Reality Bites Hard V....Old Tradiitons... Old Curses

Yes in some ways India is really going places these days. But along with the new generations point of view, there are the old curses that we have been forced to put up with and with politics making it a more ugly and grim picture...... casteism in India..... and the fallout is still felt loud and clear even today..... it is being promoted by young minds... a section of which are being applauded as they are instrumental in bringing India to where she is right now.
I was completely dumfounded to read this article (Caste wars in AIIMS):

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070026330&ch=9/16/2007%2011:22:00%20PM

And another raging example which is currently grabbing the headlines is that of Ram Setu which underline the ugly nexus between religion and politics... hampering the highlighting of the real issues like ecological damage in case the setu is modified and dampening the growth of trade.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx?id=17125 (Video on We, the people episode aired on September 16, 2007)

Reality Bites Hard - IV - Isn't it in-evitable?

For how long should we keep the tinted glasses on and pretend that India is well on its way to becoming a super-power and is poised to become a force to reckon with in world economy. In various articles in this blog I have clearly and concisely discussed why this is a fallacy... a dream that would require major re-organization and restructuring for it to work as it should. And there are miles to go before we acheive the dream that we claim is already fulfilled.

It is to be noted that news channels like the BBC have started questioning the claim that India is making.... isn't it time that someone did so? In an article where it discussed the booming retail market in India and the mushrooming of elite stores selling fresh vegetables and fruits for the growing Indian middle class, it also highlighted the plight of the un-educated marginal road-side fruit vendor who got directly hit by the opening of such stores. To read the complete analysis click here.

So, India's maladies might as well become the reason for its failure to becoming a super-power in the near future. The great divide between the middle and upper classes and the lower classes is very significant. The lack of education has been poined out as the major cause of this divide. So inspite of being such a populous country there is serious lack of skilled labor to support the mushrooming of MNC's who are ready to put up base in the Indian sub-continent. Click here to read a very well written article on the subject.

The BBC is talking about it. Some of the most knowledgeable people are also talking about it. How long would it take the whole world to talk about the fact that Indians had been grossly over-rated and that the state of the infrastructure in India does not warrant such huge expansion?

Isn't it time we really start doing something to save our dream????

Reality Bites Hard - III - Indian IT Hotspots - Are we really ready?

India has been one of the major hotspots for multi-nationals to setup base for their back-office work. Bangalore has been a favorite destination for these multi-nationals. But these days the there is a very grim picture coming to out where in Bangalore's lack of infrastructure is making multi-nationals looking further into other cities within India. This article published on the BBC tells a very grim story.

IT companies are looking towards Hyderabad and Kolkatta for spreading their wings further. And in the process of attracting more MNCs to India, the Government of India has identified Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the entire length and breadth of the country. These SEZ are a point of concern since they eat into quite a bit of fertile agricultural land of the farmers. Some farmers are protesting like the ones in Nandigram, West Bengal. But other farmers are simply making huge amounts of money by selling their lands. Suddenly all farmers in the outskirts of all major cities like Hyderabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad have struck it very rich. Land prices in these areas have escalated beyond imagination. You can spy a couple of brand new vechicles like scorpio, tata inidica etc on roads that are not wide enough to hold these vehicles and are majorily kuccha in nature. Posh houses, cars and luxuries have made in-roads in areas lacking in basic nfrastructure like 24 hour water and electricity supply. If the basic infrastructure is not taken care of then each of these 'cities' including Chandigarh will head in the same direction that Bangalore is heading towards.

Wont the MNC's over a period of time simply become fed up with all the red tapism and beurocracy that exists in the Indian sub-continent and simply go elsewhere????? (Just to point out a simple example....India is closer to some countries that it bids for to export foodgrains to. But it looses the bid everytime.... to Chile... all the way around the world.... and the reason... that despite the huge difference in distance to be covered while exporting the total cost of exporting from Chile is much cheaper than exporting from India......)

So should we not really think about improving the basic infrastructure of the cities before trying to attract more multi-national organisations to setup their base here. Water, electricity, roads, hotels, telephones, internet connectivity..... the list of infrastructural improvements that has to be done to justify and encash on foreign investement seems to be endless. Correspondingly, India has to increase its base of skilled labor force too to cater to the demands and requirements of the multi-national companies.

Time to think hard and act faster... dont you think? Can we really afford to miss the oppurtunity to give useful employment to the un-employed millions in India?

Reality Bites Hard - II - Uttar Pradesh...... Is it really Uttam Pradesh?

In a previous blog I had mentioned that what an irony it actually is that Uttar Pradesh claims to be Uttam Pradesh.

They even convinced Amitabh Bachhan to endorse the fact.... the irony being that he claims that UP is Uttam since ...'jurm yahan kam hai'. The UP government has published a 112 page document that claims why Uttar Pradesh as a Uttam Pradesh.The following links are not 112 page long and therefore for many it will not hold the same weightage... but can they be denied?????

a) UP against it

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/SUNDAY_SPECIALS/Special_Report/Up_against_it/articleshow/1872296.cms

b) Hopes runs dry in fields

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/SUNDAY_SPECIALS/Special_Report/Hope_runs_dry_in_fields/articleshow/1872279.cms

After reading these can you deny it????

Reality Bites Hard - I - When will we acknowledge the reality?

Every one loves to dream... dream to acheive big things in life and make a considerable impact on things that matter to them most. And we hope to acheive the dream. But is it not necessary that for the dream to be acheivable one needs to be aware of certain hard facts and also be willing to deal with them? In other words, don't you think that dreams which have their feet planted on firmly on the ground are more acheivable?

Indians have also dreamt a dream. A dream to be one of the super-powers of the world. We claim to have nearly acheived the dream. We have witnessed that India is claiming to have arrived on the global scene with a huge bang. But have we really? Most of the articles published on this blog previously has pointed out this very fact.

Recently, I had a chance to read an article by Pankaj Mishra. He writes literary and political essays for the New York Times, the New Statesman etc etc. Although the article penned by him - The Myth of New India - is dated July 6, 2006, I feel that it still holds good. Here are some excerpts from this article that I think hold significantly true even today:

"Since the early 1990's, when the Indian economy was liberalized, India has emerged as the world leader in information technology and business outsourcing, with an average growth of about 6 percent a year. Growing foreign investment and easy credit have fueled a consumer revolution in urban areas ................. "

"................. the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa ..... even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106."

"Nor is India rising very fast on the report's Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day. "

"Malnutrition affects half of all children in India, and there is little sign that they are being helped by the country's market reforms, which have focused on creating private wealth rather than expanding access to health care and education. ..... and facilities for primary education have collapsed in large parts of the country ........."

"The potential for conflict — among castes as well as classes — also grows in urban areas, where India's cruel social and economic disparities are as evident as its new prosperity. The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy. "

"No labor-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports. ........"

Some very hard hitting facts... but can anyone of us refute them???? I agree that there have been some amount of progress that has been enforced by the urban middle class these days but is it enough? Is'nt this progress restricted to only a select few?

Is'nt it time to review our dreams and our claims to have acheived our dream???