Asoke K. Laha
President & MD, Interra IT
The other day, I dreamt of India making big at the London Olympics. My dream may not come true in its wildest of imaginations, though there is a possibility of India improving its medal tally compared to the previous Olympics. As expected, China and the US are in the reckoning for the top two slots. While I am writing this piece, the Olympics is half way through and in the medal tally both countries are neck to neck. It is difficult at this stage to predict as to who would hit the top.
As a sports enthusiast, I am grossly disappointed that India is not in the same league of US and China in the Olympics Games. Often, when we refer to the market strength, there are only three countries in the reckoning - US, China and India. But in the Olympics medal tally the first two positions will be retained by the US and China, while India has been pushed to a distant 37th position (as of now). Nobody can give a subtle explanation. Psychologists may say that Indians lack the killing instinct. But how do we have the killing instinct in cricket and chess or for that matter wresting and shooting. The last two are considered to be pugilist games. Still another group believes that as a race Indians do not have physical fitness to come to the top in athletics. I do not know whether they refer to the size or strength of the people. If the size is the criteria, how does Chinese, Japanese Koreans, etc. are making to the top. How does legendry Milkha Singh and the youth icon of yesteryears PT Usha made to the top in athletics. The former being an Olympic medal winner and the latter lost a medal by a whisker. The truth lies somewhere else. How much importance do we assign to sports in our overall planning process? A candidate, who makes to the civil services, enjoys status, dignity and commensurate salary and pension after his retirement. An IITian enjoys huge governmental support in terms of subsidies during his learning process in the institute. But a sportsman is recognized and that too in the recent days, only at the peak of his or her career. If he is a mediocre, he remains in oblivion throughout his career and beyond. Every day, we read in newspapers how neglected sports persons are doing menial jobs for their living.
Recently, I read an article - "The Brightest Indians You Haven't Heard Of". It explains the contributions of four Indians, whom we have not heard of, but their contributions in their respective fields excel. They are Jayashree Jaykar Mohanka (52 years), the greatest quizzer of his time; Priyanshi Somani (14 years) calculation champion; Rohan Rao (21 years), the puzzler; and John Louis (42 years), the memory grandmaster. I might add along with these names, Ashoke Sen, the introvert and unassuming physicist from a relatively unknown institution in India, who bagged three million dollars for his pathbreaking contributions to string theory in physics. I know there are umpteen numbers of people who belong to this category in India. My effort in this column is to bring these unknown people to the centre stage of our developmental process and the phrase knowledge or IT Olympics that I framed is a euphemism for knowledge power.
Now Olympics has become a generic name. There are many feats that carry the name Olympics, such as Winter Olympics (a later development), physically challenged Olympics, Maths Olympics and so on. Could we have something like IT or Knowledge Olympics? Let me be more specific. Could we have a world competition to adjudge who commands superior brain or analytical mind?
No longer, the ruling levers of countries are determined by the physical strength or pugilist exhibitions. If Hitler or Napoleon had lived in the present era, could they have commanded fierce loyalty or abominable contempt and hatred against their detractors? Today's world is ruled by brain rather than gun. Every country would like to have a group of eminently qualified and brainy generation to spearhead the strategy for the market, enhancing the quality of habitat, improving the quality of life, eliminating drudgery and so on. Obviously, guns and swords cannot ensure such comforts. We need highly skilled people who can look beyond time and immediate horizon.
Look at the Maths Olympics for students, quiz programmes, which are mostly confined to TV screens and campus premises, cross-word competitions, Sudoku addictions, online puzzles and lotteries et al. We have spelling competitions in the US, where, I am told, Indian students do well. Similarly, could we have competitions on a global scale for Sudoku, cross-words or such games that test the mental strength of people of various age groups? What I have in mind is a much larger and more organized series of events being held at regular intervals. Can we have a world competition for evolving solutions to grapple with identification of pockets of poverty? Can we have a system that can firewall hacking of the worst order? Can we devise a programme that can minimize power thefts, which are rampant in the developing world? Can we evolve a model wherein patients across the world avail most effective medical advice at the cheapest possible price? There are some of the paradigms on which the game can be modelled. There are a variety of issues that can be posed and a feasible solution can be sought. Of course, there will be many competitors and solutions and ideations that would be put forward. The best among them will get the Gold, Silver and Bronze in order of their innovativeness and other transparent parameters that are laid down.
A pertinent question may arise as to what would be the platform for holding these competitions? It is the virtual world. That will help participation more open and less costly. The debate among the administrators that participation in Olympics pinches the shoe would naturally get addressed through the virtual medium. Of course, there can be filtering for selecting contestants for the finals by having layers of competitions such as first stage, second stage and ultimately the final stage. These things are easier said than done.
Can India be a host nation for the Knowledge Olympics like the ancient Greece? Yes, it could, having regard to the headstart it had in the knowledge revolution and dominance it still enjoys in this field. There is also another spin-off that India can derive. That is it can be in the reckoning in the first or second or third position in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, to establish its dominance in the present form of Olympics would be a long wait.
