NR Narayana Murthy’s call for India to create inventions rather than merely adopt them is also a diagnosis of the country’s urban problem: cities have not consistently converted knowledge, research and technology into cleaner, safer and more liveable public environments.
Speaking in a recorded address at the Infosys Prize announcement in Bengaluru, the Infosys founder said India had made significant progress in areas including space, atomic energy, vaccines, the Green Revolution and generic medicines. But he placed the country at a much lower stage of development in areas that residents encounter every day, including traffic congestion, pollution and access to clean and safe water.
That contrast is the central urban insight in his address. A country can demonstrate high capability in selected scientific and industrial fields while its cities continue to struggle with basic systems. The problem, as presented by Murthy, is not simply a shortage of technology. It is the failure to build a sustained pipeline from education and research to practical improvements in everyday life.
Murthy described four stages of economic development. The first is a condition in which a nation neither invents nor innovates, and does not even use ideas developed elsewhere to improve people’s lives. The second involves adopting inventions and innovations created elsewhere without improving them. The third uses higher education and research to refine existing ideas. The fourth is the creation of original inventions.
He said India’s achievements in atomic energy, space, vaccines, the Green Revolution and generic medicines placed it in the second stage in most areas, while the country’s Global Delivery Model represented the third. In making cities liveable, pollution-free and free of traffic congestion, and in providing clean, safe water, he said India remained at the first stage.
This framework shifts the discussion about urban infrastructure away from the simple acquisition of equipment or the construction of visible assets. Adopting a solution is not the same as developing the institutional and technical capability to adapt it to local conditions. A city may procure a system, build a network or deploy a technology, but the quality of urban life depends on whether that intervention is improved, maintained and integrated with other public services.
The speech does not provide a detailed assessment of individual city programmes, municipal budgets or infrastructure performance. It does, however, identify a recurring gap between national scientific achievement and basic urban outcomes. The most important question raised is why capabilities demonstrated in one sector have not been transferred effectively to the systems that shape daily life for millions of residents.
Traffic congestion, pollution and unsafe water are not isolated technical failures. They involve planning, regulation, public finance, engineering, operations and accountability. They also require coordination across institutions. A solution to congestion, for example, cannot be treated only as a road-building exercise if the underlying system includes public transport, land use, parking, freight movement and commuter behaviour. Similarly, clean water depends not only on treatment technology but also on source protection, distribution networks, leakage control, monitoring and reliable administration.
Murthy’s argument places higher education and research at the beginning of this chain. He said the transformation should start in classrooms, with schools encouraging independent, critical and analytical thinking, Socratic questioning and the ability to connect theory with the real world. This is significant for cities because urban systems are difficult to manage through standardised answers alone. Their problems vary by geography, density, settlement pattern, climate, institutional capacity and citizen needs.
A classroom that teaches students to question and test assumptions is therefore being presented as part of the infrastructure of future urban governance. The connection is indirect but important: cities require professionals who can understand complex systems, examine evidence, adapt imported models and develop solutions suited to Indian conditions. Without that capacity, public agencies can remain dependent on external designs or short-term procurement decisions.
To accelerate this process, Murthy proposed bringing in 10,000 accomplished retired science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers from India and developed countries. They would operate 2,500 ‘Train the Teacher’ colleges across states and Union territories. According to his proposal, each team of four could train 100 primary and 100 secondary school teachers annually, producing a total of 5 lakh trained teachers a year. Within five years, those teachers would themselves become trainers.
He estimated the cost at about $100,000 per trainer a year, or $1 billion annually and $20 billion over 20 years. Murthy described this as affordable for a country aspiring to become a $5-trillion economy. These are the figures and assumptions presented in the address; the report does not include an independent assessment of the proposal, its financing mechanism or the administrative structure required to implement it.
That limitation matters because the urban consequences of education policy are rarely immediate. A teacher-training programme can expand capability, but it does not automatically create better municipal institutions, research partnerships or public-service delivery. The connection must be built through policy and administration. Universities, research institutions, local governments and infrastructure agencies would need mechanisms to identify practical problems, test solutions and carry successful approaches into routine operations.
Murthy also stressed that training alone would not be sufficient. He called for greater respect for teachers and researchers, better pay, improved equipment and public recognition. His point addresses the institutional conditions under which knowledge is produced and transferred. If research is separated from public problems, or if public agencies lack the capacity to use research, investment in education may not translate into better urban outcomes.
The address also highlights a difference between invention and innovation. Murthy described invention and continuous innovation as drivers of economic power and improvements in per-capita income and living standards. For cities, innovation is not limited to a new device or digital platform. It can involve redesigning how a service is planned, financed, monitored or delivered. The test is whether the change improves the experience of residents, particularly those who receive the least reliable services.
His reference to the poorest citizens and people in remote villages broadens the argument beyond technology-led growth. A research system designed only around globally visible sectors may overlook the problems that are less prestigious but more widespread: water reliability, pollution exposure, traffic delays and the everyday cost of weak public systems. Urban innovation, in this sense, must be measured by practical outcomes rather than by the sophistication of the technology involved.
The speech also carries an institutional message through the history of the Infosys Prize. Murthy recalled that Infosys instituted the award in 2009 to support research in India. He told this year’s laureates that the prize was not a lifetime achievement recognition but an incentive for bigger work and greater honours. That distinction reflects a model of research support focused on continued contribution rather than only retrospective recognition.
However, the source does not establish how far such research is currently connected to municipal decision-making or infrastructure delivery. Nor does it identify specific city agencies, projects or research institutions that have successfully moved from invention to implementation. Those gaps do not weaken the central argument, but they define what remains to be examined beyond the speech.
The policy landscape implied by Murthy’s remarks spans education, research, public administration and urban infrastructure. The National Education Policy, which he said had begun the journey towards stronger learning and critical thinking, is one part of that landscape. Teacher training, researcher support and investment in higher education form another. The final link is the capacity of public institutions to apply knowledge to city services.
This makes the urban innovation gap a governance issue as much as a scientific one. Municipal bodies and other public agencies are the institutions closest to many daily service failures, but the address does not examine their staffing, procurement rules, financial autonomy or technical capacity. Without that information, it would be premature to attribute every urban shortcoming to the education system alone. The speech’s broader claim is that the country needs a stronger connection between what it learns, what it invents and what its institutions deliver.
The evidence in the supplied report therefore supports a clear conclusion but not a complete diagnosis. India has demonstrated advanced capabilities in selected fields, according to Murthy, yet continues to face basic urban challenges in traffic, pollution and water. He proposes beginning the response in classrooms, strengthening the status and resources of teachers and researchers, and investing in a longer-term system for invention and innovation.
What remains unresolved is how that system would be connected to city governments and public-service operations, how the proposed investment would be administered, and how success would be measured. Those questions will determine whether the call to create rather than merely adopt inventions becomes an education reform agenda, an urban governance reform agenda, or both. For India’s cities, the significance of the speech lies in that unresolved link between national knowledge capacity and the ordinary conditions of urban life.
