Amid call to boycott Chinese goods, IIT Delhi director says imperative to be Aatmanirbhar

Amid calls for boycotting Chinese products, IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao says 'imperative to become Aatmanirbhar'. At a time when the call for boycotting Chinese products is gaining momentum, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi Professor V Ramgopal Rao said that it is imperative to become 'Aatmanirbhar' in the current era.

The call to boycott Chinese good was made after 20 Indian Army personnel, including the commanding officer of 16 Bihar, were martyred on Monday night in the violent face-off with Chinese troops in the Galwan valley of Ladakh where disengagement of troops on either side was underway.

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'Start-up culture in India'

While speaking to Republic TV, Prof Rao said that in the past years the startup culture has gained momentum. He added that earlier after developing a technology we had to wait for big industry to take over and make it commercial. But now we develop technology and roll it out in the market on our own. He asserted that the present government has been very supportive of the startups and backing us up vigorously.

"It is very important to become aatma nirbhar. IITs can contribute to aatma nirbhar Bharat in a way that there are very bright students here and very talented faculty members. The question is how do you deliver it to the society. Five years ago, it was just the industry interaction. We would license the technology only to industry and the industry would commercialise that.

But in India, our industries were not much into manufacturing, as a result, though there was a lot of technology being developed they were not seeing the light of the day. One thing that has changed in the last few years is the startup culture," he said. 

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Professor Rao highlighted that around 100 startups exist in IIT Delhi and have the protentional to become huge companies in the future.

"Now we have startups in the campus. Now if I have a solution to a problem, I can start a company and commercialize that. There are so many people willing to fund startups. Even the Government of India has major initiatives to support startups at IIT Delhi today we have about 100 startups by students and faculty. The idea is to encourage innovations and use these ideas to solve problems.

Now we don't wait for large industry to come and use our technology. Today if we have a technology a solution to people's problems we go ahead and put it out in the market. In the same manner, we have been able to put out technology to combat COVID, "he added.

With 12,881 fresh cases, the coronavirus tally in India rose to 366,946 on Thursday. So far 2,262 people have succumbed to the deadly virus.

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(Image credits: PTI)