History of computer and IT in India 1965 to 2005

              History and learnings about the developments of computer systems, Application software and IT in India during the period 1965 2005

Prof D K Subramanian, IISc(rtd.)

Professor,IIT,Bombay

Visiting Faculty, IIMB,AIT,Bangkok,University of Manchester,PSTI, and several universities.

Ex member, TCS Research advisory board

Advisor, Karnataka government, banks, IDRBT,Jindal steel plant, Dept. of space, Government of India

                 1. Introduction

While Indian research institutions got into computer development and computational research from 1960 onwards, the first wave of computer usage by industries started by mid 1970s. The second and a short wave led to development of large computer centres in the seventies providing access and opportunities to larger groups of users from various organizations. This was mostly a government effort. The third wave started in the early 1980s. It started slowly but expanded very fast reaching many parts and organizations in India making computer based developments a mass movement.The fourth wave started the internet, networking, social networks, mobile era taking computers to millions of homes. Let us focus on these developments.

This article is looking at a long history of computers and IT in India as seen by me. There is a general perception that Indians are good at low level call centre jobs. That was not the way India evolved its computer culture. We need to understand the overall picture of computer and IT and AI development in India in order to appreciate the work of thousands or millions of people in this tech industry. This article is the first step.It gives a short history of the hardware industry in India during the period 1960 to 2000. It discusses several computer systems designed, developed and manufactured in India. While the industry flourished well during the 1980s and 1990s, the Indian developed hardware almost disappeared from 2005 onwards. So we look at some reasons for the failures of this industry. It tries to be a balanced approach to describe Indian hardware story as it unfurled from 1960 onwards. 

          2. What are my credentials to assess the hardware situation in India? 

I was one of the early users of computers from 1964 onwards. I used several computers in India and outside in the UK, USA and Thailand, developed many large programs in many low level to high level languages for over three decades. I coordinated two major software development activities. I was with the state government as an advisor on computers from 1985 to 2004 and approved computer purchases by all government departments. I bought computers for many organizations,universities, institutions, APMCs and cooperatives,banks and RBI. So I have a direct understanding of the Indian computer scene- its beginning, growth, struggles, and survival. I interacted with most manufacturers from 1970 onwards starting with Computronix and Hinditron and later ORG,Zenith,HCL, and still later others . I started helping in the purchase of computers by many organizations, educational institutions, government departments, banks, from 1970 onwards till 2020. I met almost all senior officers and sales people of the computer companies- hardware, networking, databases and software, manufacturing, system integration and services. I was responsible for the purchase of thousands of servers and several tens of thousands of PCs. So I knew the pulse of computer industries and basic manufacturers abroad like Intel, Dell, Compaq,digital,CISCO, HP,IBM,Sun, and many others intimately. I saw the changes happening from mainframes to minis to PCs to servers and networked systems and parallel processing- CCN.My comments are based on my experiences and thousands of interactions.         

            3. Early sixties developments

scientific computing and main frames India started early in the electronics field, the basic step to move into the digital world. IISc set up the first electronics and communications department in 1948, almost at the same time as the other major universities in the world. Then came electronics manufacturing in Bangalore in the fifties- Bharat Electronics and Indian Telephone Industries. India started early in computer use.TIFR built a vacuum tube version of a full fledged computer,called TIFRAC, which was operational in 1963. It was the first big and successful activity in India. It was the starting point of getting into deeper technological foundations. Similarly Jadavpur university and Indian Statistical Institute also built a computer around that time. India started a serious computer culture from 1960 onwards. We had two second generation computers in HAL- Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd - and NAL- National Aeronautical Laboratories- in Bangalore in 1962-63 period. There was an IBM 1620 in the government engineering college,Guindy. IIT Kanpur got an IBM 704. TIFR had a really high end CDC 3600 computer with 64 bits word length. It was used by thousands across India. In addition to academics, Tata electric company also used it for load flow studies.I used it for more than five years. IIT Bombay got a Minsk 2 computer from the USSR and put it to productive use. Dr Dhamdhere built a Fortran compiler for use by students. Dr SSSP Rao made a lot of augmentations to the hardware. The computer was upgraded and was used heavily.Later, they moved to an R series computer. IIT Delhi got an ICL machine and it was a great work horse for students and faculty. ICL also sold its 1900 series to companies like HMT in the mid seventies. India used mainframes from CDC, IBM, ICL, Burroughs and later DeC10. TCS bought a Burroughs machine. Indian Metrology department started using computers for weather prediction. They were the earliest government organization to put computers to a productive use. Karnataka government is one of the earliest to establish a government computer centre for processing applications, ranking etc. It was used for a long time for engineering admissions. Similarly ,Tamilnadu government used an IBM data centre located at Guindy engineering college for similar activities. The outcome in the 1960 decade 1.India had thousands of trained electronics engineers. 2. India, particularly Bangalore, had a reasonable electronics infrastructure for manufacturing. 3. Computers were available in a few research institutions. Scientific activities were strengthened with numerical mathematics. 4. India had a great strength in logic . 5. India trained thousands in programming.

           4. The seventies period

 It was a period of minis both imported and manufactured. More mainframes were bought by industries. The government set up regional computer centres to help users from academic institutions. We used PDP/11 in many institutions, HP at IIM Ahmadabad . Later ECIL manufactured many ranges of minis- 8bits,16 bits and 32 bits-in Hyderabad. Nelco also manufactured minis. These survived for a decade or two. While the idea was to popularise computing to advance research in universities and R and D labs, it didn’t succeed. No research lab or university thought about the use of computers in their research and so didn’t build any in-house capability. We missed the opportunity at that time. 

        5. The early eighties 

IISc wanted a super computer, but the restrictions by the US didn't allow the sale of a Cray or CDC computer to IISc. We worked hard on getting a super computer. So the government of India set up a separate establishment called the Centre for development of Advanced computing, known as CDAC, with Dr Bhatkar as its director with a mandate to develop a supercomputer. The VLSI technology was producing processor chips by both Intel and Motorola and others. So using parallel processing architectures, CDAC built its Param super computer. DRDL at Hyderabad under Dr Venkatraman also built a super computer. Dr UN Sinha and his colleagues at NAL built a supercomputer. These efforts continued for many years. TCS built a super computer. Even now, many efforts are going on throughout the country to build and use such high speed machines. 

      6. The eighties- PC era 

The computers became inexpensive and tabletop or desktop were manufactured and available for simple use like data storage, files creation and accounting. So there was a huge demand for these PCs and servers. The client server model was adapted by many. Initially we started with stand alone PCs, but soon migrated to networks. Thousands of colleges, schools, industries, companies,and government departments started buying these computers. So there was a big growing demand which continues even now. 

        7. Manufacturing

 Let me look at the manufacturing scene.While the initial pioneers,DCM and ORG didn't stay longer, we had a strong long term showing by a few companies like Wipro and HCL and a medium term operations by several companies like PSI, Eiko,CMC,Sunray,Zenith, PCS, NELCO and a short term by some companies like Pertech, Keonics, Uptron,ESPL etc. So it is clear that many came forward. Even TVS and Kirloskar tried manufacturing computers, but it didn't work. There were many assemblers selling unbranded computers at a lower price. IISc supported some of them. One company I know well is Taurus. Most assemblers couldn't cope with change and couldn't import the latest technology parts. Many were unreliable fly by night companies. Their enthusiasm was great and they worked very hard. Electro systems associates started by Gopinadham and Rajanikanth concentrated on selling microprocessor kits to colleges and survives even now. First, we should recognize the fact that a number of companies jumped into the hardware market and persisted with hardware supplies.For about 20 years, both HCL and Wipro stood firm in our computer market. They produced servers and built PCs. They moved quickly into the latest developed processors very well. Both did a good job. I bought computers from all these companies listed above. They survived till 2005, more than 20 years. I won't say they are failures. But there were many reasons for them to move out of hardware. The eighties saw Intel going fast with new processors starting with 8085 to Pentium. Then came mother board and IO controllers, VME or multibus concepts. So adaptation was not easy. Our companies had no collaboration. They had a tough blind task of designing new systems. Software services gave a very high profit. Hardware profit margins were low. Struggles were high. Government policies didn't encourage faster innovation. There were only two designers- Raman in HCL and Sridhar Mitta in Wipro. So sustainability is a problem. Then came the most important problem- scaling. Foreign companies were producing millions of PCs whereas Indian companies struggled to make a lakh. Scale gave a great price advantage to foreign companies. Indian companies didn't export PCs to other countries and so couldn't reach the scale. Also we didn't manufacture printers,keyboards, displays, disk drives, mother boards,buses ports,interfaces, memory etc. So every item was imported. There was a customs duty on them. So it wasn't easy to minimize the costs. After liberalisation in 1991, we made mistakes. We had two companies in Bangalore manufacturing high end mainframe level computers- digital corporation and PSI Bull. I visited both and did a technology audit for PSI Bull.There was no business. It was a wrong time. When the world was going towards the client server model, there were not many buyers for these machines. So both companies closed down . On the other side, IT was growing fast. Most companies and organizations wanted networking and software. Opportunities were quite high. Scaleup was easy. Profits were high. TCS and Infosys were doing well. So CMC moved into software first. Tatas left computer manufacturing and focused on IT. So both HCL and Wipro also moved to IT services. Our Hardware business died. In 2005-2006 period, I was struggling to buy PCs and small servers for banks from Indigenous companies. So I won't call this disruptive innovation. All were clear about their growth paths. Actually both HCL and Wipro set up separate companies. Wipro infotech set up wipro systems to develop software and struggled for over a decade. HCL set up several companies like HCL Comnet, HCL technologies etc. So both moved to IT services. It was a conscious decision to move into IT by both companies, not a failure, but a shift they were working on for decades. I wasn't happy that we missed the hardware bus. I will blame government policies for this. How do you explain the strange situation- a country which built two digital computers in 1963 at TIFR and later at ISI and Jadavpur university missed the computer manufacturing route? The reasons are: 1. We never built a hardware foundry. So we couldn't produce VLSI chips, a big drawback. Malaysia produced chips in 2000. The one company- semiconductors India -died a fire death. The government ignored this sector till now. 2.Thailand with no culture imported chips and other components by kilos and sold them on the foot path ,this I saw in 1987. They produced manuals in Thai language to assemble computers.We couldn't import them. 3. Imports were the big hurdle. 4. Most hardware companies didn't realize that a computer is an integration of hardware and software. They ignored utilities,OS,compilers etc. 5.Except HCL and Wipro, other companies had a poor services unit. HCL was also good at sales. I bought Zenith's superbrain and Eikos 8 bit computers in the early eighties.I bought a lot from HCL,Wipro and PCS. Now it is HP, Acer and Dell. So to conclude India absorbed computers and IT quickly. India got into manufacturing also very early and produced computers for more than two decades. Introduction Most organizations bought PCs and servers.Business applications thrived. IT services dominated the scene after 2000.

                     8. Application software

Let me look at the application software scene in India. It started early by the seventies with some companies developing in house software using autocoder of IBM 1401 and COBOL in main frame computers. TCS introduced the important concept of outsourcing confidential and sensitive corporate and company work. While TCS was a dominant player in software services, it also branched into several areas like share and dividends processing, banking, accounting, etc. But it had more jobs abroad than in India. Seeing TCS activities, many other companies like Patni,Mafatlal, Computronics etc jumped into the field. Several companies built specialised software for in house use.But the effort required was high. We were using word star for typing.

Many companies like ACC, HMT, ITI and HAL started computerization of accounts, stores and purchase. Mr Balan of ACC was passionate about computerization. Most companies outsourced their payroll to reputed software companies. Application Software was custom built. Standardization was absent. Software practices were poor. I saw a senior person correcting codes and was aghast. Version management was not understood and hence not implemented. Even in TCS, documentation was not attempted. Software remained in the minds of the programmers. Software as an asset came much later. Software as a product was ignored by many and only a few built software products like Tally. Word processors for Kannada, EX, etc came later. Software development remained a tinkering activity upto 2000. But large software programs were built and used from 1973 onwards.

              9. Some problems with  

                Software companies

Organizational rigidity, strong legacy issues, poor understanding of the market and jobs, misunderstandings about service requirements, and trust deficits continued to kill many services companies started by reputed companies. Even TVS and Kirloskar failed in this area. Agility was not understood by many. Novices like Infosys succeeded as they had no baggage.

During this period, most companies concentrated on private sector applications. Many private sector- big and medium ones- companies experimented with computers to solve their problems. Most used the outsourcing model.

            10. Government software

The government also got into the software business. With Rajiv Gandhi becoming PM in 1984, computers got a favorable treatment from him. NIC which was set up earlier as part of the planning ministry played a big role. NIC recruited a lot of engineers ,trained them in programming and worked intensely in developing applications for the government sector. NIC set up units in all states to assist state government departments in computerization. Later they moved into districts also.

While NIC did a great job in initiating computerization , it couldn't take it forward. The reasons were:

Formalism was not known to NIC. Most programmers worked in adhoc mode. So they were tinkering with applications. Users were not happy. But NIC was nimble, and helpful to the users and understood the reality better.

Power was diffused. NIC had no control with state governments and so had a limited role in implementation.

Understanding the users by developers and computer by users were both poor. it needed a lot of effort. the NIC state office at Bangalore was doing a great job supporting the work of several government departments. Similarly Pune and Hyderabad were doing good work. 

Even Centralised control at the India level didn't help NIC. NIC never thought of producing software as a product. They understood government operations. One big and positive contribution by NIC was the collection and consolidation of data at field level in all districts. it was the first attempt to computerise social data and create a uniform database for the country.

CMC which was set up as a maintenance company also moved into software applications and hardware sales. They also focused on government jobs.

              11. Software for organizations 

Many entrepreneurs saw an opportunity here. Already most are working on training activities. 

 Bangalore had created a great atmosphere for value added activities in electronics and hundreds of small companies- startups in todays terminology- sprung up in the city. Electronics city came up and it was a great success. 

The setting up of the electronics and communications engineering discipline in 1948 by the Indian Institute of Science provided the impetus for the growth of radio and electronics activities in Bangalore. IISc provided the high quality talent pool and technical support to the newly set up electronics and telephone companies, namely Bharat Electronics and Indian Telephone Industries for many years. Later it helped in generating entrepreneurs for ancilliaries like printed circuit boards needed by the big industries. So a strong electronics base was established in Bangalore by late fifties and early sixties itself. So an ideal innovative spirit existed here in Bangalore.

With the arrival of computers, particularly affordable minis in the mid to late seventies, we saw a large demand by many organizations , big and small, for software development. Many were large organizations like defense research labs like Aeronautics Development Establishment,LRDE etc, CSIR labs like National Aeronautics Labs, industries like HAL, HMT and many more were medium and small organizations. Already hundreds of organizations were set up in Bangalore to train programmers and hardware engineers. So this environment was conducive to bring out hundreds of small companies to support the demand from hundreds of normal companies. So the city built a strong base for outsourcing with hundreds of companies. They were multi purpose companies doing general training, helping in spreading computer education in schools and colleges and assisting industries with their programming work. It was going great from mid seventies to nineties. Computerization spread across the city and the city had a strong computer culture by late seventies. IISc also started computer science activities by late sixties, initially by me for several years. IISc main frame computer was available to many outside users.

The city also generated a large talent pool. Most engineering colleges were teaching programming to their students. so the software industry flourished in Bangalore and Bangalore became known as the electronics capital first followed by the current famous name - the silicon valley of India.

                  12. Banking operations

Banks were not using computers for bank work. They were using PCs for office work. RBI wanted banks to use computers for banking. So a committee under Dr Rangarajan recommended branch automation.So some banks moved into computerization only by early nineties with branch automation. I assisted Canara bank with branch automation. Fortunately, ECIL, Infosys and a few others developed a COBOL based software suitable for Indian banks and many banks propagated the software across a good number of branches. Banks built an in house IT department. The more important event was banks going full steam on Cobol training. Some banks trained a few hundred officers on programming. This helped banks later when banks moved to core banking.

                13. The nineties growth

The nineties saw computerization picking up a good pace. Most organizations , government departments,R and D labs and engineering colleges purchased computers- PCs and servers and tried to build some applications. The awareness was wide spread.

Networking by the early nineties increased. Many organizations built a LAN. I designed LAN for Sri Jayadeva institute of cardiology, CPRI, Vidhana Soudha, KPC, and many organizations. I bought computers for many engineering colleges, KREC,and helped in the design of campus wide networking with fibre backbone. Syndicate bank and SBI went for a wide area network provided by BSNL and built a full fledged IT solution.

               14. Fast paced developments in the second half of 1990s

The country absorbed the internet and web technologies at a good pace particularly by the government and large organisations and banks.

So by 2000, we had a networking system operational. Also by 1995, we had our email system ready. The department of electronics, government of India, funded a major project involving IISc, TIFR and all IITs to set up a global network for emails. ERNET, as it was called then became operational by 1995.Also by 2000, internet became operational. SBI was the first bank to operationalise a full fledged large, networked IT system, developed, designed ,built and operated by TCS- the first major working IT project in the country. It was a great achievement.

                       15. ERP systems

The country became aware of ERP and many big companies operationalised ERP software. Most major private companies and manufacturing units adapted process control and ERP. Ramco systems developed an in house ERP software called Marshall and installed it in some companies and steel plants. I helped Jindal steels Ltd in acquiring , installing and operationalising oracle applications and integrating it with the automation software of USIT.

The department of Space, government of India, decided to build its own ERP. I advised them in developing a software suited for them.

                 16. computer education scene

We saw the hardware, software, networking and data centre absorption as they happened in India. 

For a large technology to take roots, we need a number of talented persons- programmers and engineers. Swami Vivekananda put the talent requirement seed to JN Tata which led to the setting up of IISc. But such a development didn't take place in India for computer science in the formal route. Except for TIFR,IISc, IITs and ISI, no university bothered about this discipline. The were blind to the fast paced developments happening in the CS area, a tragedy.

But it was compensated by the mushrooming of thousands of training institutes across India. Datamatics set up a training institute in Bombay and another in Bangalore in late sixties. I was involved with them and conducted about 30 plus training programs each lasting for a month. It helped in generating some programmers. HCL set up NIIT in the early eighties and it quickly spread across the country. It played a big role in training thousands of youngsters. Seeing the job and revenue potential, thousands of training institutes came up even in districts not just the big cities. Most engineering students picked up their programming ,CAD and database skills from these institutions. 

Many companies wanted programmers and approached me to select suitable persons. I had conducted hundreds of interviews and found, in many instances, NIIT trained students more knowledgeable than engineering graduates. I even selected some for foreign assignments.

But by 1986, there was a serious quality issue. Most training was useless. I wrote an article in the Times of India news paper titled- computer alchemists. But still, the training institutions did a reasonable talent development in the absence of talented persons coming from engineering colleges. Later in the early 90s, the government of India wanted to ensure the quality and set up an accreditation body called DOEACC with Brig Sundaram as its chair. I did inspections of hundreds of training centres in bangalore .

The biggest effort came with the setting up of AICTE in mid eighties with power to approve engineering colleges and approve starting of new courses. I was with two task forces - one for Kerala and another for Karnataka. We permitted hundreds of colleges to start CS programs in the beginning and IT later. I inspected most new colleges in Karnataka, Kerala and some in Tamilnadu. So when our IT activities were scaled up by the mid nineties, the talent resources were available due to the scale up of engineering colleges in the private sector.

                   17. the massive 1000 high schools computerisation program in Karnataka during the late nineties- the mahithisindhu program

In the mid nighties, I had a big role in implementing the Mahithisindhu program of computerization of thousand high schools in Karnataka.

What was my knowledge of the current state?

1. Datamatics corporation was training people from the seventies successfully and many trained persons started working on computers. 

2. In the eighties, many- thousands- training centres sprung up every nook and corner in big cities and by late eighties ,they percolated to small cities also.Private organizations like NIIT,Aptech started hundreds of training centres across India. There was a lot of awareness and enthusiasm amongst people and students. Most students attended these programs. Computer Society of India also ran training programs. Banks encouraged and funded their officers to have extensive COBOL training and they set up IT departments. It was useful later for branch automation.

3. Many individual trainers visited schools regularly and conducted regular training program. This spread across our cities quickly. I was personally involved in the training and advising activities of several schools and colleges. My friend, Mr Hegde,principal of the Gujarathi school in the Majestic area was very enthusiastic and organized my lectures for teachers of many schools. Mr Gopalakrishna of natiinal public school set up a computer centre and ran training and teaching activities.

4.But the problem with government schools was poor.I found that the supply of computers to schools under the class program of the government if India didn't work. Teachers were not trained, were scared to use a computer, didn't know what to do with a computer. So they just kept the computer locked in a steel cupboard. I had seen it in some schools. Even training by IISc computer staff was not effective or useful. So it was a failure.

5.Computer ignorance was prevailing amongst teachers.

6. Schools had poor infrastructure- power, space,communications were non existent in most rural schools.

7. Mr SM Krishna, the CM was keen. Mr Vijayabhaskar, the commissioner of school education, took it as a personal mission with enormous commitment. He spent a lot of time on the project. 

8. Director and senior officers of DSERT were not interested. They kept away.

9. So the burden fell on me and I knew the pitfalls, but being foolish,I accepted.

These understandings were useful in our decisions.Based on the above, we decided to go total outsourcing to reputed companies - a different approach. We wanted to design the program to the last detail- computer configuration, staff requirements, topics to be covered, evaluation methodology, payment approvals, etc. We also decided to get the infrastructure- computer room, power supply, telephones- ready before hand. These decisions helped us to make the program a success.

                18. the status of silicon valley of India for Bangalore

For the first time, we proved to the world that we can do it. There was great skepticism in India and the world that we could not do a major multidisciplinary project involving many latest technologies interconnecting many software pieces and networking thousands of computers. I was even mocked at when I said that a wide area network was feasible in India. Even Dr. Seshagiri,DG,NIC didn't believe me. Mr S S Murthy who was the boss of power systems in CEA questioned me on this. I said,' we have technology, competent engineers, and a slow network. Interconnection is possible.' But Seshagiri understood the importance of integration of computers and communications. But it was early days.

The state bank project by TCS brought in a positive outlook. Mr Bala of TCS managed the project efficiently.

Similarly, the syndicate bank also went in for core banking by 2000.Mr Samba murthy was the GM in charge of the project. Syndicate bank used the city bank core banking software iflex. Infosys also developed Finacle software used by many banks.

The period 1995 to 2000 was a period of rapid development in application software and IT. India graduated in a big way to large software systems and also adopted quickly without time lapse on the latest developments in internet, web, HTML, Java, LAN,WAN, cyber security, data centre etc.IT systems became complicated. We moved into an era of large integrated and complex systems. The expectations by customers shot up. They wanted- good performance, affordable costs, maintenance, security, continuity, reliability,agility and changing functionalities, adaption of new concepts like net banking, mobile banking,etc.

When I taught software engineering in the early eighties, these user demands on software looked theoretical. But by the mid nineties, these became practical necessities and became implementable through an enterprise architecture.

Indians changed completely. You saw a resurgence. We saw bright IIT,IIM students jumping into this challenge with ease.I found most engineers in many industries - both hardware, networking, security,software and operations- hardworking and eager to learn. There was a sea of change in India. We produced confident, quick to learn and adopt people who were willing to work hard and for long hours. Our engineers accepted challenges. This was a transformed India, no one talks about. I was in the front seat observing, watching and helping in this transformation. I was involved in about hundred plus major projects in several governmental and private organizations, hospitals, banks and educational institutions.

By 1995, India embarked on data centres. Tata VSNL ,Sify and Reliance started building and operating data centres in the country. The culture of hiring space in data centres was quickly accepted and adopted. Most organizations and banks kept their servers in data centres.

So India was ready to take a leadership role in IT services.Y2K hastened it.

                           

           19. Government approach and support to computerisation

This was the key for the rapid growth of IT in Bangalore and India and India taking a lead role in IT services in the world.

During the sixties, the labor in LIC and railways opposed computers and didn't allow its use in government or factories as they were told that automation will kill a large number of jobs.

During Indira Gandhi's time, it was the anti-computer attitude of government that delayed our progress by several decades, not benign or ignorant neglect. Recall that Prof Nag, a good friend of mine, was removed as the chairman of the Electronics commission because he gave licenses for manufacture easily. That happened in the Rajiv Gandhi era. 

The anti computer policy of the government eased by mid 1980s when Rajiv Gandhi took charge and when PCs manufactured in India,,were available in large numbers at low prices in the market. So most officers felt the potential of the computer not fully but to the extent that it had its uses in computation. They didn't understand its potential fully. Even then TCS had problems of importing computers. TCS brought an IBM mainframe for some customer to India and located it in SEEPZ export zone and used it for a foreign customer. They couldn't dispose of it easily later. That was the rigidity.

Fortunately, Karnataka had a long history of electronics friendly approach. It became computer friendly in the seventies. We set up the first government computer centre in early 1970s. It ran several applications. Its major task was to rank applicants for engineering admissions and later to allot them to colleges. So everyone liked computers here.

But when bureaucrats became familiar with IT, they played another role of real estate in IT and corruption. They became know all, but still did many activities to take computerization to all corners of the government. We computerised the commercial taxes department in the late eighties. We streamlined computer purchases by introducing rate contract.The bureaucrats realised the power of computers in administration and its capability to control the people.

Let me give you one example to illustrate this. In 1987 or so, Mr Ramakrishna Hegde was the CM of karnataka. The PMs office installed a computer by HCL by then. Mr Hegde also wanted a computer in his office. I knew both Mr Balasubramanian, secretary to CM and Mr Gokulram, deputy secretary very well. I had to decide on the computer. So I asked Mr Gokulram on the purpose of the computer. The answer opened my eyes. He said, " many politicians pester the CM on transfers. So he decided to issue transfer orders using the computer and tell everyone that the computer is doing the transfers. He has no role in it." Actually, transfer orders were input into the computer and printed out. But it was helpful for the CM to run the government.

But by and large, the governments followed a helpful attitude. They realised the power of IT by mid or late 1990s. RBI pushed the banks to go for core banking. By 21st century, IT was bigger than the government. Government bowed to IT. Passports, taxes, aadhaar and UPI are good examples.

              20. Major learnings from these developments

i. There are a large number who loved learning about new things like computer, software and internet, experimented with them and created applications. 

ii. Most people had reasonable logical and thinking capabilities and a strong and long history of mathematical thinking. So they got into becoming good programmers. 

iii. Indians had good memory power. So they retained a program in memory, remembered parts. It helped in debugging and writing changed codes. That was what helped in the successful implementation of many large software like core banking ones.

iv. Indians weren't afraid of changes happening fast in the computer field, but pored over the manuals to use new operating systems, linkers, loaders, tools etc. I saw most associates at TCS in the eighties wanted experiences with many systems. They were keen. It pushed TCS into the unknown areas easily and established its successes.

v. Indians established a new working culture away from the old routine and boring office work. This new era excited them and challenged them. It has nothing to do with a company. Many in HAL, a public company built expertise in the 1960s and moved seamlessly from scientific computing to commercial computing by 1970. Many in Tata group, a private company also programmed the computer at TIFR to solve power system problems. I saw engineers from Maharashtra electricity board writing load flow programs in the early seventies. Most research organizations got into computing by 1970 itself. Hundreds to thousands were using computers in the seventies and the number increased exponentially in the early eighties to hundred thousands. That growth wasn't seen anywhere else in the world. While most US universities were teaching computer science, the scale up as seen in India didn't happen there or in Europe. Programming per se wasn't treated with respect as a profession.

vi. All these led India into the services world with ease and occupying a major position for several decades seamlessly moving to new technologies with speed.

That is the story as I saw of Indian journey in software and IT.