DRDO for “Reputation Management”

I’m sure everyone saw Amitav Ranjan’s report in The Indian Express a few days ago about how DRDO has hired the services of the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) to compile a study of the organisation’s contributions to the military sector, civil sector, industry, economy and beyond.

Ranjan, with whom I reported the eight-part series on DRDO in November last year, points out in his current report that the NCAER misadventure is simply for DRDO to “showcase some of its successes in failed defence projects that have found application in the corporate world.”

The Express followed with a stinging editorial in today’s edition that I couldn’t possibly agree with more. The edit said, “Cosmetic exercises at managing reputation can delay change, an outcome that will incidentally be welcomed by the DRDO brass.” Too, too, true. Why is it that DRDO Bhavan will subject itself to absolutely everything – including a study (with financial implications) about its contribution to society – when it should be making deep introspections about how best to manage its future? “Reputation management”. I couldn’t have put it better.

Ever since the DRDO series in the Express last year, the organization has embarked on an inspired – and in some ways, constructive – public relations exercise to try and understand why perceptions of it are the way they are in the media, and why they are so resoundingly consistent. That hasn’t of course stopped stubborn opinion about wet-behind-the-ears reporters who don’t understand technology. Honestly, that’s cowardice. You definitely don’t need to understand too much technology to understand what straightforwardly prudent, and what makes for simple pseudo-nationalistic – and ultimately retrograde – hubris. Getting an economic research body to compile what will ultimately be used as a shield against criticism for eternity is not just juvenile, but it actually serves no real purpose. I speak strictly for myself, but am pretty sure the government and the people (at least those who are interested) would much rather see an Akash or an Arjun delivered on time, rather than a statistics-infested advert for an astonishingly wasteful organization that predicates its only defences on a handful of (definitely) successful programmes.

Emerging from the screen of opacity and engaging journalists with credible, formal information is an excellent step towards building bridges – has anyone noticed how many “positive” stories there’ve been in the press over the last six-seven months on the life sciences wing, the radars, the avionics etc? Interview by missile scientists who were otherwise never seen or heard. These are not coincidences. To its credit, DRDO is serious about opening up and speaking out, and this must never once be looked at as a small step towards greater rewards. Public perceptions of an institution are increasingly potent.

The P Rama Rao committee currently auditing and reviewing DRDO has a few months left to deliver its hopefully authoritative and actionable report on revamping DRDO and the millions of little procedures that collectively make it such a sarkari experience for all stakeholders involved – the armed forces, the government and last, and far from least – young scientists at DRDO who would love to see the organization transform and reflect their own young creativity, dynamism and determination. Everything else, in most part, will follow. The exercise of commissioning studies on your reputation will only bring in that much more paper into an already bureaucratic labyrinth that is our system.

4 thoughts on “DRDO for “Reputation Management””

  1. Mr. Aroor, Arjun and Akash projects have been completed since the past year or so—-it is only the services which have delayed user trials. Besides, corruption in the army has allowed induction of the equally flawed T-90s instead of the much superior Arjun.

    Thanks.

  2. I have commented on one of your previous articles, “IAF’s purchase was opposed by the IDS”. From your article, it is abundantly clear that corrupt elements within the IAF have purposely avoided giving the Akash and Trishul a chance for user-trials since the past year and more, while furiously expediting the imports of a bouquet of Israeli missiles within the same time period.

    Contracts, negotiations, purchases for the Israeli missiles were all executed within one year. We may compare this with the endless wait for the promised user-trials of the Akash and Trishul systems.

    I have posted various news reports in which the schedule for the user-trials of the Trishul and Akash have been committed to by the IAF, but those dates have long gone. However, IAF has continued to import Deliah, Crystal Maze, Popeye at such a lightening pace, that one may be forgiven to comment whether it is the IAF (Israeli Air Force) that one is talking about.

    Thanks.

  3. Every DRDO success is a bamboo spike up your dishonest constipated rectum. Hope that within a couple of years, you lose all the crap that has clogged your innards and your brain!!

    cheers!

  4. That hasn’t of course stopped stubborn opinion about wet-behind-the-ears reporters who don’t understand technology. Honestly, that’s cowardice. You definitely don’t need to understand too much technology to understand what straightforwardly prudent, and what makes for simple pseudo-nationalistic – and ultimately retrograde – hubris.

    indeed, u dont need anything, no worthwhile education, not a single day in a good company, no invention/ engineering ability worth ur name

    all u need is a big mouth, a potbelly and a “i know better than u hicks” attitude

    good good

    the actual cowards are those who hide behind their newspaper titles and are even afraid to print rebuttals in case it exposes them for the dishonest liars that they are

    you should have been a writer at playboy or some s&m magazine, what with ur tastes and all

    defence reporting is way too much for a dishonest jerk like you

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