Here’s what we did, Mr Murthy

Bengaluru: This is no Gandhigiri of sorts, but Bharat Ratna Prof. C.N.R. Rao has offered to work for free if IT mogul N.R. Narayana Murthy and others of his ilk mop up a couple of billion dollars to help set up a university like Stanford even as he lamented about poor support from the industry to foster innovation in the country.

Prof. Rao’s offer is part of a strongly-worded reply to the jibe by Chairman Emeritus of Infosys Technologies Ltd about dearth of Indian scientific innovations, in the last 60 years, worth global acceptance.

In his convocation lecture at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, recently, Mr Murthy listed ten major inventions from the portals of MIT, adding “On the other hand, let us pause and ask what the contributions of Indian institutions of higher learning particularly IISc and IITs, have been over the last 60-plus years to make our society and the world a better place.

Is there one technology that has transformed the productivity of global corporations? Is there one idea that has led to an earth-shaking invention to delight global citizens?

Folks, the reality is that there is no such contribution from India in the last 60 years. The only two ideas that have transformed the productivity of global corporations — The Global Delivery Model and The 24-hour workday —  came from a company called Infosys.”  In an article titled “Let us not damn it all” in Current Science, Prof Rao has listed some notable research contributions by IISc, and how this institute and IITs have produced leaders.