At the recent convocation of IIT-Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said,“The youth should question things that are accepted without a thought.” Few things are as important as this for the future of our country. It is the young who will take the country forward in the years to come, and it is their intellectual capability which will be a prime determinant in our competitive standing amongst other countries. Prosperity, sustainability, and people’s overall well-being — even the country’s military and soft power — will depend on our cognitive capital.
New technologies and their rapid diffusion — among nations as well as within each country — have led to lower asymmetries. The first industrial revolution gave the leaders a head-start of many decades over others. India, for example, missed the bus and lost a century or more of economic growth and technological development. Now, to stretch the analogy, buses arrive at greater frequency: those who are left behind can get the next bus sooner, reducing the gap to possibly a couple of decades. Further, those who are smart can get the bus to go faster, thus possibly beginning to catch up with the leaders in less than a decade, at least in a few areas. In most areas of technology, “smarter” and faster will be made possible through intellectual capability.
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