Pathways to innovation in India: India’s policy approaches to manufacturing have failed to create the tipping points innovation needs

The sale of online payments firm BillDesk, which has received tremendous media attention because of the value of the acquisition, offers some insight into how India’s innovation system is working, and how it can be strengthened. The three co-founders met at a multinational financial services firm, but they had racked up work experience before that with Indian firms. Their educational backgrounds (IITs and IIMs) indicate that they had made it through the most selective mechanisms in the world before they started working, and had presumably received good educations there, in terms of what they learned.