Sridhar Vembu is the co-founder and CEO of Zoho Corp. | Facebook
The Indian Government under PM Modi has had ‘Aatmanirbarta’ or Self-Reliance as the cornerstone of the central policy over the past few years.
‘Invent Every Piece Of Tech’
This protectionist policy or philosophy is largely in line with larger, growing protectionism that has emerged in many major economies throughout the world.
In many of these cases, national security has been at the centre of policymaking globally. Underscoring just this aspect, Zoho founder and major opinion leader on X, Sridhar Vembu, underscored the relevance of self-reliance in strategically important sectors.
In his post on X, Vembu said, “India has to invent jets and drones and … For our size of the population, for India to have its place in the world, we have to invent pretty much every important piece of technology, crucial to national security and economic strength and I repeat myself – because national security is economic strength today.”
R&D In Focus
This comes in the context of India’s dependence on foreign agents for development in the defence sector, with advance tech and far power being outsourced.
Research and Development or R&D is a crucial aspect of technological evolution in this day and age, and this a point, that Vembu once again emphasised on.
According to him, the path to achieving that technological self-reliance is hard. It requires sacrifice—and most of that from our private sector. It is the private sector that has to step up and invest in long-range industrial R&D. |
According to him, the path to achieving that technological self-reliance is hard. It requires sacrifice – and most of that from our private sector. It is the private sector that has to step up and invest in long range industrial R&D.
It is a patriotic mission, not just a pragmatic calculus of profit and current profit has to fund massive R&D.
He concluded his post X by saying, “The mindset of the scientist and the R&D engineer is to be curious, always learning, and at the core, frugal in terms of resources. That is the mindset the private sector has to have.”
Previously Vembu had also advocated against a gruelling 70-90 hour workweek regime, pushing for a more traditional approach to life to sustain the population.
