Knowledge and power key drivers of growth: Kalam

BANGALORE: Economic strength will alone lead India to progress. The main driver of economic strength is competition, which in turn is driven by knowledge and power, said President APJ Abdul Kalam.
In his inaugural speech at Bangalore IT.Com, the five-day annual event here on Monday, Mr Kalam said that technology in the form of tele-medicine, e-governance and e-commerce should reach remote areas of the country. Industry should come forward to develop economically backward states of the country.
Leaders of domestic IT firms should focus on the large Indian market. Opportunities in the areas of info-entertainment, e-governance and tele-medicine should be explored, he said. Stating that over-dependence on software is not advisable, the President said that information, communication and telecom chiefs in India must focus on hardware, design, integration and embedded systems. Knowledge, transport and rivers in the country should be networked and IT is a potential tool to integrate the nation, he added.
Earlier, Karanataka chief minister SM Krishna said that technology should be used to benefit rural India. Andhra chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on his part said that IT in the country has come a long way since the time when PCs meant police constables. Power Point meant an electric socket.
IT, he said, can accelerate the pace of academic growth and remove poverty. Although India has progressed in the software sector, it is still substantially behind China, where the mobile handset population is 190m as compared to India’s 8m cell phone users.
Appreciating the progress made by the economy and IT sector, Stephen Timms, British e-commerce minister said that bilateral trade between India and UK is growing and will further build up. Investment made by Indian companies to the UK is also growing and there are now around 350 local companies with operations in UK, many of them in the ICT sector. UK software firms are facing difficult times like their counterparts in other countries, but analysts predict a continuation of growth.
Invest UK, is one of the lead sponsors of Bangalore IT.Com, which expects around 40,000 business visitors. The Mauritius minister for IT and telecommunications, Deelchand Jeeha making a case for his country said that Indian companies should consider Mauritius as it offers excellent facilities. Infosys is setting up a software development facility and disaster recovery centre in Mauritius.