India's richest man offers free 4G to one billion people
I was recently reading an article about James Watt, and his steam engine. It&#x27;s a remarkable story.<p>I&#x27;m reasonably intelligent, but I&#x27;m pretty sure that even if I was given his tools and his blueprints, I would never be able to construct an actual working steam engine (input burning coal, output rotating shaft).<p>This got me thinking about how in India (I&#x27;m Indian), we don&#x27;t have any of the older technology. We don&#x27;t actually know how to construct a steam engine, or an internal combustion engine, or an electrical engine from scratch. All the key components are imported from Japan, or Germany or the U.S. As a child, my little toys with electrical or gas motors (RC airplanes) in them were all imported.<p>I think there&#x27;s a lot of focus on software because it&#x27;s actually easier to tinker with. All one needs is a PC and internet. I suspect there are lots of mechanically inclined Indians who would love to work on motors, engines, stuff that makes shafts rotate. But we simply don&#x27;t have the basic tools and infrastructure to tinker with those.<p>I guess what I&#x27;m saying here is that while it&#x27;s very good that there&#x27;s more internet infrastructure being laid out in India. I wish someone like the Ambanis would lay out infrastructure that could allow for tinkering with older technology as well.