· If
you buy a bike today, it may serve you five to ten years, but the degree you
earn today will serve you about fifty years or more. I look back to 1962 when I
earned my first degree. I thought of what my life was going to be and what
choices I would make. What would be fast-growing technologies? What kind of
jobs would be available? My principal had told me not to risk getting into
newfangled topics like electronics! “Do your electrical engineering”, he said,
you will never worry about a job, there will always be Rs 150 per month in the
electricity board! If you like, you can do post-graduate study in electronics
after your B.E.! To simplify my task, he turned down my application to transfer
to a sister college where I had to go for electronics!
· What
can I tell you that would help you look ahead a little better? A lot of
scholars have tried to look ahead and written about their findings. Reading
relevant books can make your looking ahead successful. This reading if continued life-long can give
insights all your life. After all, it is not as if you can make all your
decisions for your career by Dec 31!
· I
will attempt in the time available to share a broad perspective with you. You
will now make the decisions I had to make, like going abroad or not, and if so,
when to return. I went abroad in 1971 and returned in 1973. India today is very
different than what it was when I returned in 1973. There was a rationing of
milk! I could not buy butter easily; the shop keeper would sell butter only to
those who bought a loaf of bread as well! We have now Indian milk production at
three times the per capita level we had in 1973. Life is a lot easier for the
average Indian than it was in those days, so it is even easier to return now,
but still it is not a bad idea to go abroad to get better learning
opportunities, to get a better professional background, and to enjoy combined
opportunities to learn and work for some time. But come back! You are needed
here!
· Let
me come back to the economy. As I see it, the basic challenge of life in India
is this. We get a ton of rain water per
year and solar energy equivalent to 5.5 KWh per day for every Sq. M of land,
along with several other things. We have
to use these as efficiently as we can and manage within these limits. Can’t we?
· What
about capital? We seem to have more money as market cap in the Indian capital
markets than Germany! About 2.12 Trillion $. The people may be poorer, but they
are saving 30% of the GDP every year! Some of that saving goes into industry
and creates jobs for young people. As more young people come out of school, our
population becomes a better-educated one every year.
· How
good India’s economy is going to be will depend upon how well-educated our
young people are. Statistics show that if you looked at Indians 20-24 years old
in 1970, their average length of schooling had been only 3 years. If you like
at a similar group of Indians now, you find the average schooling is 8 1/2
years. The average is going up every year. Don't sneeze at it! The average years of schooling for Japan in the year 2000 was 91/2 Countries Compared by Education > Average years of schooling of adults. International Statistics at NationMaster.com
· What
about jobs? As a student, I had learnt that India was a developing country, mainly
dependent on agriculture. India has changed since then. Agriculture gives us 15.4
% of our GDP. Oil & Petroleum industries give it 15%. Manufacturing gives
it 16%. Auto industry gives it 7.5%. Information Technology gives it 7.7%. Banking
& Finance sectors give 7.7%.
· You
may wonder why you need to hear about the economy and about different sectors. Many
companies, particularly in the IT sector, expect employees to have domain
knowledge in one or more sectors of the economy. Every one of these sectors
hires engineers. Even Banking & Financial sectors also hire their own share
of engineers. Enterprising engineers who start a business also have
opportunities to work in any of these sectors.
· There
is another reason to be aware of economic issues. Look at how fortune turns.
When I passed out of college, one of the high technology fields I admired was
nuclear energy. Now, look at the economics of nuclear power plants. Each plant
location needs an exclusion zone, 3 km in diameter around it, to limit the risk
of any adverse incident. What is the cost of such a piece of land? Who wants to
live near it? How much nuclear power will you generate there? A few gigawatts?
How much solar energy can you generate from the same piece of land? At what
cost? Do we need nine sq. km in one piece for solar energy?
· There
are huge forces at play reshaping the world. We need to be aware. I don’t think
it would hurt a young engineer to take a map of a coastal city, say Mumbai,
Goa, Ratnagiri, Kolkata or Chennai, and draw contour lines showing low-level areas.
Which of these areas would lose commercial value due to climate change in your
lifetime?
· On
October 5, 1973, my wife and I returned after two years stay in the USA. Ours
was a TWA flight from Pittsburgh to Mumbai via Jerusalem. We landed in Mumbai
and learnt that a war had broken out in the middle east. The price of petrol
went up five times in the aftermath of that war. Can you imagine what changes
an event like that can bring in the careers of young engineers?
· One
of the things it did was to encourage researchers to develop more efficient
batteries. Three of them developed the lithium-ion battery which has brought us
closer to the electric car. They won a Nobel prize in 2019.
· Their
science is working for the world already. Our cell phones would not be what
they are without these batteries. There are even one-lakh rupee electric bikes
available in India now. What do you think would happen to electric cars in
India in your lifetime?
· Look
at the LED revolution. Their usage in India has gone up more than ten times
during 2012-2018.
· Consider
what is happening to some cities in the north due to air pollution. The cost of
disposing of stubble left over after the harvest poses a major problem and
endangers peoples’ lives. Who can save them? Obviously, engineers can and
should do that.
· Also
consider what app-controlled cabs have done: created over a million part-time
jobs for drivers and have even reduced the demand for car purchases.
· So, air
pollution is not the only problem that engineers can handle. Traffic problems,
water supply problems, employment problems, affordable housing problems, a
whole lot of these are our problems. We design and implement the solutions. It
would be necessary in future for engineers to be involved in dealing with
problems from the policy level downwards. I am glad that two of your alumni are
already senior ministers!
· Let
me conclude by saying you are going to have your hands full. There are lot of
problems to tackle. There are lots of opportunities. You can bet that the India
of the 21st century would be a great place to live and contribute. I
offer my best wishes to you.
end
