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Coming of the great north-south divide
By Arun Kumar Jain Feb 23 2015
Tags: Opinion
Some significant events this week circumscribe the existing leadership mindsets and portend the coming future: the big fat wedding-tilak ceremony at Mulayam Singh’s village township Saifai in Uttar Pradesh where it is said more than 1.3 lakh invitees feasted; the Aero India 2015 show at Bangalore, supposedly visited by more than 1.3 lakh people; the assumption of power by Kejriwal in Delhi and Nitish Kumar in Bihar in their own ways but certainly not on promise of high-quality jobs and wealth; finally, the high-pitch selling of Andhra Pradesh by its chief minister Chandrababu Naidu inviting high-technology defence and other manufacturing companies to invest in Andhra Pradesh before and during the Aero Show. The first two events were graced by PM Narendra Modi, whose articulation of ‘make in India’ has now metamorphosed into a tetrahedron mega-dream on everyone’s lips. In Bangalore, the PM championed the cause of reducing our dependence on defence imports from the present 70 per cent to 40 per cent, thereby creating two lakh indigenous additional jobs.
The Aero Show largely bypassed north India like a five-day comet streaking through the southern skies. Without witnessing the show, it would be hard to understand what is happening in India in the hi-technology realms of defence and aerospace. On display were futuristic production technologies such as 3D printing, embedded software, gestures-based computer controls, real-time fighter aircraft and guided missile simulators, mission computers, anti-gravity pilot suits, precision radar equipment, 360-degrees vision-display systems, and what not! Helicopters, in tandem, flew in reverse, trainer aircrafts dived like falcons on prey and fighter aircrafts went through somersaults and vertical climbs at super-Mach (faster than sound) speeds, and three women standing atop flying planes did hair-raising stunts.
One of the stalls displayed several complex components designed by small boutiques in India (for large aircraft companies) and manufacturing by small-scale industries on 3D printers at Bangalore. Aero India was a remarkable display of human ingenuity merged with a knowledge-based digital world and a state-of-the-art manufacturing economy.
Southern (and western) parts of India have been able to develop an ecosystem for ‘digital manufacturing’, consisting of various IT software and services combined with hardware and equipment production technologies. Within this subset, ‘digital aerospace and defence manufacturing’ requires the presence of domain-specific companies that are into designing dynamic systems, software writers for complex knowledge information systems and customised ERP management and implementation firms.
Bangalore is already blessed with the presence of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, BEML, and big MNCs including General Electric, IBM, and HP. They have their own satellite townships and ancillaries (GE has its only aircraft engine design and research centre outside US in Banagalore). South India already has several talent-generating and training institutions crucial for continuous skilling of manpower and sustaining innovation. HAL is sponsoring the establishment of an aeronautics university in Bangalore. In short, south India is readily poised to move way ahead and leverage its potential to generate lakhs of jobs and billions of rupees in non-polluting, knowledge-driven wealth in an altogether new combination of industries!
The wedding-tilak ceremony at Saifai highlights the irony — total lack of wealth-production agenda in most northern states in India. Most states are completely oblivious to the new several-billion dollars and million-jobs opportunities coming India’s way. Not only is there a vacuum with respect to political, intellectual and industry leadership, the states also lack the necessary technological and manufacturing base and institutions to support knowledge-based initiatives. At one point of time, Punjab was a leader in low-cost engineering and capital goods manufacturing, but it has remained confined as a low-technology casting and forging centre.
In comparison, leaders like Chandrababu Naidu have attempted to grab a big piece of the coming pie which is still at the baking stage in the oven. He has chipped in with his strong vision and action plans for creation of world-class manufacturing hubs, newly crafted industrial townships, and top ports in the world. He has already announced a manufacturing policy with fiscal and monetary incentives for the defence R&D and production companies.
The north-south divide in India in five years’ time would be huge and painful. The income disparities and job opportunities for knowledge workers would result in major migration to southern states from north.
Human progress cannot be stopped — one can only participate in it or see it pass by. In a capitalist society, technologies proliferate in their own ways, but states’ leadership must ensure punctuated equilibrium in development and growth or be prepared for massive inequality in incomes and quality of life. Unbridled imagination, willpower, and a selfless sincerity of purpose are primary requisites for nurturing wealth-creating institutions — it doesn’t matter whether they produce for ‘within India’ or for ‘outside India’. Northern Indian states would do well to remind themselves of the Bard’s wisdom, ‘The fault lies not in our Stars... but in ourselves.’
(The writer is a professor of strategy and corporate
governance, IIM-Lucknow)
By Arun Kumar Jain Feb 23 2015
Tags: Opinion
Some significant events this week circumscribe the existing leadership mindsets and portend the coming future: the big fat wedding-tilak ceremony at Mulayam Singh’s village township Saifai in Uttar Pradesh where it is said more than 1.3 lakh invitees feasted; the Aero India 2015 show at Bangalore, supposedly visited by more than 1.3 lakh people; the assumption of power by Kejriwal in Delhi and Nitish Kumar in Bihar in their own ways but certainly not on promise of high-quality jobs and wealth; finally, the high-pitch selling of Andhra Pradesh by its chief minister Chandrababu Naidu inviting high-technology defence and other manufacturing companies to invest in Andhra Pradesh before and during the Aero Show. The first two events were graced by PM Narendra Modi, whose articulation of ‘make in India’ has now metamorphosed into a tetrahedron mega-dream on everyone’s lips. In Bangalore, the PM championed the cause of reducing our dependence on defence imports from the present 70 per cent to 40 per cent, thereby creating two lakh indigenous additional jobs.
The Aero Show largely bypassed north India like a five-day comet streaking through the southern skies. Without witnessing the show, it would be hard to understand what is happening in India in the hi-technology realms of defence and aerospace. On display were futuristic production technologies such as 3D printing, embedded software, gestures-based computer controls, real-time fighter aircraft and guided missile simulators, mission computers, anti-gravity pilot suits, precision radar equipment, 360-degrees vision-display systems, and what not! Helicopters, in tandem, flew in reverse, trainer aircrafts dived like falcons on prey and fighter aircrafts went through somersaults and vertical climbs at super-Mach (faster than sound) speeds, and three women standing atop flying planes did hair-raising stunts.
One of the stalls displayed several complex components designed by small boutiques in India (for large aircraft companies) and manufacturing by small-scale industries on 3D printers at Bangalore. Aero India was a remarkable display of human ingenuity merged with a knowledge-based digital world and a state-of-the-art manufacturing economy.
Southern (and western) parts of India have been able to develop an ecosystem for ‘digital manufacturing’, consisting of various IT software and services combined with hardware and equipment production technologies. Within this subset, ‘digital aerospace and defence manufacturing’ requires the presence of domain-specific companies that are into designing dynamic systems, software writers for complex knowledge information systems and customised ERP management and implementation firms.
Bangalore is already blessed with the presence of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, BEML, and big MNCs including General Electric, IBM, and HP. They have their own satellite townships and ancillaries (GE has its only aircraft engine design and research centre outside US in Banagalore). South India already has several talent-generating and training institutions crucial for continuous skilling of manpower and sustaining innovation. HAL is sponsoring the establishment of an aeronautics university in Bangalore. In short, south India is readily poised to move way ahead and leverage its potential to generate lakhs of jobs and billions of rupees in non-polluting, knowledge-driven wealth in an altogether new combination of industries!
The wedding-tilak ceremony at Saifai highlights the irony — total lack of wealth-production agenda in most northern states in India. Most states are completely oblivious to the new several-billion dollars and million-jobs opportunities coming India’s way. Not only is there a vacuum with respect to political, intellectual and industry leadership, the states also lack the necessary technological and manufacturing base and institutions to support knowledge-based initiatives. At one point of time, Punjab was a leader in low-cost engineering and capital goods manufacturing, but it has remained confined as a low-technology casting and forging centre.
In comparison, leaders like Chandrababu Naidu have attempted to grab a big piece of the coming pie which is still at the baking stage in the oven. He has chipped in with his strong vision and action plans for creation of world-class manufacturing hubs, newly crafted industrial townships, and top ports in the world. He has already announced a manufacturing policy with fiscal and monetary incentives for the defence R&D and production companies.
The north-south divide in India in five years’ time would be huge and painful. The income disparities and job opportunities for knowledge workers would result in major migration to southern states from north.
Human progress cannot be stopped — one can only participate in it or see it pass by. In a capitalist society, technologies proliferate in their own ways, but states’ leadership must ensure punctuated equilibrium in development and growth or be prepared for massive inequality in incomes and quality of life. Unbridled imagination, willpower, and a selfless sincerity of purpose are primary requisites for nurturing wealth-creating institutions — it doesn’t matter whether they produce for ‘within India’ or for ‘outside India’. Northern Indian states would do well to remind themselves of the Bard’s wisdom, ‘The fault lies not in our Stars... but in ourselves.’
(The writer is a professor of strategy and corporate
governance, IIM-Lucknow)
. I never hear any good news from that place. 
