Whither rural technologies?
Learnings from what happened to rural technology activities in India Prof D K Subramanian IISc "Are we really homo sapiens - wise humans? Nobody disputes that humans today have a lot more information and power than in the Stone Age, but it is far from certain that we understand ourselves and our role in the universe much better. Why are we so good at accumulating more information and power, but far less successful at acquiring wisdom?" Yuval Harari Nexus Rural technologies, a fancy area in the seventies in India,disappeared. Why? Indian Institute of Science set up a centre for development of rural technologies called ASTRA in 1974 and a support mechanism called KSCST in 1975 with involvement from the state government. While ASTRA developed technologies, KSCST took it to people and got engineering colleges in Karnataka involved in the development of technologies suited to rural tasks. The focus was on renewable energy, efficient cooking stoves, mechanised a...