India's first computer and history of computing in India

Indian engineers had designed and built a vacuum tube based computer in the 1950's, when very little of computing knowledge was available publicly.

TIFRAC India's first computer a retrospective
Computing: 50 years on

Do read these articles from Indian computer scientists. The story of the first computer is inspiring. The second article describes the evolution of computing in India, reflects how India struggles with computer science research and development 50 years later.

Our political parties try to take credit and win elections, by claiming their prince charming, brought computers to India.  We should do our homework well to understand and appreciate the efforts of these great engineers who toiled to develop computing in India.  If we see half Indian name of a scientist in the US, we get excited and try to trace his/her lineage to India and start claiming how India runs everything in the world. While we glorify Indian-origin scientists in the west, we forget those who really worked for us.

Most of the glorified IT industry works for providing services and people for people in the developed countries to offload their laborious and unrewarding work. Last 20 years have seen the launch of many innovative products in the software industry. Not one has has come from an Indian IT giant.  Its time to think beyond outsourcing.

With Anna led  agitation against corruption sweeping across the country, people have started thinking and questioning the conventional wisdom of the leaders who try to concentrate all powers in their hands. The campaign is focused against political corruption, but the effects will trickle to other areas as well. I am very hopeful that new India will support innovation and research and which in turn will bring in development and prosperity.

 

Happy Independence Day

The people of India are looking forward to this independence day with great optimism, as they are about to witness a change in the system, thanks to the agitation by led by Anna Hazare against the corrupt political class.

I am sure most people in India will be eager to listen to Anna's address rather than the PM's this independence day. It does not matter whether you listen to PM's speech delivered today or the one five years back. They are always the same. They can very well be substituted with a tape recorder.  

The most constructive element of our system has not been the legislature, judiciary or executive, it has been people like Anna. Anna has shown how villages can be transformed, how a "welfare state" can work. He has been instrumental in pushing the RTI act - due to which we are seeing many cases of corruption being exposed. Now, through Jan Lokpal Bill he is trying to make corruption a punishable offense and establish mechanisms to achieve the same. The people see a definite plan in his actions. He has been a person who has delivered in bringing about the change.

It is only the so-called intellectuals, who keep on pointing to scriptures and law books or useless statistics; for they have lost the ability to think by themselves. They obstruct justice by pointing to laws. The laws were made by humans like us, they are not divine. They need to be corrected as per the needs of the society.  Laking courage, these intellectuals submitted themselves to the whims and fancies of the pseudo-democratic dynastic regimes, and the anarchy that came along with it. By spreading skepticism or discouraging obstructing the ones who are trying to do something constructive, they have made the situation worse.  

However, unlike the intellectuals, the common man, I think, is able to see the larger picture and that is why there is huge support for Anna and great optimism that it will lead us on the right path !

Jai Hind !!