Art and science of innovation: India's crossroads moment

Every breakthrough has tested not just human imagination but human values too. What begins as a creative act often ends as a moral question

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

Every story of progress begins with a question. Somewhere in the long journey of humankind, an early ancestor must have stared at a spark and wondered what else it could do. Fire was not just warmth or light; it was the first spark of imagination. When someone rolled a piece of wood and discovered the wheel, it was not only about movement; it was about freedom. From cave paintings to language and from iron tools to agriculture, each breakthrough said the same thing-life could be better.

Human innovation has always carried that restless need to move beyond what exists. Those early experiments were not planned or approved by anyone. The discovery of fire helped cook food, but it also burnt forests. The wheel moved carts and armies alike. Writing preserved wisdom but also spread deceit. The story of invention has never been a straight road of good ideas. It has always been a winding path of hope, curiosity, and consequence. We advanced not because we always got it right, but because we never stopped trying.

When the Renaissance arrived, innovation found both language and wings. Leonardo imagined flight before the world was ready. Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and saw what belief systems refused to accept. Newton explained the universe through mathematics yet admitted that he was only collecting pebbles on the shore of a vast ocean of truth. History remembers their brilliance but forgets how much resistance they faced. Every innovator who changes the world also unsettles it. Discovery is never comfortable.