C'da,
>I am glad to hear it has. Question is where :-)? The following
>appeared in the Sentinel a couple of days back.
>appeared in the Sentinel a couple of days back.
Well, it has 'reached'. India has reached the world stage as a major player. For all its inherrent problems, India has been able to hold on to democracy and at the same time shown the world that it has the essential ingredients of a country of ideas, of markets, resources, and of tolerance.
The economic boom of the mid 90s laid the foundation and today India sees increased foreign direct investment (FDI), and an all time high foreign investments in Indian stocks.
In the interview with Premji (and others), he did acknowledge the problems faced by India in mainly 3 or 4 areas,
Infrastructure (roads/transportation)
Govt. bureaucracy/corruption
Communication (phones/land lines etc)
Poverty
Premji went on to add, that the Govt. would be forced to deal with these problems and correct them because the air of expectation in India is very high, and no govt. could ignore that for long.
Take the case of revamping the airports. The Govt. is now serious about this. It realizes this is must for attracting investments from overseas. The nuke deal is supposed to solve a big chunk
of the energy problem.
More importantly, (according to the chief editor of the Hindu at the interview with Rose), for the each of last 25 years, 1% of Indians have crossed the poverty line (above it). So, today we see 25% of the Indians have crossed over to a lower middle class status and the trend continues. This is a huge sign of progress (for a country written off by so many & some netters).
Today, India is no longer hyphenated as India-Pak or India-China. Now Pak is no longer said in the same breath. Its India and China. Further, China is India's largest trading partner, and India too is a major trade partner in China. Most major companies in India have set up shop in many countries (including China) and the US is not the sole market. And India itself has a huge market for its products.
And lastly, its NOT just outsourcing of tax analysts or software in India - most of the large Indian companies have moved up the value chain. They are now strategic partners with multinationals like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Kraft, Baskin-Robbins etc etc. So its now just IT and X-Ray scans.
While Nayar's article has some truth to it, it is the same regurgitation he has been spewing for decades. The new India has a completely different, but pragmatic view of the country's pluses and minuses. They know of the problems, they are now able to take advantage of inherrent skills, while at the same time make corrections and eliminating problems on their way up. Nayar belongs to the old school. Many of these journalists have listed complaints over time but few solutions have ever been put
forth.They have never been innovators and have not yet been able to rid themselves shackles of the Raj.
--Ram
On 3/2/06, Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ram posted : [Assam] India Has Arrived
I am glad to hear it has. Question is where :-)? The following
appeared in the Sentinel a couple of days back.
cm
BETWEEN THE LINES
Price of Development
Kuldip Nayar
B udgets in the early years of independence were an
enigma wrapped in secrecy. India's economic base
was limited. The dependence was, therefore, on
the ingenuity of finance minister. Crises could not be pulled out of
a hat to maintain the morale. Yet he would do the rope trick because
the government's popularity depended on that. The haves grumbled over
fewer benefits than before but realised that they still had enough.
Other people did not count in the scheme of things. The growth rate
averaged 3.5 per cent annually but it did not disturb anybody's
sleep. The debate after the budget would not be whether the proposals
had merit but whether they gave the country an ideological tilt,
close as we were to the culmination of freedom struggle.
One point that evoked discussion was the distance between Jawaharlal
Nehru's way of development, the socialistic pattern with the state
playing prime role, and Mahatma Gandhi's concept of self-sufficient
countryside without interference by the state. Over the years, the
first became urban in character and the second rural. One got
associated with the growth, however slow and slovenly, and the other
with values and idealism.
The first has manifested itself through consumerism. The other has
got stuck in simple but marginalised living. One has all the opulence
and wasteful expenditure whereas the other has all its adverse
fallout: poverty and neglect. Nehru's associates, lessening day by
day, still talk radical and they recall the period from Karl Marx to
Harold Laski. But the Gandhian followers, close to the ground, have
grown skeptical of ideologies which draw inspiration from abroad. New
India has moved away from it and the governance is directed towards
higher growth through globalization or whatever the means.
It is difficult to run away from the plazas, the malls and the new
eating places. But of what use they are or the multi-storey
buildings, big dams and foreign direct investments when at least 300
million people, more than the entire middle class, are destitute?
Those who live below the poverty line are roughly 400 million,
official figures testify.
All budget speeches - Finance Minister Chidambaram's are no
exception - applaud the role of the farmer or small man. But there is
very little left for him when the real beneficiaries have eaten from
the plate. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been promising the
countryside a good deal for some time now. But agricultural growth is
stagnant. The import of food grains is, in fact, ominous. Rural
unemployment is rampant. Farmers are committing suicide, not only in
Andhra Pradesh and Kerala but in the soya-belt of Punjab and the
cotton-growing areas of Maharashtra. It has been noticed at many
places in the countryside the students leaving schools and colleges
and opting for work on the fields.
There is a loud demand for another Green Revolution. But this may
well be wishful thinking. Farmers have no money to invest in land to
make it productive. The corporate sector, if given a chance, will
convert it into another industry, changing the very ethos of the
countryside. Land is for people, not people for land. Bhoodan (gift
of land) did not work. Even what was offered was being reclaimed.
Even in the distribution of bhoodan land, an element of corruption
had crept in. No inquiry was ordered because some important people
were suspect.
The Employment Guarantee Scheme that the government has introduced
in 200 districts is only a palliative, not a solution. The government
has yet to spell out specific schemes for employment. However, the
budget on defence and security has been increasing year after year.
The explanation is that the naxalites and the desperate people in
Kashmir and the north-east are to blame. Pakistan also comes into the
picture. Maybe, the reading is correct to some extent. But what about
the causes that are responsible for the deterioration of the economic
condition? The budget is of little help to those who are at the lower
rung. The government says that it has no money. But its bureaucracy
is bloating and the non-plan expenditure increasing.
Have our priorities been wrong? The first five-year plan which Nehru
formulated was to industrialise the country so as to lessen its
dependence on land which is a victim of whimsical monsoons. Some may
interpret it as a scientific approach. But it has been left half way.
Services have done better than industry. On the other hand, people
living in villages, India's two-thirds of population, have been left
high and dry. Nehru initiated land reforms and had to amend the
Constitution - it was India's first Constitution amendment after
independence - to implement them.
Still, he could not give land to the tiller free. All that he did
was to put a ceiling on the individual's holding: 18 acres per
family. Sheikh Abdullah in Jammu and Kashmir was the only one in the
country who gave land to the tiller without compensation. Nehru
wanted to emulate him but he could not do so because the Congress was
dominated by kulaks. The landed aristocracy still plays an important
role in the party.
True, there is a case for constituting a commission to go into the
land reforms. But does the government have the guts to do so? Vested
interests in the party will not allow that to happen. Nonetheless,
with land getting divided and re-divided among children and their
children, there is a fragmentation of holdings all over the country.
This affects food production as well. Some way must be found to
redistribute the land.
As things are today, discontentment will grow. Already, the dalits,
the tribals and the marginalised farmers are migrating from their
village in search of job. The basic fact that India must face is: it
has not enough land for the people who depend on it. The countryside
can be made attractive. The best schools can be opened there. It does
not matter if teachers are given salaries five times more than they
get in cities. The standard of teaching should be so high that
students from cities could prefer to travel to the countryside for
studies there. Not only teachers but doctors should also be tempted
to go to villages. Salaries should not come in the way. The purpose
is to focus attention on the countryside where most people live.
We talk of the good of society. Is this something apart from and
transcending the good of the individuals composing it? We may mock at
the Gandhian values. But what type of society is it where the
individual is "ignored?" Whatever name we may give it, the progress,
however impressive, is creating more and more disparities. Probably,
this is the price the development of sorts exacts. Can we pursue this
path without peril?
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