Among the propellers that are driving the world, technology is one of the most forceful. Six features about its advance have far-reaching consequences for India:

• To start with, what has seemed impossible suddenly begins to seem possible

• Second, whatever seems possible comes to pass

• Third, it comes to pass sooner than anyone had thought possible

• Fourth, with each decade, it comes to pass sooner and sooner. And there is good reason for that: the advances are cumulative

• Fifth, the advances are interdependent. Today, drug discovery is becoming critically dependent on biotechnology. Biotechnology, in turn, is critically dependent on advances in other technologies — DNA could not have been decoded but for advances in IT.

• Sixth, each advance has effects that spread farther than anyone had imagined. Today, the technologies that rivals have mastered are a major influence on the balance of power between countries. Companies rise and, just as swiftly are wiped out by some new Bill Gates working out of a garage. The livelihood of thousands disappears overnight as entire professions are wiped out and new ones appear.

Till just the other day in India, telephony was confined to fixed line instruments; PCOs were a leap forward — they provided unimagined access to those who could not get fixed line connections, and thousands got a new way of earning a living; today, with millions having mobiles, fewer go to PCOs.

... contd.