TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY 75 recipient developing countries., arresting their growth prematurely.6 The socioeconomic structure of developing countries, marked by high income inequality, tends to accentuate the phenomenon. The product mix for an elite market prevailing in these countries characterized by the taste for highly differentiated and high income consumer goods, requires the import of production or consumption technology leading to an outward orientation in behaviour. This tends to inhibit the development of domestic technological capability commensurate with development goals. In consequence, science and technology are channelized in the direction of imitation at the expense of social content and purpose. In short, the existing international arrangement ' for technology transfer has resulted in sharpening the contradiction between the internal socio-economic structures of developing countries and a global framework that subordinates them. INDIAN EXPERIENCE Since the 1950s when industrialization gathered momentum with the import substitution strategy, transfer of technology to India has been increasing in quantum. Import substitution provided a historic opportunity for multinational corporations to transfer inputs, mainly technology to domestic production of those goods hitherto imported. Highly unequal distribution of income7 and an imposed elite consumption have provided perhaps the most fertile ground for the multinationals to generate surplus and accumulate it. The domestic industrialists, extremely handicapped by the lack of technical expertise to produce a variety of consumer goods to capture the potential albeit small market, found recourse to foreign technology the easiest means to consolidate new gains. The interpenetra-tion of interests of both foreign and domestic industrialists, known as foreign collaboration arangements, has been an effective mechanism for transfer of technology to Indian industries. Collaboration arrangements for foreign technology have been invariably related to the production pattern set by consumption which is determined by the unequal distribution of income in Indian society. The necessary collusion with foreign technology suppliers and the pattern that ensued the process have been extensively dealt with in the literature on foreign investment.8 This article confines itself to the main features of transfer of technology to Indian industries. But special attention may be paid to three specific aspects: 1) Cost of technology in the light of recent data; 2) inappropriateness of foreign technology; and 3) the character of industrial structure in a situation of continuous technology transfer. In this context, it is quite appropriate to mention the findings of a few studies on import of foreign capital and technology into Indian industries.9 These studies consider the transfer of technology to India in the framework of an imperfect world market for technology that under-lined the unfavourable terms and prohibitive costs at which the transfer