For example, locomotive and steel furnaces were invented due to high investment in science and technology by the British which led to an Industrial Revolution. The same imitation by France, Germany, etc. Also made them developed.
"The Americans had new methods of production, they integrated the system of production where raw materials come from one door and the final products leave another door," said the former professor of IIT Delhi.
A press release issued by IIT-G Techniche, the annual techno management festival of students, quoted Swamy: "All this was done because they had labour shortage. They went in further and brought developments in electricity, electric bulbs, tele-printer systems, jet engines, fax machines and finally internet which have transformed everything in business interactions and transaction".

He said, "our goal since the last few years has been on how to convert India into a global economic and political power. India was once the leading country in terms of global power. We invented a lot of concepts in mathematics including the zero, decimal point, few concepts in calculus, etc. Then we faced a decline from the year 1200 right till the British rule and a further sharp decline during the rule.

"After 1947, India was completely focused on developing this situation but we made many mistakes also. The Soviet Economic Model might have been inappropriate for India since agriculture sector was greatly affected by the Zamindar System during the British Rule.

"There is definitely an improvement after the dismantling of the model in 1990 and in the next 10 years we might get ahead of China and probably in another 25 years we can compete with the US in world affairs," he said.
He added that this is where the IITs have become important since the brightest students come here.
"So we need to motivate IIT students to go for innovation. So, we need students to take risk, become entrepreneurs, bring in revolution, not settle down for a job and thereby giving one's contribution to the nation's economy", said Swami who previously served as Associate Professor in Harvard University," he said.