The term innovation is not defined but basically it means doing things in a new way to satisfy the demands and the desires of the consumer by taking advantage of the technology or creativity. The scientific invention or discovery of new ideas take place at the laboratory but it is the innovator who brings the same to the land. There is always a gap between the inventors and the innovators. Innovators also sometimes lacks money power and therefore there is a need to bring together, the inventor, the investor and the innovator under one platform and today many agencies are involved in doing this work where the Venture Capital Fund and the Equity Fund play a very important role. There is also another factor in order to bring an integrated development and this is ‘Infrastructure’. Thus there are “FOUR- Is” and these are, invention, investment, innovation and infrastructure. The key role is played by the innovator who knows how to make best use of the invention and the technology and thereby convince the investor about the return on capital. However without the support of the Government, the infrastructure cannot be developed by the private capital alone and there comes the need of P-3 or the PublicPrivate-Partnership. In other words, the I-4 and P-3 brings the synergy for the optimum utilization of the physical resources and the intellectual resources.

Innovation is therefore crucial to the continuing success of any nation at macro level and any organization at micro level. In the present knowledge era when the technological development are moving very fast, the consumers desire for the new product is also changing in the same pace and therefore the life of the technology cycle is becoming shorter gradually and therefore unless there is good connectivity between the research center and the marketing wing of the organization, the technology will become stale and the competitive intelligence will push back the organization to the grinding halt and may even make it non-viable as the market share will be grabbed by some other organization which is more innovative in designing the product with the latest available technology

Innovation is not limited to the scientific field. It is all pervasive at all different department of the organization whether it concerns the human resource, or production or marketing. Groundbreaking and imaginative new ideas can bring transformation in the whole organization and bring it out of the shackles of the old and invalid system. The need of the hour is therefore to build a culture of innovation in every organization. One may have a very strong team of research scientists, but the research work which is the basic seed for any invention will remain in the archives unless the same is put to use by a strong team of the business innovation team who understand the taste and the need of the customer and the changes taking place in and around the country and at the global level.

In India We have more than one thousand research laboratories under CSIR and other various Government organizations but still we depend on the foreign technology for our defence and other industrial products. Today, put manufacturing sector is unable to compete with the cheaper imports of capital goods and the consumer goods from other countries, particularly China, mainly because our lacking in the field of innovation. It is a fact that in certain areas of technology, or scientists are doing very good especially in the space science but when it comes to the basic requirement of information and communication technology, we have to depend on the foreign technology. There are few specific suggestions namely (i) Increase the research budget, (ii) increase awareness about the invention and intellectual Property Rights, (iii) Transparent policy for employee invention and reward. (iv) Transparent policy on sharing of royalty with the scientist,(v) collaboration between the research organisations and Universities with the industry and regular interface between the two through various chamber of commerce and other organisations.(vi) development of effective technology transfer office in the research organization.

The National IPR policy speaks about the IP Eco system for which an integrated approach is required for creation of intellectual property, protection, Enforcement, Commercialization and awareness at all levels in the society. We have developed a strong legal framework for protection of all different types of IPR which is in compliance with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) under the banner of the World Trade Organisation. We are an active member of the World Intellectual property Organisation (WIPO) and signatories to various conventions dealing with the IPR. However, if we look at the Innovation Index, We are far lagging behind. When we look at the industrialised countries around the World, We find that they have a robust system of R&D, both in the public sector and the private sector. In India, the R&D budget of private sector is very negligible and therefore, we have to give way to the MNCs in all sectors, be it automobiles, electronics, telecom or medical devices. The result is that today, We have no company which can command global presence. Qualcom in telecom or Google or Facebook or Cisco or IBM or Microsoft in information technology. Whether, We name any automobile company or Electronic company, say Toyota, Honda or LG or Panasonic, all these names besides many in the field of Chemical, like BASF or Bayer, all these names are out of our country. We need to introspect. Mere change in the FDI policy will not bring investment and sustainable development in the country. We need to develop a culture by involving all section of the society in a revolutionary manner. There has been enough of politics in our country. We need innovators who can bring the real change for transforming our nation and make our country a strong economic power.