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Does IT really matter?

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

India it seems, is on an IT frenzy. Open any news-paper,

and it is the Internet and the software industry that dominates the

pages. Switch on the TV and it’s again the same story. Everyone is

painting a rosy picture of how we’re fast emerging as a superpower

of the technology age. But wait a minute. Is it just dollar earnings

and crazy market capitalization for startup ventures that define a

superpower? Obviously, there are other things too, like the hydrogen

bomb, supercomputers, rockets, and the Arctic expeditions we

successfully mount every year.



Sure. We have the

technology to make the hydrogen bomb. But we seem to lack the sense

to ensure that our brave soldiers don’t get caught unawares in the

hostile climes of the Himalayas. We have the technology to predict

the weather and rainfall. But we seem to lack the sense to ensure

that those hit by drought get water and those hit by floods get

succor fast. We have the technology to make supercomputers. And we

make them cheaper than the rest of the world. But we seem to lack

the sense to ensure that basic education is available to our

children, the very ones who’ll enjoy the fruits and the

responsibilities of our superpowerdom. We have the technology to

build rockets and to place powerful satellites in geosynchronous

orbit. But we seem to lack the sense to ensure that our telephone

lines–the most basic of all communication systems–don’t break down

for days on end.



The philosophical could

shrug all this off and loftily claim that India is a land of

contrasts. But that’s missing the point.



I know that counted amongst

the readers of PC Quest are some key decision makers in this

country, be it in industry, the government, the armed forces, or the

academia. It is to them that I have this question. When we have the

ability (read technology, if you want to), why is it that we falter

in delivering some of the most basic of requirements? Is it what in

the north is called the "Chalta Hai" attitude? Is it that we

just don’t care about these wider issues in our rush to earn more

and more greenbacks? Or is it that we care only about ourselves, and

let the devil take the hindmost?



No, I’m not starting off a

debate on this. I’m definitely not asking you to have another

TV-style debate and then have everyone forget all about it. My

agenda is simple. Every day, you gentle reader, are called upon to

make decisions that would affect many others. The technology is

there to aid you make those decisions. But unfortunately, it can’t

make the right decisions for you. It is you who have to make the

decisions that can save our soldiers, and help our drought hit and

our flood affected, and our children, and all the rest of

us.



If only all of us made

those decisions right, when they need to be made, India would be a

superpower, and a far better place to live in, even without all

those software dollars.

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