ZAKARIA: But you know, outside visitors go to China, and they go to India. And they are struck by the energy with which the Chinese are both building infrastructure, the ease with which you can set up businesses. And they wish that they could see a similar process in India.
SINGH: Well, I have no hesitation in saying that I think development in India cannot be a carbon copy of what happens in China. And the Chinese system is very different.
We are a functioning democracy. And even if you want to acquire land, I think you run into serious problems, and there’s for — of operating a democracy. And democracy is slow-moving. I always believed that it may be slow-moving in the short term, but in the long run, an arrangement which has the backing of the people at large will prove to be more durable.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back with more from the Indian prime minister, right after this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: We’ll be back to our interview with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in just a moment. But first, our “What in the World?” segment.
What caught my attention was SixthSense. No, it’s not ESP, nor is it the M. Knight Shyamalan horror movie.
This SixthSense is a high-tech device — maybe the highest tech device ever — that lets you go seamlessly between the digital world and the physical world. For example, making a framing sign with your fingers, and the computer takes a picture. Take a look at the weather forecast printed hours ago on the back of a newspaper, and now you have the up-to-date weather forecast superimposed on it.
Take out a piece of paper and play a video game on it. Dial your cell phone — on your hand.
These are the ideas of this man, Pranav Mistry, one of the stars of the recent TED India.
“Who’s Ted?” you might ask.
TED is an extremely influential set of conferences held every year in the U.S. and the U.K., to talk about the future of creativity, high technology and about innovation. It’s very cutting edge.
And for the first time in the organization’s 25-year history, it has just held a major conference in India. It’s a sign that India is becoming one of the great innovation capitals of the world, with ideas moving seamlessly from West to East.
Pranav, for example, is doing his work at MIT. And he’s far from alone. A report out this week says India has more students in the U.S. than any other nation. More than 100,000 went this year alone.
The vast majority of them will go back and innovate in India.
You’re also seeing the rise of homegrown innovation in India, much of it targeted towards the poor. You might think that’s a bad business model. Why innovate for people who can’t pay for it? But when there are hundreds of millions of people, it starts to make great sense.
The world’s poor, it was said at the TED conference, are worth up to $13 trillion a year in revenue.
One concern trying to capitalize on that, Anil Gupta’s Honey Bee Network, which supports literal grassroots innovation by India’s farmers and other rural citizens. Gupta was another of the featured speakers at the TED conference, and his organization has helped to bring to market a refrigerator made of clay, which uses no electricity, but keeps things cool and fresh for days.
And there’s another interesting appliance, this one invented by a 14-year-old girl, whose chores were taking her away from her studies. So, she invented a pedal-powered washing machine.
The 21st century will belong to those who can command the high ground of ideas and innovation at all levels. The TED conference highlighted India’s richness in that currency.
The nation’s teaming masses of human capital, its ease in the English language, its existing connections into the global economy. All of these things make it well placed, despite its Third World status, to be truly a leader of innovation in this century.
And we will be right back. Anil K Gupta
