April 3rd
this is a symptom of poor planning and denial. the pentagon wishes to deny the possibility that the us' technological lead is going to evaporate. so, using the law of unintended consequences, they are doing their darndest to make it happen. this happened, for instance at bell labs. when they allowed creativity, bell labs researchers came up with the transistor, the laser, the ccd, unix. when they were forced to do 'targeted research' with a short time window, they came up with... nothing. and AT&T as well as lucent are both in big trouble now.
i am disappointed the us is doing this, because in the medium to long run, this will mean the decline of its great research universities like stanford, berkeley, mit, harvard, michigan, texas. the darpa has for a long time been their godfather.
incidentally, things are not looking good in india either. the government labs, which for better or worse, have been doing the hard work of building the technologies denied to india, are now suffering as their staff are being lured away by far more aggressive corporate labs like GE's or intel's (who pay real money).
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pentagon redirects its research dollars
SAN FRANCISCO, April 1 - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon - which has long underwritten open-ended "blue sky" research by the nation's best computer scientists - is sharply cutting such spending at universities, researchers say, in favor of financing more classified work and narrowly defined projects that promise a more immediate payoff...
4 comments:
This attempt by Pentagon is obviously self-defeating.
But as we say back home "Vinaash Kale, Vipirit Buddhi". (The mind fails to work at the thought of failure)
One of my friends in England during a course of conversation with his English collegue shot-back a brilliant reply when the Englishman alluded to the fear of Indians taking over all technical jobs in Europe.
He said, "You guys ruled us for more than a century & forced us to learn English. Now pay for it" :))
The Industry-University tie up for R&D in india should be strengthened. Thats a sure way to win-win situation for both the industry and the colleges.
Nothing to do with above topic. But could not find a place to put my comments in.
I know Rajeev is interested in China from his articles on rediff, so I just wondered what he thinks about this editorial in "Beijing Review"
China and India as Schoolmates
By LII HAIBO
It is now the trend du jour for global media and observers to pass judgment on China and India, or to make a comparison between the two developing giants, as their economic performances are becoming an eye-catching drama on the world stage. While many like to label the two Asian nations as competitors, we feel it might be proper and interesting to describe them as schoolmates that are now studying in a colossal institute called “Modernization University.”
Unlike general colleges and universities as seen everywhere, this school of modernization is invisible and there is no professor or instructor for the students named China and India. As self-taught students, they have to take extraordinary pains to work at their dissertations, which focus on the specific approaches to the prosperity and modernization destination, based on the respective circumstances of China and India.
The two students, China and India, share many similarities in history and are now facing similar difficulties and problems that stand in the way to their promising future. It seems, however, they did not quite communicate with each other in the past decades. They might be generally active and social in some fields, but they appeared a bit estranged from each other. In some cases, they looked like strangers, instead of neighbors, or schoolmates.
Fortunately, things have greatly changed in the last few years. Thanks to the fact that the student China finally realized that there are other excellent students in the class, whose performances and experiences are no less significant than its own. By realizing that India actually is an outstanding classmate next door and should act as a teacher, China has made a perceptional leap, which has resulted in a wave of learning from India.
Credit should be given to the Chinese media, who have helped the Chinese people understand a real and living India, a land full of energy, hope, gumption and success. Now, covering and introducing India has become routine work for Chinese journalists. Never before in history have Chinese citizens had so much access to information about India. The more the Chinese learn about India, the more they feel it a must to study and share India’s experiences and lessons.
The list of the fields, in which India has done a better job than China, is long-from software development to IT research, from the use of foreign funds to the banking system, from outsourcing work to service undertaking. In terms of openness, India has been naturally globalized in one way or another for thousands of years, whereas China had closed its door to the outside world a few times in its history. Though an open country now, China still needs to learn from India on globalization, especially on the matter of how to deal with the West.
Out of what accounts for India’s success, education is a key factor. Indian culture’s strong emphasis on education has created a huge pool of potential professionals and skillful workers, not just software technicians, but doctors, engineers and other experts as well. Here, what India has done might serve as the grist to China’s mill.
With the venerable history of their civilizations, China and India are obviously qualified to hold a teaching position in the world community. But we prefer them to be students. They, after all, have more to learn than to teach in the present era. And it is our belief that a nation that is willing to be a student is likely to enjoy a thousand prospects.
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