Of late, I am getting sick of reading about the rise of India. I have read the usual rabble from the rabble-rousers. If I was sitting in downtown Manhattan and I read all this drivel, I might have actually believed it!
Fortunately, I don't rely on secondary information to form my opinions. I do travel to Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi once a month. The only rise that is happening in India is the rising costs, rising pollution and the rising amounts of corruption. I don't see any physical infrastructure, any social programs and any improvement in the lives of the common man.
Call me a sceptic but when I hear terms like Chindia, I gag. Even Malaysia and Thailand have better infrastructure. Check out the new Suvarnabhumi airport at Bangkok for instance. After 50 years of independence, it is a shame that India doesn't even have one world-class airport. Thomas Freidman rightly called Bangalore airport- a greyhound terminus with an airstrip attached.
Sure there's probably good things happening in the private sector in India-but how does this affect the vast majority of Indians? The big business houses get richer and the offshoring bodyshops continue to scale revenues with increasing headcount. That's it.
The wise and obscenely rich captains of Indian industry would have us believe that answering telephone calls for an American bank based in Wichita Kansas is the Indian dream.
I simply refuse to accept this.
Fortunately, I don't rely on secondary information to form my opinions. I do travel to Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi once a month. The only rise that is happening in India is the rising costs, rising pollution and the rising amounts of corruption. I don't see any physical infrastructure, any social programs and any improvement in the lives of the common man.
Call me a sceptic but when I hear terms like Chindia, I gag. Even Malaysia and Thailand have better infrastructure. Check out the new Suvarnabhumi airport at Bangkok for instance. After 50 years of independence, it is a shame that India doesn't even have one world-class airport. Thomas Freidman rightly called Bangalore airport- a greyhound terminus with an airstrip attached.
Sure there's probably good things happening in the private sector in India-but how does this affect the vast majority of Indians? The big business houses get richer and the offshoring bodyshops continue to scale revenues with increasing headcount. That's it.
The wise and obscenely rich captains of Indian industry would have us believe that answering telephone calls for an American bank based in Wichita Kansas is the Indian dream.
I simply refuse to accept this.
3 comments:
I agree on your comment regarding infrastructure (and that is the reason I like Hyderabad). If ever there is a value/food/growth chain of a city's/country's development one of the first things in it should be infrastructure. What is the point making all this money when you do not have the roads to take it home. I once had a discussion on the explosive growth of mobile phones in India when the saturation level of landlines was so low...I guess it is all about infrastructure, India is growing fast on infrastructure of the next generation i.e. digital highways, telecoms etc. but without the infastructure of brick and mortar the digital ones will only fill the coffers of the corporates...
Having said all this, Chindia is still an excellent term because the 2 countries are so different in almost every aspect except their economic growth...so if you think of Chindia without the economic growth perspective it can still lead to as many discussions as it would if you considered the economic perspective...
From the Hindu rate of growth and then the reforms driven growth, India seems to have gone into a phase of miraculous growth. 8-9% GDP growth on such a stretched infrastructure is miraculous isn't it? From pot-hole riddled highways, power shutdowns in the main cities (Bombay included!), overcrowded airports, a collapsing public transport system (just to name a few), we have everything that an emerging "power" should not have. It is just a matter of time before growth is tripped by these infrastructural bottlenecks.
However, one must accept that things are improving. Eg. bettr telecommunication services, transportation links, to name a few. But things are improving at a pace that is too slow to appreciate. And as long as keeping the Italian highness in good humour remains Manmoron and Chiddu B's primary focus, nothing is going to change.
-N
China's economic "awakening" began in the 80's while India's only really started at the turn of this century. India's infrastructure is no doubt many decades behind but catch up it will. China may seemingly have progressed a lot further in hard infrastructure but its "soft" political, social, legal and financial/commercial infrstructure are "creaking" under the yoke of economic growth. The huge dichotomy between coastal prosperity and inland poverty is also a potential political and social "time bomb". India also has huge social issues to overcome. However, assuming current rates of economic growth remain sustainable in both countries despite these huge challenges confronting each, Chindia WILL be the economic if not the geo-political relationship of this millenium. Singapore should try to be the "mouse" between these two "elephants", riding the growth of Chindia, through greater social and commercial integration of its two resident Chinese and Indian communities. Singapore's mindset is still far, far too embroiled along 20th century racial lines.
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