Third World Research, Development & Innovation

tovarish writes "It is nice to see that countries like India are trying to research communication techniques in backward and rural areas. While tech savvy people like us enjoy the latest gadgets it is quite a challenge to develop gadgets which actually help the poor and illiterate. While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news are already covered in slashdot umpteen times, sometimes her sensible achievements should be covered too."

Newsflash!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

India isn't 3rd world

The Sudan is 3rd world

Re:Newsflash!!!

[jbgeorge]

As an indian.. let me assure you.. the place you are from might be 3rd world.. but where Im from definitely not 3rd world..

peace.

Re:waitaminute

[Anonymous Coward]

India invented the term 'third world' to
refer specifically to itself. They INVENTED
the term.

US + NATO == first world
Russia + Warsaw pact == second wold
Non aligned == third world (including the swiss)

Re:Worlds

[savagedome]

Click here [wikipedia.org]

Re:Worlds

[mOoZik]

It goes back to the fifties and was coined by the French Alfred Sauvy, being analogous to the social classes in pre and post-revolution France. The first world is the U.S., Canada, W. Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc: they have highly developed economies, relying very little on agriculture, are very industrialized, and I'll venture to say democratic. The second world at the time was the U.S.S.R. and perhaps even E. Europe, depending on how you define it; they were also heavily industrialized. Thus, there no longer is a Second World. And finally, every other country was third world, which are often countries which are rural, not heavily industrialized, and generally poor.

Re:Third World..

[Anonymous Coward]

Back during the Cold War, "Second World" meant "Communist". For the record, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan are examples of non-white "1st World" contries.

Re:Must be hard...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need more education on Indian Politics. We DO NOT elect an individual. We elect a party and then it is the decision of the party to field a candidate for the PM's post.

We also cannot have an un-elected leader so our current PM has to win a seat in either our lower house (Lok Sabha) or the higher house (Rajya Sabha).

Please keep to the topic.
We are a democratic country. As for achievements is concerned, here is one - Electronic Voting Machines that was used for our last general elections without any trouble. While a developed democracy is a laughing stock of the world because of its 2000 presidential ballot problems in Florida.

India's space activities, a short summary

[asimulator]

It appears to me that atleast a section of the slashdot crowd seems to think that satellite launches in India are a recent phenomenon. At the risk of repeating the obvious, let me say that India launched her first satellite back in 1976. And has been launching satellites regularly since. The largest number of them are weather and communication satellites (the INSAT series). There are also remote sensing satellites (the IRS). The INSAT series satisfies all of India's communication transponder needs and some transponders have been leased to other entities, bringing in money. INSATs were largely responsible for the communication revolution India experiences in the mid-80s.

India also launches satellites meant for polar orbits (the IRS series, for instance) from her own soil, has been for some years now.

The latest news in India's space program is the launch of a geo-synchronous satellite (Edusat) that seems to have gotten attention at /.

But that's just the latest news; as I said, India's been in space for nearly 30 years now.

Re:Newsflash!!!

[pointyhairedmba]

India: Over 25% of India's population is under the poverty line. India is 62 out of 221 nations in infant mortality India is 152nd (out of 236 nations in per capita GDP 9.3% of kids in India die before age 5 (54th out of 193 nations) Sudan: Sudan is 52 out of 221 nations in infant mortality Sudan is 186nd (out of 236 nations in per capita GDP 10.7% of kids in Sudan die before age 5 (46th out of 193 nations)

Re:Wrong Topic ???

[tovarish]

though this article does highlight India's r&d other countries like brazil and china are also doing quite a bit of research in these areas

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

India:
Population: 1,065,070,607

Japan:
Population: 127,214,499
(from wikipedia).

Please keep these facts in mind before saying anything.

Look at India's huge investment in the space program and nuclear weapons. In 1950, Japan had almost no investment in such wasteful programs. The Japanese were committed to a program of emulating the West and engaging in practical enterprises to raise the standard of living as quickly as possible

India faced three wars immediately after partition. Two with Pakistan and one with China. Japan didn't face any. Nuclear weapons were a necessity for India.

India has 21+ different official languages. Japan has one. The space program helped put educational and weather satellites in place. And India now sells satellite launches.

It's extremely convenient to compare India and Japan, but it's really a wrong comparison.

Re:Newsflash!!!

[metlin]

Well as an Indian, let me assure you that you both are in the third world. Third world refers to which side you were on - capitalist or communist. India chose neither, and therefore is a third world.

D'oh! Perhaps you meant developing/under-developed/whatever?

Re:Why stale references to MLA?

[tovarish]

There were other reasons for this. The employees at MLA were earning lot more than the average salary and not producing enough. A friend of mine working there was fired and then rehired for much less.

Re:Query:

[Anonymous Coward]

>>While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news.......

IT'S OFFSHORING! NOT OUTSOURCING!

Offshoring can INCLUDE outsourcing, but they are not the same thing. We can only thank our wonderful news media for this.

Re:Must be hard...

[Anonymovs Coward]

...and to still expect handouts from first world countries because they're so poor.

Rubbish. India has been self-sufficient in food since the early 1970s. Some aid for health, education and infrastructure does come in, but even that is mostly loans, not "handouts". American and Japanese aid comes with too many ridiculous strings attached, India learned long ago not to get too entrapped with it. As for the nukes: America was worried about war with a country on the other side of the world. India has gone to war with two countries on its borders, one of whom (China) is truly the 800lb gorilla of Asia with whom there continue to be unresolved border disputes, and is an acknowledged nuclear power. You saying India has less right than the USA to nukes? I don't like nukes either, but let's abolish them all, maybe step by step, rather than say the big five can keep what they have and make more while they're at it.

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing Japan and India is the right comparison.

Japan has 3 times the population density of India. India failed because of the choices that the Indian people made.

Here are bogus excuses by an Indian.

1. India has military threats.

RESPONSE: There is no need for nuclear weapons. South Korea has a threat from North Korea. South Korea does not have a massive nuclear weapons program.

2. India has 21 official languages.

RESPONSE: What nonsense is this? That is a problem of choice. Again, Indians are huge failures because they deliberately make the wrong choices. There is nothing to prevent them from having a unified official language.

3. India earns money by selling space launches.

RESPONSE: Those launches apparently do not earn enough money to lift the Indian economy into a 1st world society. The Indians deliberately destroyed their economy (and society) by not allowing free enterprise and capitalism for 40+ years. If the Japanese had followed the Indian bigots in developing Japan, stifling the economy but developing successful space launches, Japan would still be impoverished. Note that Japan is a barren rock, lacking in natural resources, but Indian is resource rich. The Japanese made the right choices and turned the rock into a wealthy society. The Indians destroyed their own society.

Note that this Indian bigot does not even address the lopsided female-to-male ratio. That ratio is due entirely to barbaric Indian culture. No one put a gun to the head of an Indian pig and forced him to kill the female babies.

Even impoverished Vietnam has a normal ratio.

Re:Newsflash!!!

[gray peter]

No, you're wrong. That was initially the meaning, but in the 21st century 3rd world refers to "developing" nations, that is, those nations which still have a huge percentage of their population living way way way below the poverty level. India is absolutely 3rd world. Maybe when the rest of the country more closely resembles the developed areas (Bangalore for example...) it will become a first world country, but are you really going to tell us that the average person in India lives at the same level as the average person in Western Europe, Japan, or the USA?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with an Indian woman at work who came from a very wealthy family (she was the only woman in her class at IIT). She tried to tell me that since the Caste System had been "officially" abolished there no longer *was* a caste system in India. Clearly not the case. The caste system is still very much alive in India, "officially" or not. Kinda like how there is still racism in America even though we've outlawed slavery.

Re:Why does India need hi-tech just to survive?

[harisheldon]

Oh so pointing out the truth make me a RACIST? I am blaming the people who ruled England at one point in time. I am not blaming the people in England today and I am not blaming the poor factory worker in England then. I am not blaming the caucasians in USA, nor Russia, nor Iceland. Heck, if it was not for USian influence, the British would have starved lots more Indians to death at the end of WW2. Go grow a brain, moron. Not everyone thinks in terms of races.

Just $3200 ?? !!!

[dwipal]

"Priced at about $3,200, a single K-yan can tutor a large classroom of nearly 100 students in schools that cannot afford multiple personal computers."

$3200 is insanely high for any indian school to afford. this is probably more than the entire IT spending budget in an year for a small school. u can buy cheap computers in india for around 250$, but computers are still cheaper in USA for similar configuration.

The main problem with india is there is that most of the people in rural areas dont even know what the internet is, forget a computer. they definitely cant afford a computer, and internet connections are waaaayy too expensive, even for the "city" people. do u know any indian who stays online for "24 hours" from Home ?? Its just not affordible.

So i guess the first thing to do there would to reduce the cost of internet/infrastructure (just like they did for cell-phones) and then look for finding innovative devices to use it.

BTW, just in case u dont know, the price of gas in india is around 5$ per gallon (people in rural areas earn around 30$ per month) ! So much for "low costs".

Re:Query:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, the US has 3 million jobs "insourced" that is .. jobs that were outsourced from other countries.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to believe that trade with other nations had no contribution to USA's wealth

Let's see .. most of NASA's scientists were foreign born during the early days of the space program. So were many of the scientists in the
Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb. Wright brothers wouldnt have built their airplane if it wasnt for Otto Lilienthal. And then there's the fact that Einstein was German born. You wouldnt have computers if it wasnt for Turing, John Von Neumann, etc. who were foreigners educated outside the USA.

Imagine none of that knowledge being allowed into the USA?

So please, dont get pissed off if people in other countries can do your work for you cheaper ..imagine if your job could be mechanized? Would you still bitch? I bet the answer is yes.

So ultimately, you .. you're the leech expecting a job to be given to you like it's God given.

So it's ok for YOU to leech off America ?

Indians are not leeching off America. They are accepting what is being OFFERED. I'd like to see you turn down a pay raise?

Quit bitching about others trying to better themselves ..you hypocritical worthless shit.

Re:Stories about India are flamebait

[rmanocha]

I totally agree here. Never in India's history has India ever seeked or waged a war against another nation in the hopes of enslaving/gainign territory.
Indians have lived for over 1000 years under foreign rule and yet have managed to maintain their languages, religions, culture and lots more.
India always was a golden bird, to many people from the persians to the British.
Hence to label India poor is incorrect, especially since most of it wealth was literally stolen by the British during their 200 years rule over India, a large portion of which was done during the second world war. Many of us feel sad for the holocaust during the WW II. The british have openly condemned this act. However, what they very comfortably manage to ignore is the fact that due to the "stealing" of money from India, over 3.5 million indians died due to starvation between 1942-1943. Some Indian historians have called this the hidden holocaust. Hence, before praising the allied efforts in the war, we might want to check all the history related to war, invloving countries which werent directly related to it.