TECH US TO THE FUTURE

PONGAL in Tamil Nadu is the time during which people in several other parts of India serenade the late winter winds by flying kites and celebrate the Sun's movement northwards.

- MADHAVAN NARAYANAN

But this season, we saw flights of a different kind in Tamil Nadu of drones.

Tamil Nadu's first batch of women trained under prime minister's Drone Didi scheme are much in demand to help farmers spray fertilisers and pesticides. They even water fields by remotely navigating the heavy machines. So much is the promise of the scheme that a Drone Didi has been invited to attend President Draupadi Murmu's Republic Day party in acknowledgment of a new league of entrepreneurs.

From robotics to genomics and 3D printing to artificial intelligence, emerging technologies require a new kind of imagination, skill sets, institutional behaviour and policy measures. Unsurprisingly, both excitement and disorientation over these new technologies are high at present. The good news is that grassroots measures like Drone Didi signal a heightened sensitivity and sensibility around them in our policy circles. Drone education, in particular, is mushrooming across India.

That's not all. Last week, advertisements for robotic surgery from a local hospital stared at me from newspapers, while a small industrial shed in my neighbourhood started offering 3D printing services.