Coming together of the two Trillion Dollar economies – How India and Australia can help each other
Murthy
The following is the transcript of the Richard Larkins Oration, Monash University, Melbourne May 10, 2011 by Narayana Murthy Chairman, Infosys Technologies LimitedBangalore, India.
Your excellencies, distinguished guests, and my young friends, it is a privilege to be in the country that has produced several heroes and celebrities like Richard Larkins, Germaine Greer, Albert Namatjira, Fred Hollows, Victor Chang, David Unaipon, Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson, Jessica Watson, Teddy Sheean, Don Bradman, and Steve Waugh. Australians are indeed aspirational for all of us – daring, sportive, competitive, brilliant, compassionate, innovative, hard-working and committed to excellence in whatever they do.
It is a great privilege to deliver the first Richard Larkins lecture at this famous university. Professor Richard Larkins has been an excellent academician and an efficient administrator. His contributions to research in Diabetes and Endocrinology are well-known and are highly respected. His ideas on the need to reduce over-regulation of higher education and on the need to increase funding and autonomy for universities in Australia are extremely important to every nation aspiring to strengthen the foundations of higher education. He believes that ‘no institutions are more important to the future of Australia than her universities’. His advice is important for any nation, especially for a developing nation like India. Among his many achievements, his personal examples as a caring clinician, and a teacher and mentor of students are exemplary. In addition to his enormous contribution to medical and social policy development in Australia, Professor Larkins has made a profound impact through advising on medical training and health policy development throughout the World. In recognition of his contribution to medicine and health, Professor Larkins was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2002.
Universities don’t just provide education and promote research. They are the pillars of successful and inclusive economies. Monash university is a great example of such a contribution with well-known researchers like Richard Larkins, Edwina Cornish, Owen Potter, and Doug Lampard, just to mention a few. Monash University has research links with more than 110 educational and research institutions around the world, and has gone even further in the academic journey by forging ties with global universities, and contributing significantly to the industry and the world-at-large. One such collaboration is between Monash and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. I am very grateful to Professor Larkins for this pioneering idea.
Commonalities between countries
Australia and India hold a special place in each other’s heart through one of our oldest common inheritances - cricket. In India, we revere the incomparable Donald Bradman, a household name in every small town and village in India. In Australia, you admire Sachin Tendulkar, an outstanding sportsman and gentleman, both on and off the field. In recent times, our two countries have had great contests on the cricket field. I remember the Tied Test in Chennai in 1986 when Dean Jones scored a double century and had to be hospitalized immediately. I also remember the Kolkata test in 2001 when VVS Laxman scored a heroic double century to halt Australia’s impressive run of successive Test wins. Today, the cricket lovers wait with bated breath every time India and Australia play each other. The recent World Cup quarter final game between Australia and India is a good example.
We, in India, admire, love and respect the Australian spirit which is all about being courageous, inventive, creative and hardy with the ability to laugh at oneself even in the face of defeat. The whims of nature have ingrained into you the ability to get up and get on with it even when times are tough. The Australian spirit comes to life when your countrymen are battered by either nature or foe. Strangers come to their aid, usually without need for recognition, and just help out by `just getting on with it’. There are no `airs and graces’ when the spirit is in action, just raw humanity and brotherhood. Whatever is thrown at you, you take it, you laugh, bounce back, and invent something to overcome it in the future. Above all, you are decent, courteous and honest. These form the Australian Spirit, as we, Indians, understand.
Australia and India share many civic commonalities as well. Both our nations have pluralistic democracies, practise multiculturalism, and uphold religious tolerance. And as powerful democracies, we have always worked towards the betterment of the region and the world. Australia and India were among the founding members of the Colombo Plan established in 1950 as a cooperative venture for the economic and social advancement of South and Southeast Asia.
Economic Growth of India
Facilitated by the liberalization that began in 1991, India’s economic growth has accelerated to 8-9% levels now. There is optimism that India may even touch double-digit growth this year. Now, India has a rapidly-growing private sector with global aspirations and is home to over one hundred and twenty five, multi-billion-dollar firms.
It is in this context that economic cooperation between Australia and India assumes significance. India’s economic partnership with Australia has been growing steadily in recent years. India is now Australia's 3rd largest export market, up from being thirteenth in 1999. Indian firms such as Infosys, Ranbaxy and Coal India have been making investments in Australia while Australian firms like Macquarie and IAG have established JVs with Indian firms. There is a strong potential to enhance bilateral trade. The Prime Ministers of Australia and India have agreed to elevate bilateral relations to the level of a strategic partnership in areas such as trade and investment, security, climate change, science, education, resources and energy. It is estimated that investment in India in infrastructure will be over US$ one Trillion during the period 2012-17. Government of India encourages Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in building and operating ports and roads. Australian firms can enter into partnerships and work with Indian firms to build infrastructure. A case in point is Kandla port, situated in India’s west coast, where P & O Ports Australia is working in the PPP mode to modernize the port infrastructure. We need more such partnerships.
Areas of Cooperation
The central idea behind all cooperation between India and Australia is knowledge-sharing at multiple levels: between individuals, educational institutions and corporations. There are many areas where we can work together in a win-win manner.
Water, energy and carbon emission reduction are three such current, common and critical areas for co-operation. I will get to them a little bit later. There are also at least three unusual and emerging areas of co-operation, namely - sports, entertainment and higher education.
Sports
Australia has always been a fantastic sporting nation. You have done exceedingly well in water sports like swimming, kayaking and sailing at Summer Olympics. Indians have done well in shooting, boxing and wrestling. There is considerable opportunity for co-operation between our two countries in sports. The MRF Pace Academy in Chennai, inspired by the famous cricketer, Dennis Lillee, was instrumental in the development of pace bowlers in India over the past 15 years. Can we create an academy where Australians will teach our athletes water sports and Indians will teach Australian youngsters Olympic shooting, boxing and wrestling?
Entertainment
No discussion of entertainment of any kind in India can be complete without mentioning the Indian film industry. For those of you who are unfamiliar, there are at least eight well-developed film centers in India, each dedicated to a specific Indian language and based in a different city. The most prolific of these industries are the Hindi film industry, nicknamed Bollywood and based in Mumbai, and the Tamil film industry, nicknamed Kollywood and based in Chennai. India produces more than 1,000 films a year. Australia has an established name in Hollywood. The Indian film-goer knows Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush and directors Mel Gibson and Baz Luhrmann.
Can we see collaboration between Bollywood film folks and Australian film folks to produce a world-class movie with a global appeal at a fraction of the current costs? The movie could be about Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama or about an Australian hero like Don Bradman. Can it be a movie that brings Bradman and Tendulkar playing in an India-Australia World cup match?
Higher Education
Approximately 4 million children graduate from 12th grade every year in India and move on to college. Yet, enrolment in higher education hovers just around the 11% - 12% mark and the country wants to raise it to 20%. This will enhance the demand for higher education institutions in India. That is a big opportunity for Australian institutions to add value to India in higher education.
According to UNESCO data on student mobility, between 1999 and 2008, the number of international tertiary education students in Australia grew from 117,000 to 230,000 over 9 years, at an annual growth rate of 8% p.a. Over the same period, the number of tertiary education students from India in Australia grew from about 3,600 to over 26,000 in 9 years at an annual growth rate of 25% p.a. The education industry in Australia is estimated at $17 billion annually of which Indian students today contribute about $2 billion.
Australia is a country of only 21 million people. How many more international students, Indian or otherwise, can Australia absorb into its tertiary education system? And when these students graduate, will they be able to find at least two to three years of practical training in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane before they make their next career move? This is a difficult question, given the current heated climate. With expected changes in Indian policies in higher education, I would hope that Indian students will not have to travel to Australia for higher education, and that we will see greater physical presence of Australian colleges in India and a greater intellectual exchange between top Indian and Australian universities.
Indian universities can partner with Australian universities in joint faculty research and curriculum design. The collaboration between Monash University and IIT Bombay (IITB) is a good example. In November 2008, IITB and Monash University came together to create a unique joint venture (JV) research academy aimed at enhancing research collaborations between Australia and India. The academy, which already houses over 60 Ph. D students, aims to grow to a size of 300 Ph. D students and 30 Post Docs in the next few years. This initiative is the brainchild of Dr. Larkins, Dean Sridhar and Prof. Mohan Krishnamurthy. We must all be grateful to them for their foresight and generosity in bringing these two wonderful institutions together.
In the last few months, India has taken a proactive approach in forging international academic ties. I welcome the initiative by the two countries to constitute the India-Australia Education Council. This council will bring together government, academia, business and industry of both the countries to further bilateral collaboration in the education sector.
Collaboration in higher education and research is particularly important as it is the pivot for success in tackling three current, common and critical challenges for the nations: water, energy security and carbon emission reduction. This is where Australia is strong and can provide a helping hand to India. Your achievements in research are stupendous. Let me recount a few. Australia has led the world in medical technology with inventions such as Ultrasound technology, Bionic ear, Plastic Spectacle Lenses, Electronic Pacemaker, multi-focal contact lens, spray-on artificial skin and anti-flu medication. In 1984, the world's first frozen-embryo-baby was born in Melbourne on 28 March 1984. In 1996, the Anti-flu medication - Relenza™ was developed by a team of scientists at the Victorian College of Pharmacy at Monash University. Howard Florey shared a Nobel Prize in 1945 for the discovery of penicillin. William Bragg and his son jointly received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for their work which resulted in techniques used to map the atomic structure of crystals. Frank Macfarlane Burnet (1960), John Eccles (1963), Peter Doherty (1996), Barry Marshall and Robin Warren (2005), and John Cornforth (1975) are all well-known Nobel Laureates. Your inventions are too numerous to list here and span diverse fields like engineering, agriculture, consumer products, business and commerce.
Incidentally, these are all areas that IITB-Monash Joint Research Center has focused on. We need more and more Indian and Australian companies to be part of this collaboration to benefit our two nations significantly. Let me elaborate.Water India faces three challenges in water. They are: capturing and storing enough water; channeling such stored water to places that need water the most; and, finally, using water as efficiently as possible. India has a very high seasonal pattern of rainfall with 50 per cent of precipitation falling in just 15 days. India stores only relatively small percentage of its rainfall. While countries like the United States and Australia have built over 5,000 cubic meters of water storage per capita, and China can store about 1,000 cubic meters per capita, India’s dams can store only 200 cubic meters per capita. India’s groundwater reserves are depleting fast. Increasing population and overexploitation of surface and groundwater resources have resulted in water scarcity in several regions. According to a World Bank Study, India uses 230 cubic km of groundwater every year, making it the largest user of water in the world. Nearly a third of India’s groundwater blocks are “critical, semi-critical or over-exploited”. It is important to have a strong groundwater management system as groundwater supports approximately 60 per cent of irrigated agriculture and more than 80 per cent of rural and urban water supplies in India. Australia is a relatively dry continent. Average rainfall is at 469 mm per year, but just over a tenth of it is collected in rivers. Australia has the highest per capita consumption of water in the world. A typical Australian uses around 350 liters (L) of water a day while people from Asia, Africa and Latin America use 50–100 L per day. Australia’s water challenges may increase with climate changes. It is estimated that, by 2030, Murray Darling Basin (MDB) will have 11 to 12 per cent less water. MDB produces 40% of Australian agricultural products and uses 75% of Australia’s irrigation water.World Bank notes that the average annual rainfall in much of this country has dropped by a third since 1980. Groundwater levels are falling in Australia as the rate of water extraction is higher than the rate at which water gets replenished. According to a government report, there is a deterioration of aquatic habitats as well as a decline in water quality. Also, Australia faces huge fluctuations in river flows. The ratio between the maximum and minimum annual flows is 15.5 in Murray and 54.3 in Hunter. In comparison, it is 1.3 in the Amazon area in Brazil and 2 for Yangtze basin in China.Questions that our researchers and business leaders should ask are: Are there technologies and ideas that city planners in India and Australia can work together to evolve strategies around drinking water provisioning and delivery? Are there technologies and practices that the farmers in India and Australia can use for efficient deployment of water for irrigation? Energy and Environmental SecurityEnergy and environmental security is a key issue for India today. Currently, India is the world's fifth largest oil importer, meeting 75% of its needs from overseas. By 2025, India is poised to become the third largest importer of oil after the US and China. India consumes 5% of the world's energy demand but the known hydrocarbons in the country are only 0.5% of the global reserves. The country’s demand for oil alone is expected to increase at an average rate of 2.9 percent annually over the next 25 years. India can sustain its high economic growth only if India has reliable and affordable energy resources.India faces two important energy challenges – over dependence on imports, and rising pollution levels. India faces a shortfall in energy supply due to increased manufacturing activities, and a growing population with rising energy needs. Currently, over 40% of India’s population doesn’t have access to electricity. At the same time, as the world’s fourth-largest carbon emitter, India is under pressure to cut its carbon emissions. Currently, coal is the source for 60 to 70% of India’s power generation. This results in high carbon emissions. India must improve the efficiency of coal-based power plants and also develop sources of clean energy. Deploying supercritical technology in thermal plants could result in savings of 4 to 5% of fuel, resulting in lower emissions. Australia is well endowed with energy resources. It has abundant gas and coal reserves, and is the world’s largest exporter of coal. In fact, energy exports account for 20 per cent of Australia’s exports and is driven by export of coal, natural gas and uranium. Australia is one of only three energy exporting OECD countries. It is gratifying that, despite having a favorable energy security, Australia has become highly responsive to clean energy options to make itself an environmentally-sustainable economy. Australian’s government is working towards a target of 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply coming from renewable sources by 2020.Australia has advanced knowledge in supercritical technology and also in clean-coal technology. Can India and Australia collaborate in research on reducing the pollution of coal power? Can such a joint research project look at how to get the best out of the high-ash-content coal that is available in large quantities in India? Another area for possible cooperation is clean energy. Currently, India gets 10 to 11 % of its total power requirement coming from renewable sources of energy. Solar power accounts for just 1% of the renewable energy generation. The Indian government is well aware of the need for a diversified energy strategy and is taking several steps to ensure energy security. It has created the National Solar Mission which has the responsibility for building a capacity of 20,000 MW of solar power by the year 2022. India can leverage the expertise of Australia which is currently building the world’s largest and most advanced solar photovoltaic power station in Victoria. Both countries are lucky that they have vast expanses of flat land that receive cloudless solar radiation for most of the year. Since the seasons complement in our two nations, we could have a year round generation of solar energy – come summer, winter, dry season or monsoon! Is it possible to imagine a world in which there is an Indo-Australian energy behemoth built on the back of developing and deploying one hundred gigawatt-hours of clean, non-polluting and perennial solar energy? At 10% efficiency in solar capture, 300 days of sunshine a year at an average daily solar incident energy of 5kwh / square meter, such a behemoth would have to manage a mere 15.6 km x 15.6 km of solar capture units for the needs of both countries. I am sure there is enough space in the hot flat deserts of India and Australia for this power plant. We just cannot afford the capital investment for this yet. Therefore, our researchers will have to work on improving the capital efficiency of solar generators per produced megawatt, and improve the efficiency of power storage and transmission over large distances. India is also developing the option of clean nuclear energy as a strategic element of its energy security and is now globally acknowledged as a responsible user of nuclear power. India plans to add 78.7 GW of power generation during the five years ending March 2015. Australia holds a quarter of the world’s uranium reserves but currently has no nuclear power generating facilities. Can the research folks from the two countries work together and develop a cutting-edge, disaster-proof, nuclear power supply chain that stretches across the Indian Ocean? This has become even more challenging especially in light of what happened in Japan.Climate Change:India is vulnerable to climate changes. India is surrounded by sea on three sides while the fourth side has the Himalayan mountain range. Rising sea levels could impact the 7600 km strong coastline. Even a minor increase in sea levels lead to inundation of areas such as Kutch in the west and the Hooghly delta in the east. For example, in the Sundarbans in the east, some islands have already disappeared due to rise in water levels. Rise in temperature also results in faster melting of glaciers, putting the Himalayan mountain ecosystem in danger. Climate changes in India are likely to adversely affect her agriculture sector. The Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change published in 2007 by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that a rise of 0.5 degree Celsius in winter temperatures could reduce wheat yield by 0.45 tons per hectare in India. Another study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics noted that India’s agriculture sector will face much greater damage due to climate change than any other developing country’s agriculture sector. By 2080, due to rising temperatures, India's agricultural output could drop by 30-40%.Australia is by far the driest inhabited continent and is susceptible to the effects of climate change. According to government estimates, there will be an increase of 1 degree Celsius in ambient temperature in Australia by 2030. This could mean up to 25 per cent increase in days of very high or extreme fire danger. Australia would face the same two key challenges as India – imbalances in ecological systems and higher drought that may put pressure on agriculture. Australia has many sensitive and precious ecological systems like the Great Barrier Reef. It is estimated that four to five percent of reefs in the Great Barrier Reef were severely damaged in each of the 1998 and 2002 mass coral bleaching events. Increase in temperature creates imbalances for species such as turtles since the gender of turtle hatchlings is temperature-determined. Australia’s agriculture industry is vulnerable to climate changes. Various estimates suggest that, by 2030, drought could be as much as 20 per cent more common in Australia. The cost to the Australian economy from the 2002-03 drought was estimated at A$6.6 billion. To mitigate such impacts in agriculture, the Australian Government has allocated A$130 million for climate change adaptation and mitigation work.Therefore, there is an urgent need for the researchers from the two countries to work on the development of new technologies that reduce carbon emission and mitigate danger to our two countries in agriculture and ecology. Looking at these challenges, it is clear that knowledge sharing between individuals, educational institutions and corporations is the key for growth in the economic relations between India and Australia. We can harness this collaboration in areas of our current, common and critical needs and also open up new vistas for growth. As trillion-dollar economies with similar civic worldviews, a common Asian hinterland, and a large Indian Ocean coastline, India and Australia have key roles in the global politico–economic architecture of the twenty-first century. They should continue to work together in multiple areas at a strategic level, and not restrict themselves to just merchandise, trade and portfolio investments. I am hopeful that the leaders of Australia and India will continue to explore and commit to greater, more innovative partnerships, and build a truly substantive relationship.
Thank you.