Interesting Conversation Again –
is because gavasakar, tendulkar, bahulkar,.. confused that is because
sitting in southern part of India they would ask the other person “are
you from Maharashtra or from south India..?” and genuinely wonder why the other person takes some time to answer the question. They like the
principles of pheejix and their favourite character in the alphabet is Zay
(god knows where that came from). Although soft, peace loving people but they elect the shivsena n MNS to rule them.
jai hind
jai maharashtra
They are lucky enough to get Chai sutta at 2 am in the morning and a place to sit and enjoy that (without being Sons and/or Daughters of a cop!). Also, they’ve cleverly adopted a script that lets them write ‘ऑक्टोबर’ and ‘उर्ध्र्वमूलम् अधःशाखम्’ without resorting to perverted localizations. and they say ‘t’ for a ‘t’ and not th’ for they’ve separate letters!! And they enjoy a temperate weather and adequate water supply for most part of the years that lets them enjoy the world in a much more meaningful ways, which I am afraid a lot of ‘South Indians’ are not lucky enough! And yes they don’t have to take pride in ‘knowing English’ as there are many other things that they can be proud of!!
Interesting……
A forward from a friend, Harish
“The triumph of human kind is a very recent development. Ten thousand years ago we were just another animal trying to make a go of it on planet earth. Humans – and all their livestock – were barely 1% of the vertebrate biomass on the planet. Now, they are 98% of it.” Hmmm…1 to 98. What a spectacular success story. A 5,000% increase. Hey wait a minute…that’s a bubble! Yes, dear reader, humans are a sell. How is that 
Manase Letter and Reply.
After recent ruccous in Maharashtra Vidhansabha, I wrote to MNS on their website. What I was pleasantly surprised was by the fact that they actually replied to the post (implying having read what I posted). I certainly appreciate this fact. Below is my letter and reply from MNS.
नमस्कार,अभिजीत
संकेतस्थळाला भेट दिल्याबद्दल आणि संपर्काबद्दल / प्रतिक्रियेबद्दल धन्यवाद.काही तांत्रीक अडचणीमूळे उत्तर देण्यास उशीर होत आहे.त्याबद्दल क्षमस्व.
आपल्यासारख्या पाठिंबा देणा-या व्यक्तींमुळेच पक्षाची व महाराष्ट्राची ताकद वाढली आहे.
विधानसभा निवडणुकीत तुमच्यासारख्या पाठीराख्यांच्या बळावरच पक्षाला एवढ्या मोठ्या प्रमाणावर मते मिळाली.
वेळो-वेळी सहकार्य करावे ही विनंती..!
मा.राज ठाकरे पत्रकार परिषदेत म्हणाले होते की,माझे आमदार विधानसभा डोक्यावर घेतील आणि रस्त्यावर मी आहेच या ‘मी’मध्ये तुम्ही आहात याची नोंद घ्यावी.आपल्याला रस्त्यावर (विधानभवनाबाहेर)खूप काम करून पक्षाचा व महाराष्ट्राचा विकास साधायचा आहे.
धन्यवाद.
संकेतस्थळावरील इतर विभागांतील मजकूरही अवश्य वाचा.
जय महाराष्ट्र !
मनसे संकेतस्थळ प्रतिसाद कक्ष.
Quoting gabhijit@gmail.com:
Subject:Query to party
Information:महाराष्ट्राच्या
विधीमंडळातील कामकाज
मराठीतून होणे आवश्यक आहे.
परंतु त्यातील शपथ घेणे हा
विशेष महत्वाचा भाग नाही
(कारण शपथ कोणत्या भाषेतून
घेतली ह्यामुळे एक नागरीक
म्हणून माझ्या आयुश्यात
फारसा फरक पडत नाही.)
महत्वाची गोष्ट ही आहे कि,
मनसेकडे सर्व तरुण पिढी एक
चांगला पर्याय म्हणून बघत
असताना, अश्याप्रकारची
वर्तणुक ही पक्षास
फायदेकारक तर नक्कीच नाही.
विशेष म्हणजे त्यानंतर
झालेले सार्वजनिक
मालमत्तेचे नुकसान हे केवळ
निंदनीय नव्हे तर
लांछनास्पद आहे.
त्यामुळे केवेळ फुटकळ
विषयांवर वादंग
माजविण्यपेक्शा, एक जागरुक
विरोधी पक्ष म्हणून मला
असणाऱ्या अपेक्षा धुळीत
मिळाल्या तर माझ्याशिवाय
किती इतरांचा भ्रमनिरास
आपण केलात हे मोजणे अवघड
होईल.
——————————
Some questions unanswered a year after
1. Why were the three police officers not coming from the same department travelling together in the same van?
2. Is it a coincidence that ‘kasab’ who was so well ’shot’ by the camera was the only terrorist arrested alive?
3. If a single terrorist holds a place for 50 odd hours, our commando squad probably needs some introspection (or may be they were not allowed to finish it off quickly?)
4. Ironically, the guy who was home minister of the state then and sacked is now again home minister of the state. Is this a cruel joke on the people?
5. Why is Mumbai such a soft target of Terror attacks, Is it because some bollywood idiots will come to the TV and speak about the ‘Spirit of Mumbai’, thus making the whole event ‘glamorous’?
6. Why the ’spirit of mumbai’ is so overrated? I mean the people who flock the places with candles and placards, don’t even bother to vote…
Imbalances and how they manifest….
Jim Rogers is the biggest Agro commodities bull you’d find on the earth, for his logic is very simple – “I don’t see any supply coming in any of these commodities and the demand is ever increasing’. For instance, if there’s an increasing demand in crude, there’s more plantation of Corn and that crowds out Cotton, so the best way to play crude is play cotton or wheat. Of course, he’s taking the examples of US crops predominently.
Let’s look at this from the Indian Perspective. While all of us know that the official government inflation figures are completely meaningless and we’d not discuss them, let’s try to identify the root cause of this runaway inflation in food items (100, 200% YOY is runaway inflation in my opinion).
The root cause of this runaway inflation is the artificially maintained dollar-rupee exchange rate. Now people will find it hard to believe that this could actually lead to inflation in food prices. Let me explain this in a bit.
Assume that there’s a vast piece of land lets call it Indiland. In the Indiland, you can exchange Goods and Services for exchange of Blue Papers, which all the Indilanders do. So if anyone has to do any business with Indilander (s)he has to get these blue papers. You are the only one who are responsible for providing this blue papers to outsiders in exchange of their papers. Let’s say someone comes with a Green Paper and you decide that, in exchange for the Green Paper I am going to offer you 40 Blue Papers. This you arrive at mutual agreement, based upon what you think Green Paper is worth (though it is notional, its still okay). This is how Indilanders start trading with the outside world, whenever they get Green Paper from outside, they give it to me, I give them Blue Paper. (Let’s come back to what I do with the Green Paper Later, thats far more interesting). Now when I fixed that 1:40 Ration for Green to Blue, I had assumed that every year I’d have to issue say 40000 Blue papers for 1000 Green Papers. Move forward 10 years and the dynamics are changed completely, possibly thanks to the change in demographics and other things, consequently the supply of Green Paper now is 10000 Green Papers every year and I have still maintained that 40 Blue Papers to 1 Green Paper ratio. Let us see the consequences of this. Indilanders are still producing same amount of wheat, vadapaavs and motors, slightly more thanks to the improved efficiency (over the period through gained knowhow) but whatever being produced is being chased now by 400000 Blue Papers instead of 40000 as before. Some of the Indilanders are smart they say – this is excellent, why should I sell to Indilanders, I might sell what I produce to someone outside and get 40 Blue Papers instead. which is like adding Fuel to the fire. In short we are coming to a point where, there’s just too much of Blue Paper that is chasing limited resources. As a consequence, this leads to what we call ‘inflation’ – The inflation always manifests in one of the the following ways – 1. Asset price inflation (the rise in ‘value’ of Real Estate/Stocks’) which we all feel great about for it gives a notion of being wealthy. 2. Commodities inflation – The raw materials that we use for producing, steel/motors/cement or even finished food products. What we are witnessing currently is the massive Commodities inflation. Now a natural question one would ask, is Government so stupid that it cannot understand this simple phenomenon. Stupid not in the least in-fact quite the opposite, the Government perfectly understands the system and yet runs it ‘cos it does it for the vested interest of the important lobbying groups.
Now, for the benefit of a million people, we are sacrificing the rest of the billion people.
The imbalances thus created if left unchecked do lead to consequences that cannot be foreseen, the consequences could be as dire as ‘civil war’.
Now let us come back to the ‘Green Papers’ that I stored with me – The common terminology for that is – “Forex Reserves”, we feel very proud for XXX Billion dollars of forex reserves. Actually there’s nothing to be proud about, you are hoarding something thats loosing value every day, so eventually all the ‘forex reserves’ will be as useless as Tendulkar’s 175. There’s another twist to this, the guy who gave me the Green Papers initially (for he was ‘investing in indiland’) comes back to me and asks me ‘Hey I need someone to lend me Green Papers, for I am running on deficit and the only way I can finance running my business is through borrow it from someone. Why don’t you lend me the Green Papers that you are keeping with you, I will also pay you interest (in Green Papers). Of course he’s not as nice to say in these precise words.. or else you’d not lend him.. If I don’t appreciate the fact that the guy with the ‘Green Paper’ will eventually be going to go bankrupt, I am just waiting for the trouble to happen if I lend him and yes it certainly will.
The only right way for this system to work is – let there be a place where periodically (the periodicity can be as low as mlilliseconds) it is decided what one would exchange for one Green Paper, and there’s a true ‘price discovery’ of the Green Paper and Blue Paper happens. In the common terminology it is called making your ‘currency free float’. A very common argument for that is – but that’d lead to drastic consequences if people suddenly start withdrawing Green Papers from you. Possibly yes, in the short term, but in a steady state, it will lead to true price discovery, which is decided by the productivity of your land, demand for your products and services and your demand for outsider’s product and services. Well, some would agree, thats like ‘ideal world’. Let me remind them, this ideal world worked for good 2000 years, except last few decades, when the Governments across the world are running this Grand Ponzy scheme.
Now lets assume for the arguments sake that there’s indeed such a system, and thanks to market forces taking over, the recent agreement is 20 Blue Papers for 1 Green Paper, what it leads to is something very interesting, if I observe that its indeed cheaper to obtain wheat from the Green Paper guy, I might prefer to do that, instead of just relying on what wheat is produced by the farmers in my land. This does not in anyway mean that the ‘wheat will be cheap, what is guaranteed is there’s a true price discovery, and consequently proper allocation of resources for production’
Of course, will this system not have victims – Certainly there’d be victims – the victims would be the people whose business model relied on that artificially maintained rate of 40 Blue Papers to 1 Green Paper. If they didn’t adopt to this changing dynamics, they certainly deserves to be extinct, but not someone who for no fault of his has to face the consequences (‘cos the guys who are supposed to be running the show are running it for someone else.)
Now just replace Green Paper with US dollars and Blue Paper with INR, the picture would be self evident. This is not ‘technically perfect’ but gives an idea of the imbalances that are prevalent in the current system.
Eventually, the forces of nature do ‘take over’.
Analyzing the election results..
Mr. Market always gets it right – as one of my friends Harish would say it. If you’ve to follow the election results, they are always priced in by the market. The ‘charts’ were clearly showing a very favourable market result, the question was how much.. (note: This is not with the benefit of hindsight)
I had offered to my friends even before a single vote was cast that it’d most likely be going to be congress, with even a better mandate than last time, ofcourse however I kept asking myself where the numbers would come from? The reason I was thinking along these lines was fairly straightforward for me – Though there was a considerable negativity about the present government then, there was not a factor that could sweep against it, and people were generally Okay with MM Singh . The arrogance of the third and fourth front was clearly a precursor to what lied ahead for them (perhaps they were not confident enough or over confident that’d work against them.) Though I still expected BJP to do substantially better than what it did in the recent elections.What came as a surprise was the result in Maharashtra – for I was inclined towards a favourable outcome for BJP-SS vs. INC-NCP. The MNS factor was much larger than I had thought that made the results look much different than what they were.
I even told my friends the biggest suprise will come from UP and it’d either go in favour of Congress or BJP and whoever wins there is likely to make it to the poll position.
There was an easy parallel to draw between this election and the 2004 US presidents election, where everything that could conceivably go wrong against Bush was wrong and yet he managed to get elected with a record-breaking victory. The situation looked vastly similar over here for the Congress (that was one of my main thesis for predicting an easier congress win.)
My friend Harish offered me that left would be decimated in this election and he said I’d be surprised if they cross 20 in this election. Frankly, I had no idea about the politics in Kerala or WB, but he was certainly right about it.
Now lets look at the results more closely and see what ‘themes emerge’. First and the most important thing is – The national elections in India are largely Federal. Every state votes for a very localized issue and a sum total of all that happens eventually results into a national mandate. So the numbers do lie to some extent. I am not sure whether such a federal nature of election is the right choice that the voters make or if it is so, does it not make sense to look more closely at our democratic system more closely and move towards a much more Federal structure?
For the congress – First heartiest congratulations for showing the best ever performance since 1991. And most of that Credit goes to Rahul Gandhi he’s that nice-likable-can-do-nothing-wrong type of a guy and has delivered for its party and lets give the credit where it is due.Mr. MM Singh deserves his fair share of the credit for being a soft-spoken guy and bringing a credible image for the people to vote for (I’d not go ahead and call him performing in any ways.)
Lessons for BJP from this election – There’s a long list but I’d briefly go over a few very obvious. The single problem with BJP this time was – it miscalculated the elections as national elections and tried to keep projecting ‘Majboot Neta – Nirnayak Sarkar’. With the benefit of hindsight, I’d say this was a wrong strategy. Had there been a little localized efforts the results would have been notch better (though I still doubt to create any meaningful dent to congress.)
Second and it is the most important lesson – they’ve to ask themselves where’s their next level of Growth coming from? It seems like they cannot go beyond their presence in the few states.
Third – it’s much easier for a voter to shift towards Congress than other way round, that has been amply demonstrated in several elections across several states (when there’s no choice, Congress becomes a default choice) so it is of fundamental importance to make sure not to loose whatever you get. (Rajasthan and Delhi a few years ago case in point..)
Fourth – Evaluate the allies – if they are not working get rid of the baggage (and build from the ground up again and not look for different allies.) ‘cos it seems the allies that work for you eventually want to get rid of you (BJD and JDU case in point..) so you may have to evaluate the long term benefits of going alone vis-a-vis short term losses (which are not going to be big anyways)
For the regional parties – Have they lost relevance? Quite the contrary, the way they could play it is – taking a senior role in the local politics but offering a senior role to one of the national parties in national politics is important and staying away from opportunism is extremely important. You have to make a choice to go with either of the parties (or none at all) and stick to that stand forever, people don’t like jockying on different horses. They wait and wait patiently before they say enough is enough. (Ram Vilas Paswan case in point.) and the presence of regional parties in the other state is of even greater importance where one of the two national parties is clearly ahead because they keep the necessary checks.
For the next general elections though the task will be cut out for Congress, remember replicating an extraordinary performance is lot harder than doing somewhat better than last time and yet do good enough (that should be the only silver lining for the BJP.)
The task cut out for the next government is substantial (and I am of the opinion Governments can’t and generally don’t do anything useful, but they can cause harm. With the present government the later seems an unlikely scenario in the short term atleast.) and hope they live upto it atleast 50bips to the par.
To the voters at large – I am completely at a loss to comprehend the complete apathy of the voter for the elections. Perhaps to a large extent many of them believe that whom they vote for doesn’t make a difference with the government in center. To an extent they may be right, but I’d urge everyone to vote in your local elections – the corporations and the vidhansabha because, their outcomes directly affect our day to day life (Pune Corporation and the Debris problem a case in point here.)
Finally, I’d like to conclude with an interesting thought that came to my mind and an analogy if I could call it to draw – Congress is like Microsoft – they are everywhere, anywhere you go you’ve to fight them. BJP is more like Yahoo, has got an act of screwing up when the least needed. The natural Question is – Who is Google? BSP ( I know some of my friends would laugh at it) or they are still two guys in a garage?
and the credit goes to….
An interesting thought – Let’s for the arguments sake assume that BJP wins and comes to power and is able to bring in black money from Swiss Bank Accounts. Thirty years from now Congress will take credit for this, Saying “Just ‘cos our leaders had black money in swiss bank accounts, you could build the roads, generate electricity and educate Children”… Just as they are taking credit for nationalizing banks!!
Mr. Bhatia Why Should I Vote For You?
After having spent a few years living near Satara Road and the chaos that has been created by the proposed and horribly implemented BRT, it was clear that I’d not vote for anyone behind this. The mad rush with which the project was started suggested of sinister motives behind it. OBviously Mr. Kalmadi was out of choice for me (the fact that he is candidate of a party, I am principally against was enough for me to not vote for him.) The next choice was the BJP candidate, However I have decided to vote not for anyone going with Shivsena. If someone goes with ShivSena, they must pay the price. Naturally, the choice for me was Mr. Honest, Mr. Upright Arun Bhatia.
Now coming back to you Mr. Bhatia Though I have read your thoughts about “fighting terrorism” – They appeared naive at best to me. Also, your plan of changing Pune with few hundred committees is beyond me, however regardless, I decided to vote for you for I thought and still think, you are one honest man and let me do my best to not just vote, but also suggest my friends to vote for you.
To take this a little further I offered a few suggestions about campaigning and send those to you. The email address that I used – campaign@arunbhatiaelect.org was “unreachable”, I retried it with same error. Based upon my previous experience dealing with eminent people, I am used to not getting replies from them. So that was the best that was expected of you. Having the email address unreachable is not just lame, its atrocious. Inspite of this, I took this issue and posted this message on your website - To which I have not got a simple reply as yet on the website. Obviously that post has not been read or been bothered about being replied to.
So here is my question to you Mr. Arun Bhatia – If a person, whose political career rests upon maintaining proper communication channels with his prospective voters is not serious about maintaining his web presence properly. Can I trust the person with an administration of a city of 3 and a half million people?
On your website, I do not see any plan where you suggest what is the date and time on which you are going to visit a particular area. Now unlike many mainstream political party candidates (who also have other compulsions) nothing stops you or it did in the past to visit all the wards individually over last few days. I am afraid you’ve not done it to the best of my knowledge – nor there is a plan to do this. The elections are not faught sending pamphlets through newspapers and critising mainstream newspapers for banning your pamphlets. No one bans you from visiting your voters.
How many public issues in Pune have you prominently protested against in the last five years? eg. There certainly was the BRT issue, I have not heard a single word on your stand about this. So while I agree, you are one honest man, I have serious reservations about your ability as an able administrator. In view of this, I fail to reason to myself to vote for you. Can you please put forward your case beyond the usual blabberings about fighting corruption?
Etcetra…….
harish: I mentioned this caution in my blog when Satyam and Madoff news were out
gabhijit: hey chal gotta go .. later
gabhijit: btw.. how can buffett promise best days ahead?
harish: Buffet is a failure
gabhijit: now there are no known supports for SnP and Dow……
harish: its the fact
gabhijit: NOO!!!!!
harish: Success is not something one achieves and then destroys. Its the “upkeeping” and maintainance that makes success SUCCESS
gabhijit: now if you hang on too long with one guy…
harish: and he has failed miserably
gabhijit: he’s not destroyed yet man
harish: what about his buying advice when SnP was above 1000?
gabhijit: oh well..
harish: and my bet is we will see 400-500 on SnP
gabhijit: thats not a problem
harish: that’s only a matter of time…
gabhijit: finally after so much of noise DOW is at a point where Bob Prechter had called it a top!! 
harish: GS, GE, MS all will suffer
gabhijit: yes for a period
harish: but, by then his reputation will be torn apart
gabhijit: perhaps not!
harish: out? out of india?
gabhijit: no no
gabhijit: reading john maudlins commentry
harish: yes, he is good author, but, he is also chela of ur ideal Mr Buffet
hahahahaha gabhijit:
harish: 20%? that means we are even more optimistic
gabhijit: yes
harish: means we will suffer even more
gabhijit: no clue!!
gabhijit: a big bad news is around the corner?
harish: obama planning a suicide? how is that?
gabhijit: I said about “BAD NEWS”
harish: blacks are ruling the world, what can be “badder” ?
gabhijit: oh come on you racist!
harish:
gabhijit: my ass is more pro – science
harish:
gabhijit: don’t you think this conversation of ours will make a terrific blog entry?
harish: now who is racist?
gabhijit: ya.. I am going to put this as a blog post.
harish: don’t forget to mention me with my blogs list
gabhijit: yeah yeah ….
harish: btw, when r u getting engaged?
gabhijit: is there a news thats going around like that?
harish:
gabhijit: thats so self elating.. that I actually think that people care about spreading rumours about me!!
harish: but u r getting older, AND that too eithout co of women. That can age u fast
gabhijit: so much the better! or u r plain jealous?
harish: I just read in sciencemag that men who are away from women age earlier
gabhijit: o rite!! they are written by the same guys who were deprived of pleasant company of women
harish: or jealous ones, like me
gabhijit: perhaps!
Will this century belong to India?
When i woke up in the morning and logged in to gtalk, one of my friends spidya (aka GS) told me that Slumdog won 2 out of 2 so far @ the oscars. I offered him, may be they’d give everything to SMD Millionaire except the Best Motion Picture award. I was not so sure about my own not so RPOD. Then around 10.30am I switched on the Television to see whats happening at the 81st academy awards to find that I have switched it on just at the right time when the award for the best motion picture was being announced. And then I was pleasantly surprised @ finding my own predictions coming true. I considered it just prudent to take this occassion to elaborate another thought and associated RPOD to offer thats been taking shape in my mind. Let me start with the RPOD first and then elaborate why I think it might just happen. So here it goes “This century might belong to India just as the 20th century belonged to the US”.
For people who know me and my position about India, this might come not just as a surprise but even a blatant claim – and they would be left wondering what made the biggest pessimistic on India to turn into larger than himself optimist on India? I’d elaborate the thought process, what can go wrong and what can be done to realize the day-dream (well quite literally). First of all, before I say further, I do not think and would not want India to become SuperPower. People should read Dimitr Orlov’s articles here and here to find out what happens to the superpowers. I might even be taking the danger of suggesting an RRSesque picture of India where everything Indian is great and everything western is secondary. That is definitely not my point.
1. It might sound just as absurd to everyone to think that this century will belong to India when we are struggling with so many problems of our own – The internal security problem, the divided population largely looking inwards than looking outwards. But one must not forget that united states went through a Civil War just before the dawn of the 20th century. Perhaps it’d have been as absurd to think that the century would belong to the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century. But remember, the progress of United States started with then Industrialized economies investing heavily in the US.
2. The Global Recession is going to create new opportunities, new winners and will punish the erstwhile sinners. As it is evident now that all the major western “ism”s have met their fate, perhaps there’s a need for a new ‘ism’, which need not even be an ‘ism’ but broadly an outlook and a lifestyle that’d fit in the ensuing age of Globalization. I foresee in the future the World Population aligning itself to the best of the both schools of thought The Western thought (that analyses thing in details by breaking down into pieces) and the Eastern thought (that always looked at things as a whole than breaking them into pieces.) One of the best places to exploit this ensuing development is India, which still understands and appreciates the Eastern thought and has got a far bigger exposure to the Western thought, first Through the English thought and subsequently thanks to the Information Revolution and the Internet. Of course one must not be under the impression that being able to exploit the situation best does not mean its going to be the sole property of India, it is just that India is better positioned, whether it does or not depends a lot on its people. Before I leave this point – I must also mention the likelyhood of the emergence of new Reserve currency of the world – the Gold and India’s distinct advantage in having fifteen thousand tons of Gold.
3. One of the biggest Marketing departments of a society is its art and in the contemporary form Cinema is perhaps the best medium. An important reason why we see that the American lifestyle is so ubiquitous is thanks to its marketing department “The Hollywood”. You’d not make it to the top of the world without letting world believe that a person from an iron curtain country can be a super hero in your country without a medium as strong as this. India has got a potential medium that can serve as the marketing department of “Indian Lifestyle” – The Bollywood. A delhi-6 jalebiwala selling Jalebi’s on the Time Square is perhaps the best fitting example of what I mean by “exporting your lifestyle”.
4. Demographics – A country is not made by the borders, the oceans or the rivers. It’s made by the people, what made America successful was the people and their attitude. In Indians that attitude is there – to welcome people, to treat them with respect – Indians were traditionally never xenophobic. It’s only during the past century or may be little more they have developed this trait (quite unfortunately). The time has come to shred that. The well known fact about the largest young population in the world being Indian etcetra can be a big advantage to India.
So far I have discussed what are the reasons why? Let me explore what challenges India faces
1. The arrogance – The Indians still live in the glorious past and are unnecessarily proud of their 5000 saal puraani sabhyata. While it is important we preserve the achievements of our previous generations, often we end up preserving their idiocyncrasies. While it may be true a great amount of knowledge was developed in this part of the human society, the claim that it is ours is incorrect. I find that attitude largely prevalent in every Indian. Our Vedas had this our Vedas had that. While there is nothing denying the knowledge and the wisdom in the ancient literatire, it is absurd nay arrogant to have a claim on that knowledge. While the Vedas were perhaps developed this part of the world, they do not belong to Indians, they belong to humanity, you are at best the janitors of that knowledge and not the owners, which puts an additional responsibility and further more humility to preserve it.
2. Investments (or lack of) – India needs to learn a lot to invest in right things. The single most important thing to invest is in education. One of the biggest problems of the current Indian society is lack of proper attention paid to the education. The definition of right education always changes in times. The right education does not get limited to providing a free and compulsory primary education to every child, but it goes way beyond that to establish itself as an education hub. One of the reasons why US became so successful in the twentieth century was that because it developed not just great universities, but all the allied systems in place to attract the best talent around the world. While there might be great universities in Europe and other parts of the world, it is far more difficult to get into those universities for a foreigner to get into. US snatched this opportunity and created a great ecosystem for technological developments. (This is in no ways a claim that no technology development happened outside the US.) The second most important thing is infrastructure – The inefficiencies that creep in as a consequence of lack of proper infrastructure (this includes social as well.) This has been a largely neglected area and a lot really a lot needs to be done.
3. Competition – Someone looking forward for the top spot cannot be ignorant about the competition and more so in the globalized world. The main competition would come from China of course which enjoys almost all the advantages that India enjoys and of course the United States – Never ever write them down. That country has shown resilliance (atleast in the past century) to come out of every difficult position time and again. To stand in front of such a solid competition is a daunting task in itself. First, India needs to project itself as a place that welcomes talents from all parts of the world. I’d want an American, a Korean, a German, a Kenyan and even a Pakistani to think that India is a land of opportunity and this is the place where they can come and realize their dreams. This is not so easy for the population, which still cant get rid of the caste system thats not just so deeply engraved on the society, but the psyche of its individuals. This alone can be the single largest hurdle for the Indians to be competitive, someone else might take this opportunity and move ahead and India will be left entangled in this problem of its own.
I’d like to conclude this about what I observe around – Are these the early indicators?
In the last few years I have seen things around me changing substantially (in a positive way), the generation is lot unlike their former generation, is open, confident and risk taking. The politics is changing in a big way – Omar Abdulla – whose very existence is solely a consequence of divisive politics is speaking about “development”. The leaders that put development on the agenda and deliver are elected again and again (Narendra Modi, Sheela Dixit) regardless of what the media thinks about them. Even the bollywood is finally out of cluthes of the standard “love etc.” movie themes. Emergence of people from less known places to the helm of a Sport that was dominated by Urban Rich. I can witness and experience this welcome change. Will this change lead to a sustained, viable development that’d prove my not so RPOD? Who knows
May be it is written
(Note: some of the ideas in this essay might appear reflecting the same thoughts as those in Paul Graham’s essay about why startups Condense in America? I must admit, while I have recently read the essay, most of these thoughts I have arrived at independently myself. )
