The recent warlike skirmish between India and Pakistan laid bare the importance of our country being strong in the field of technology.
I once met a high ranking IAS officer in the DGFT office to request a license to import airjet weaving machines from Japan. He inquired – Why don’t we make these machines in India?
I replied that his concern was very valid. However, what was the key factor in being able to produce such high-end machines, capable of moving the yarn a thousand times from one end to the other in one minute, was the expertise in metallurgy.
Even if we take apart the Japanese machine and copy each part and re-assemble it, it would not work to standards. As our metallurgy is nowhere near theirs. Our metal would not be able to stand the stress and strain.
I told that our successful space programs, which would again demand the best of metallurgy for our satellites, showed that we had world class expertise in these areas. Then why is this knowledge not percolating to private industry? The government should exert towards this. Such that knowledge of metallurgy already a part of our space technology is expanded through further research so that we become competent to make the best of commercial machines.
Turkey is far ahead of India in this. That is why we are having to resort to defence equipment from France and Russia to defend against the formidable Turkish weaponry. We have to be better.
The country must gear up for that.