Information beyond IT

How valuable is Information?

Information is power. The IT industry for example is one of the prime reasons why India can claim to be a fast growing global economic power. Yet the lack of proper dissemination of this information can lead to great loss and waste of resources. Take the town of Pondicherry, where I grew up as a kid. Many of my friends there are persevering and successful students. Yet they will not leave their town because of their prejudiced ideas of what lies outside. This inhibition is a barrier to their progress. Looking around I realize how ubiquitous this problem really is.

A large number of students choose to become engineers and doctors. Partly thanks to the IT success there seems to be no shortage of people willing to choose the former career. India does however have a shortage of nearly ten million workers in teaching, medical and allied fields. We have a shortage of trained and experienced faculty to teach the budding engineers. We have a shortage of nurses to protect us from the rising health risks. We have a shortage of scientists, researchers to further development. We have few capable administrators to run this country. The opportunities available in these fields do not make it through to the masses drowned in the race to become engineers and the lucrative offers of the IT industry.
If even a small percentage of these bright people could choose careers beyond the precedent fields then they would register a phenomenal change on the country.

Getting this to happen will not be easy in a nation as massive as India. The government alone cannot take all the necessary steps. Firstly the concept of choice should be made clear to the people. That is, one need not choose between merely two professions to succeed in life. There are whole arrays of careers just waiting to be explored. As people we need to cast off the suspicions and nervousness that envelopes career choice. We need to widen our minds and guess how we do that? By getting and spreading more information! And so the cycle continues.

I strongly believe that as long as humanity remains a dynamic species there will be no break from this cycle. In the second world the absence of this cycle in certain areas is a sign of stagnation or hangover from the third world experiences. I strongly believe in the intellectual vitality of the people of India. As the scars of past sufferings slowly heal away we will build a new society with broader mindsets and ensure better information is available to the people. That is how we will grow.