Mr Vittal, who was delivering the 14th Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial IFFCO Lecture in the Capital on Saturday, said that such an effort will boost the applicability of our indigenous technologies. He also said that the second strategy for boosting indigenous technologies should be to amend the Patent Act, 1970, for making it completely in tune with the intellectual properties rights (IPR) regime, approved by the WTO (World Trade Organisation) Mr Vittal said, such amendments to the Patent Act will give sufficient confidence to the foreign companies and multinationals to use the brains available in Indian labs to come up with joint development of technologies.

There should also be a definite strategy for marketing indigenous technology in the country.He said that if this three-pronged strategy is adopted, it can boost the applicability of indigenous technology to the desired level.

Describing the core competencies of India, Mr Vittal highlighted the capacity to survive and manage a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society, capable of running a democratic system and of absorbing and implementing technologies on a massive scale. He lauded the late Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru's vision, of laying the foundation for a technology age. He said that today's advancements in IT and other fields were rooted in his vision.

Thanking Mr Vittal for his thought provoking address, the Iffco MD, US Awasthi, agreed that India should think globally and act locally for the development of the country.