India's long road to becoming a tech superpower

The 2000s was the last decade that America dominated. The 2010s was that of China. Can we make the 2020s India’s Decade?

- Sunil Rajguru

The Asian Games of 1982 upgraded the capital city of New Delhi and led to India’s TV revolution. Hum Log in 1984 was India’s first soap and Doordarshan ruled the decade. That led to the satellite TV revolution and Cable TV in the 1990s which at first promised to provide most of the Internet of India.

While Infosys was founded in 1980, most important for Tech India was the software and PC policy of the 1980s that set the tone for the coming decades. This is unlike say America, where all the computer action began in the 1970s.

But India played fast to catch up after that. A look at some of the milestones.

1. The telecom revolution: C-DOT or Centre for Development of Telematics was formed in 1984, the brainchild of Sam Pitroda. It spawned the urban ISD-STD revolution and rural telephony. “PCO” became a buzzword.

Note, for the readers of today...

PCO = Public Call Office, a phone box where mere mortals without a phone (most Indians at that time) could make calls.

STD = Standard Trunk Dialling. Otherwise you had to call the operator and book trunk calls which could take ages.

ISD = International Standard Dialling.

Telephone exchanges. R&D. Equipment manufacturers. Routers. Even things like ATMs and set top boxes, C-DOT was involved with all of that and formed the communication backbone of India. This set the stage for the mobile telephony revolution that followed.