JOIN USAdvisor to the prime minister on public information, infrastructure and innovation, Sam Pitroda, on Saturday said he does not subscribe to BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s idea of development.
He expressed confidence that the Congress-led UPA government would win the coming polls and come back to power.
“I personally have good equations with Modi, but I don’t subscribe to his idea of development. My idea of development is different,” he said, participating in an interaction with the media.
He batted for the UPA government, saying: “A lot of good work has happened in the last 10 years. The country has achieved eight per cent growth consistently over the years, except for the current year. But everybody talks as if nothing has happened. Everybody is thinking negative. Everybody is depressed. In the process we are making things slowdown. I think we need to take a broader view of accomplishment. I think we didn’t do good job of communicating to people.”
Stating that nation-building takes time, Pitroda said a national knowledge network has been built. About 20,000 colleges have been connected. But nobody talks about it. On allegations of corruption on the UPA government, he said: “Businessmen, doctors and teachers, everybody has become corrupt. Only that the degree varies. We cannot say stop everything. I think we need to be realistic and learn to work with the system and slowly work towards preventing it,” he stated.
‘Varsities need young VC’
Pitroda said: “Most of our vice chancellors are 60 to 70-year old, but their customers (students) are about 17-year old. People who take decisions on young people of 16 years are above 60 years. Older people are messing up things in the country.”
Universities need vice chancellors who are aged between 35 and 40. But there is huge resistance to change. So much so that employees in the department of Information Technology refuse to use computers. They still do their job manually, he added.
“Internet has changed everything in the last 20 years. We can provide a new model of development to the world using technology and young talent,” he said. He regretted that nobody talks about the latest report of the Knowledge Commission submitted to the Union government.
“Even most of the vice chancellors and professors have not read the report. But they all have an advice to give. In this country, people seem to know how to do prime minister's job, but not thier job,” he said.
Biotechnology will be next big thing. “Whether it is medicine or energy or any other field, biotechnology is the future. In another 30 to 40 years, we will have factories making all body parts. If you have money, you will not be allowed to die,” he said.
He said though the first phase of telecommunication revolution is over, no steps are being taken to prepare for the second phase which is more challenging. Everybody seems to be worried about bandwidth and there are too many operators. The way forward actually is broadband, consolidation and application, he added.