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India needs a more decentralised development model that takes R&D investment and sophisticated manufacturing beyond major cities to the district level, creating high-quality jobs in rural areas and reducing the need for young people to migrate to urban centres, Zoho Co-Founder and Chief Scientist Sridhar Vembu said on Wednesday.
Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of Zoholics India 2026, Vembu said R&D-led employment and sophisticated small-scale manufacturing could play an important role in driving rural development. R&D jobs also can drive rural development by investing in sophisticated smaller scale manufacturing, he said. Vembu further stressed the need for greater investment to build domestic capabilities across critical technologies, beyond artificial intelligence. I wouldn't say change as much as, see, the current focus on R&D is very welcome. We need a lot more R&D investment so that we master all of the critical technologies we depend upon. That is not just AI. However, Vembu pointed out that the R&D push remains relatively limited in rural districts and called for a more decentralised approach to economic development. We have to have a much more decentralized model. It also to help our own cities, because otherwise all the youth have to migrate to Chennai or Bangalore or Pune or Mumbai or Delhi to get the best jobs, he noted. We have to that is the one thing that I would focus on decentralized development model, he said, stressing, We have to focus on district level development. He also acknowledged concerns over technology-led job disruption, saying, Any technology induces fear. However, he stressed that people can reinvent themselves by retaining their critical thinking skills and flexibility. Jobs will happen, but we have to be ready, skilled, adaptive to get the jobs, he said. On the global economic and geopolitical environment, Vembu said India has the resilience to continue growing despite ongoing conflicts, while arguing that the country should increasingly rely on its large domestic market rather than depend solely on an export-led growth model. What we cannot do is simply just say we will only export the model that even China practiced, it's not really readily available because the West is not will not repeat that whatever they did with China. But the good news is we have a vast domestic market that can absorb our own production. So we we can have a much more domestic centric growth model, he noted. (ANI)
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