Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad
'Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad' (frequently shortened to Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad or Ravi V.S. Prasad) is a defense and security analyst and columnist based in New Delhi, India. He is also an entrepreneur, investor, and consultant with interests in defense equipment, telecommunications, information technology, electronics, and power.
In his columns for various journals since the 1980s, Ravi Visvesvaraya advocates that India should aspire to superpower status and become the predominant military power in Asia. He has called for India’s Navy and Air Force to dominate the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia. He advocates the build up of a massive military-industrial complex by India, and for India to develop nuclear weapons. Ravi has written extensively about the use of information and communication technologies by [...] groups in South Asia, and by the armed forces of China and Pakistan.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad was born in New Delhi, India, in 1960. His father, HY Sharada Prasad, was well-known as Information Advisor to Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Ravi Visvesvaraya attended the Air Force Bal Bharati School in Delhi from where he graduated in 1977. He entered the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1977 from where he earned a Master’s degree in Physics in 1982, specializing in solid state electronics. He joined Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA in 1982, from where he earned a Master of Engineering degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science in 1985, specializing in semiconductor processing technologies. Ravi Visvesvaraya further earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 1986, specializing in integrated circuit design and manufacturing. He also served on the research staff of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon under Professor Raj Reddy, working on artificial intelligence techniques in semiconductor processing.
Ravi Visvesvaraya returned to India in 1987 and set up a think tank on [...] and defense in the South Asian region, which specializes in information warfare and C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications and Computers Information, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting). He has written extensively about the use of information and communication technologies by China’s People’s Liberation Army and Pakistan’s Armed Forces in journals such as Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Telegraph, Times of India, Asian Age, G Files, [Realpolitik], and [Current]. His views are hawkish against Pakistan and China, and he advocates a rapid build up of India’s military power and counter-[...] capabilities. He has called for the establishment of Indian military bases abroad. He strongly supports the development of indigenous military and counter-[...] technologies by India’s private sector.
Ravi Visvesvaraya is also a founder of companies in defense equipment, telecommunications and information technology, and has interests in electronics and energy. Since the 1980s, he has written frequently on these industries in journals such as Observer of Business & Politics, Financial Express, Economic Times, Business Standard, Hindu Business Line, [Current] and [Realpolitik]. He is a strong advocate of the free market and for less governmental intervention. Ravi Visvesvaraya is a harsh critic of Big Government and advocates the build up of India’s indigenous technological capabilities by its private sector in order to compete with multinational corporations. He has acted as a spokesperson for India’s private sector in lobbying for favorable governmental policies. In the 1980s, he wrote a series of articles, mainly in Observer of Business and Politics as well as the [Economic Times], emphasizing the then-latent capabilities of India in software and information services. He pointed out even in 1987 that India had the capabilities to become a major exporter of software services, but was being held back by lack of infrastructure and cumbersome governmental regulations. These articles were instrumental in forcing the government of India to formulate and implement policies to encourage India’s nascent software sector, and to improve infrastructure to promote software exports. Several of Ravi Visvesvaraya’s articles were also influential in initiating the process of economic liberalization and privatization by the Congress government led by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in 1991. Since 1995, Ravi Visvesvaraya’s articles in the [Hindustan Times], Telegraph, and [Indian Express], and his appearances on CNBC and Jain Television, have been instrumental in spurring the growth of India’s telecommunications sector, and several government policies can be credited to his lobbying. He is frequently interviewed on television channels such as Lok Sabha TV, Doordarshan, News X TV, CNBC, Headlines Today, etc. and has also become a Consulting Editor with [Realpolitik] and [Current] magazines. Since 2008, Ravi has been carrying on a strident campaign against Communications Minister Andimuthu Raja in Current and Realpolitik magazines, and called for his resignation accusing him of mismanaging his ministry.
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