The man who landscaped Indian IT field

Photo by R Ragu
His life reads like a ‘Brief history of IT in India.’ He has been involved in creating every institution that forms the foundation of the Indian IT landscape, be it CMC, NIC or Computer Society of India (CSI). And, this engineer with a degree in telecommunication, spent most of his life associated with an institution which may not be the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of IT technology – the Army. A Balasubrahmanian, who retired as a Major General, speaks to Sruthi Krishnan on the sidelines of the 43rd Convention of CSI held along with Connect 2008, the ICT event that concluded in Chennai on Saturday.

“The Army had the best of electronic equipment,” he says explaining his career choice. And that is how this graduate from the third batch of Guindy Engineering College joined the Army Corps of Signals in 1950. “My mother was reluctant to let me go,” he recalls, but the fact that her brother also joined the Army made her relent. “Her fears almost came true,” he recounts. “When she was critically ill, I was undergoing a special training. I could not go because there were lots of formalities. When Sam Manekshaw saw me, he asked, why were you so grumpy? When I told him, he asked me to go, saying that my mother was more important than anything.”

An engineer with advanced training in electronics and guided missiles made him the natural choice for the first Computer Centre of the Ministry of Defence at Hyderabad in 1962. “Around 1960, the first few computers made their appearance,” he says. “Prior to that in 1954, the development of the TIFRAC computer was taken up on the initiative of Homi Bhabha. It was quite contemporary at that point of time.”

Fortuitous founding
The sixties also saw the founding of an institution which he would have a lifetime association with. “It was fortuitous. A group of users of computers met under the aegis of Professor Harold Huskey. At this meet, it was envisaged that a group of users should be formed. That was how CSI was conceived,” says the Society’s first Secretary. “In 1970, there was a labour protest in Calcutta because we wanted to import two computers,” Mr.Balasubrahmanian says, describing the start of a decade that would see him being instrumental in establishing Regional Computer Centres in cities, including Pune and Chandigarh. “There were few computers, and we wanted them to be used by as many users as possible,” he says.

In 1975, IBM left India because the law stated that to establish a presence, an Indian company should be given 40 per cent equity. “Anticipating this, we setup Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC), to maintain computers. Before that we made trips to Europe and the USSR and imported computers from the USSR. We paid for them by writing software for those computers,” he says, recounting a project which was perhaps the first outsourcing assignment for India.

In the 1980s, restrictions on importing computers were removed. “But, people started using these computers like electronic typewriters. It is like wasting food, something imported at that cost should not be misused,” he says. After retirement in 1984, he joined Indira Gandhi National Open University where he achieved another first – Distance education programme on computers. This veteran’s tryst with the world of information continues in innovations that are of use to disabled persons. “It is my belief that everyone should have access to technology,” Maj Gen Balasubrahmanian says.
The man who landscaped Indian IT field

Comments: The Veterans especially the Corps of Signals officers remember Maj Gen A Balasubrahmanian very fondly as the most soft spoken gentleman of the Corps. Everyone is proud of his significant noiseless achievements in the civilian world. Kudos and Cheers to his Signal Spirit.