High-end technology to make India a knowledge hub: Nasscom

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 10 September 2002, 19:30 IST
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The Indian software industry should leapfrog into high-end areas like consulting, design and gene modeling from just an "IT services nation", Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: "It's high time India moved up from customs application development and other areas like design and from data base to gene modeling, which would help the country in becoming a knowledge hub", Karnik said at a seminar on knowledge and innovation. The two challenges that India is facing today are the lack of knowledge management and absence of support structure like incubation and infrastructure. "Absence of these two factors are resulting in limited demand for innovation which is key to fight competition", Karnik said adding that unless competition set in the minds of the people, the urge to excel would be absent. It is competition that pushed the Indian software industry into action, he said. "High amount of tariffs protected the hardware industry and in the process it failed to react up to competition with virtually no innovation", he was quoted as saying by the agencies. Bibek Debroy, director, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, said competition alone could bring the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian industry whereby its not just software, every other sector could contribute to making India a knowledge hub. "Today the biggest challenge is reaping the fruits of IT revolution. IT revolution still need to percolate to the lowest starta of the society which comprise 80 per cent of the population", Debroy said. "There are two ways to reach some stage of becoming a knowledge hub, creation of jobs and eradication of illiteracy, and at both these spheres, it is the private sector which should take the initiative", he was quoted as saying by a news agency.