Bridgital Nation (Book Review)
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REVIEW ARTICLE
© Indian Institute of Science 2020.
Bridgital Nation (Book Review)
Rudra Pratap*
If there is anything common to what all discerning external visitors to India say, it is this— India has incredible potential. This potential field is sensed by everyone—scientists, researchers, educators, administrator, business leaders, sports persons, entrepreneurs, politicians—you name it. So why is it that India is not delivering to its potential? What is holding it back? Read Bridgital Nation, written by two very thoughtful minds, N. Chandrasekharan, Chairman, Tata Sons, and Roopa Purushothaman, Chief Economist, Tata Group.
J. Indian Inst. Sci. | VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2020 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
The authors identify two major problems facing the contemporary India and its march in the twenty-first century—jobs and access. Their problem identification is akin to examining a patient with multiple health issues and many symptoms, and being able to put your finger on those two key pathologies whose successful treatment can fix most, if not all, problems. They make it clear that the much touted benefits of the demographic dividend of India can turn into a nightmare if these twin problems of jobs and access are not addressed properly—jobs for millions of young Indians who are going to enter the
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Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. *[email protected]
R. Pratap
working age population every year, and access to services that can enable them to become useful contributors. As of now, these twin problems are gaping at us in every single sector you can think of—agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing, construction, services, judiciary and the rest. So how do you solve these twin problems? Bridgital Nation proposes to provide a digital technology based bridge between the dual parts of India economy—jobs and access. The authors confront these problems, taking the reader along, with plenty of well researched data, identify key points of intervention, point to the appropriate pieces of technology, be it machine learning, AI, or automation, and implore the application of thoughtful technological interventions. And they do it with very touching stories of real people throughout the book. Imagine that 77% of all working Indians work in the informal sector where productivity, wages and salaries, job satisfaction, and job security are the lowest. We are talking about 350 million workers—almost the entire population of the US! Now imagine this entire segment with higher productivity, higher wages, better job satisfaction and better job security through an increasing formalization of the sector they work in. It will be a magic for the Indian economy. So, how do you enable this? Technologies exist and are within our reach to provide better training, monitor productivity, and provide skill upgrades for upward mobility. Even more importantly, use technology to enable low pain, low cost enrolment of the micro and small informal businesses into the formal sector. This
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