Dear Netters:
This is a New York Times report of a public discussion in New Delhi on
Monday(31 19 11) hosted by India Ink between New York Times columnist,
Thomas L Friedman and Nandan M Nilekani, the cofounder of Infosys
-bhuban.
The world is flatter and more competitive than it was seven years ago
when Thomas Friedman, the author and columnist for The New York Times,
and Nandan Nilekani, the Indian technology entrepreneur turned policy
maker, coined the term “flat world,” the two men told an audience of
more than 200 people at an India Ink event on Monday evening in New
Delhi.
The subject of a best-selling book Mr. Friedman wrote after he met Mr.
Nilekani in 2004 in Bangalore, “flat world” refers to the narrowing of
differences between the capabilities of people in industrialised
countries and emerging nations. Both men said the recent financial
crisis, growth of affordable mobile phone service, popularity of social
networking and a host of other developments have helped further even
out the economic playing field.
“We are no longer in Flat World 1.0, we are in Flat World 2.0,” Mr.
Friedman said. “The biggest thing to happen in the world in the last
six, seven years is that it has gone from connected to hyper-connected.”
Mr. Nilekani said: “In the Flat World 1.0 while Bangalore was connected
to the world, a village 40 miles from Bangalore was not connected to
Bangalore,” later adding, “In the 2.0 world, because of the
hyper-connected world you talked about, now I think everybody is
connected.”
Both men, however, expressed concern that both the United States and
India face major challenges, particularly in their education systems,
to flourishing in a vastly more competitive global environment. In
response to a question from the audience about why Mr. Nilekani’s
children studied at colleges in the United States rather than in
India, he said Indian universities did not offer the kind of liberal
arts programs that are widely available in America. He also said there
were too few universities in India. “The fact of the matter is we need
to dramatically increase our higher education capacity,” he said.
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