HG Wells was fond of berating the politicians of his day for their failure to recognise the importance of education: "Civilisation is a race between Education and Catastrophe". That is as true today as ever, of course. But I rather think innovation has now become an even more important thing standing between us and catastrophe. And in India, education and innovation have to march hand in hand. As I discovered talking to business leaders during a recent visit, innovation is still a relatively new rallying cry. Decades of paternalistic government, reinforced by equally paternalistic corporatism, hardly provided the best seed bed for innovators to flourish. But, inventiveness certainly flourished, particularly of the 'frugal' kind highlighted by Ian Thornton ['Frugal plenty', p4]. This celebrates a culture of jugaad-using imaginative, improvised solutions in the face of challenging circumstances and limited resources.
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