Use and Usability of Research

I was at Hyderabad for New Year's eve. I was pulled by my friend this morning to visit a temple, which was some distance from my home. We were travelling by bike. I had traveled by the same road couple of nights earlier. Its a high way and was in a pathetic condition.To my surprise, the road was freshly relaid. I was happy for a while. But one could see the Asphalt wearing off. One heavy lash of rain, the road will be in a sorry state. It made me curious. I currently live in Bangalore and roads aren't great in Bangalore as well.  When I was a student, my college once organised a seminar on the amount of research and quality of research papers in India. Most of them were mentioning and comparing the work at par with colleges of international repute. (Hmmm!!)

Now, one can argue for hours that it is true. My intention is not to contest against it either. But I  was always asked to read / prepare for the class from foreign journals very rarely Indian. I wonder what happens to all the research that happens? I know a couple full time profs who publish, rubbish (oh absolute crap) because they have to have SOME publication with in a time frame. Do we and can we apply our own such research in India? We compare ourselves with China all the time. Fact is we are inferior to China.This is what our PM Dr.Singh had to say in 2012(An article by Nitin Sethi, in Times of India, China ahead of India in scientific research, Says PM Manmohan Singh). The situation remains as-is. I don't think so, it would have changed in an year and will change in next 10 -12 years.

In times where Social media has become the oxygen for a body called, economy. I hardly see any IIM / IIT Profs tweeting or any Indian institutes completely utilising social media tools. May be they could learn a thing or two from HBR. Why can't local governments be helped by educational institutions? After all some colleges receive huge funding. It's tax payers money. Quality of life in India can be bettered a lot if the research could be channelised properly. Any company before approaching a college for any consulting / research work should look at college's, 'local impact' i.e what could a college / educational institution do in order to improve local living conditions? How useful is the research being done locally useful? How well is the institute able to market itself? (Everyone wants to go viral these days) I believe if one can understand local needs successfully he will be in a position to estimate global needs with fair amount of accuracy.

I only hope we utilise our resources and research properly to better develop our communities. If it needs funds, government should be willing to spend and prevent brain drain. If the best of brains are forced to leave the country, it is nothing but, 'Succession Slaughter'.  Prevent it!