Cornel,
What you have said is right, that India is the economic giant. That is why
the manufacturing companies of the world are pouring into India with
Globalisation knowing that the consumer potential of India cannot be
ignored. I have always given this example:
US total population : 250 million
Take out just one quater out as poor which leaves 182.5 million
Take out half of this figure as rich to very rich. That leaves 91.25 million
middle class population. ( say 100 million who can afford passable luxuries
like cars and things.
Take India's one billion population.
Write off half as poor to abject poor. That is 500 million of potential blue
collar work-force which is double the entire population of the US.
Take out half of the remaining 500 million as blue/white collar population
which keeps 250 million of very rich - rich and well to do.
Now take out just 50 million out of 250 million as very rich to rich leaving
behind a mind bogling 200 million of well to do.
This is almost the entire population of the US who can afford luxuries in
life and therefore the front line consumers of imported products.
And, more millions are joining in to swell up this figure, every year.
This is what I have been trying to tell Bernado & Company.
If India can control the levels of corruption which it will be forced to do,
with the way ordinary people get enlightened now a days, there will be no
other country in the world to hold India's hands, including China'
It is just that petty minds get bogged down with petty things.
b/rgds
floriano
goasuraj
----- Original Message -----
From: "CORNEL DACOSTA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Goan friend earn A-levels
Hi Bernado
A response to my post may not "merit a scribble"
according to you. Further, you then request a
definition of Indian ethnicity.
However, I took you on re your contention that there
was a connection between Goan Portuguese passport
holders and a-level results. I prefer to stay with
this contention of yours that you make but seem unable
to defend.
As to the concept of ethnicity, definitions are widely
available in texts and the internet and I may spell
this out to you when I have more time. At its
simplest, you and I are ethnic Indians. I recognise
this but you seem to have a slavish attachment to
things Portuguese and despise your own inheritance and
heritage that is historically Indian, notwithstanding
the 450 year Portuguese interlude in Goa.
Those Goans who are now students in the UK are
classified ethnically as Indians and definitely not
Portuguese as you seem to prefer. If you knew better,
you would know that the Indians do excellently
educationally in the UK and are only narrowly beaten
by the ethnic Chinese but whose numbers are small. In
contrast, the research on the Portuguese in the UK (as
workers) indicate that they have the lowest education
levels of all ethnic minority workers in the UK. Thus,
can you not see that many a sensible Goan who lands in
Portugal craves to enter the UK for better educational
and employment opportunities that are not as
extensively available in Portugal? I suggest that
their Portugese attachmnet is zilch in most cases but
this is rather unlike your attachmnet to former
Portuguese colonial rule in Goa as though there was
something glorious then, rather than brutal Portuguese
dictatorship in our own life times. Believe you me,
Bernardo, I personally experienced some of that
brutality and had previously written about it on
Goanet.
Interestingly, we know that when some Goans went to
Toronto, Canada, the children informed the teachers
that they were not Indians but Portuguese. This
embarrased their teachers no end but this scenario
changed once the Goans there discovered that they were
predominantly middle class but by saying they were
Portuguese, they were effectively aligning themselves
with the working class lowly educated and poor
Portuguese in Toronto.
If you knew facts such as the above and that India is
a potential economic giant compared to Portugal, you
might perhaps revise some of your thinking about that
despicable word you use--"ghantis" for my fellow
Indian brothers and sisters. By all means, do
criticise Indian administration, bureaucracy and
corruption in Goa but please stop fooling yourself
that you are not ethnically Indian in Macau and that
you will take your Indian ethnicity with you if you
are forced out of Macau as a foreigner and then
transport yourself to Portugal.
Regards
Cornel
