“ India Shining ”

A forward mail about India’s progress which I received from more than one person reads..

”Whatever may be the feelings of common man and middle class in India and also leftists and socialists ,what with rising price of essential food items, power shortages, crowded roads, high cost of housing ,water shortages etc… Business leaders all over the world are mulling over their 'India Strategy'..”

Then the forward jumps to some amazing stats.

• 9.3% growth
• 3rd Largest economy by 2050
• Youngest productive populationReal estate to be $50bn by 2o10
• .....
• ...

And all these stats/projections are from some the biggest names in the globe - Gold man sachs, PWC, Merryl Lynch.

The forward goes on to say that India is fast becoming a powerhouse in the world economy.

So??

So… “Should we not cheer up and forget our day to day problems ?”

You are right Mr Anonymous whoever you are!!

You forgot one thing though… what is the use of all these giant projections if the common man on the streets does not get anything out of it? You may be a high flying executive going places and you may proudly say that ur country is doing gr8 but so what? If the common man cannot be given his basic necessities why would he be happy? Neenga nilluna nikkanum.. utkaaru na urkaaranuma? Silar luxury car-la ula vantha athuku mathavan santhoshapadanuma? Namaku kidachathu palaruku illa nu puriyaada?

The beauty of statistics is that u can play with them as u like. Whatever may be the objective, numbers can be used to prove whatever you want by carefully selecting them. You have done a good job by projecting your feel good factor. Now let me try to do the same to prove my point-

So how is the economy growing? Scorching pace – 9.3% WOW!! Post liberalization things have changed dramatically after all!! Till now service sector and more precisely IT has played it’s part. How do you expect the economy for a country like India to depend only on Services to grow? Yes Manufacturing has grown and your manufacturing prowess is beginning to show but don’t u see that these high numbers have been coming only periodically from the manufacturing sector? Please look into the split of your merchandise exports – Why is commodities (ores and minerals) and oil (refined from crude imports) increasing so fast if it was your manufacturing that has delivered on the export front? Is this not because of mere increase in global demand for raw materials from us rather than a structural shift? Your IT growth is still based on cost arbitrage brought about by certain endowments in your favor and you need to do a lot of to sustain it and it is practically impossible for IT alone to help growth.

You were talking about “young population” weren’t you? Please go back and see ur employment data more carefully. Rate of unemployment of the same young population is disproportionately high and you haven’t utilized them. Why is self-employment increasing so rapidly (don’t tell me it is because of sudden spurt in entrepreneurship). The rate of growth of employment post liberalization has reduced especially in the rural areas and agriculture isn’t keeping pace. Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data shows a decrease in the already low organized manufacturing labour in absolute size.

Why is agricultural output not growing inspite of the fact that a major part of our population is dependent on it? If you tell me that the dependent population on Agri is reducing that is because of your neglect which has made it unattractive for those people to continue. Why would anyone come to the city to live in slums anyway? And do u think u can take such huge number of people out of agri even in the future?

You would argue that poverty has been reduced. Why don’t you look into the poverty details – officially you take 1973-74 as base and include price index which leads to… a whopping Rs 328 per month for a person to meet his daily expenses on goods and services!! Imagine urself getting that amount and then try to be happy about India Shining!!!

And for God’s sake don’t link patriotism with “India Shining” myth.. this happened when I had a heated argument about this sometime back. A person may disagree with the claims made but still be patriotic. And let’s face it how do you expect a person who does not get his food to even think of all this?

I am not an economist. Nor am I great at this kind of analysis. I have merely reproduced some stats from well known economists I’ve read over time. I would have been happy had I remembered rest of the numbers I’ve seen as well… try googling and please look beyond popular media.

Idiots travel on footboard

And I was one of them some time back…
Chidambara Vilas, Sri Krishna, Thangam, Velankanni PP... all these names will be familiar to anyone commuting in the Trichy-Thanjavur route. For a few like me these are parts of a wonderful past that would never come back. Studying in one of those self-financing engineering colleges u cannot expect all the staff to be knowledgeable ….Niraya per book-la irukuratha vanthu re-telecast pannuvanga.. atha naanga directa book-la irunthe padika matoma? So u need an external motivation to attend college and I had one very strong motivation - the half an hour travel from training center to college on foot board (mind u I am not kidding!! I had one of the highest attendances in my dept every semester :D ). I was not alone, lot many college goers would enjoy that travel. Among them was my set of friends. Couple of my friends (read kiku and pavikutti) would have already boarded in Trichy and will be sitting in the last row waiting for us. Velankanni PP was our favorite bus in the morning as it would be reasonably crowded compared to other buses and we can comfortably travel in it (athavathu vasadia footboard la nikkalaam!! mathathula thothanum... romba strain u see!!). Antha bus conductor-um namma friend thaan so no issues at all. Foot-board la kaathu vangitu friends oda kathai pesite pona… the day will have a gr8 start.
For someone who has always traveled to school two streets away the 30 KM travel to college looked very difficult in first year. As ever I started with a ‘safety clause’ from my parents in the early days – College bus la mattum thaan poganumnu. Traveling in college bus can sometimes be the worst experience with all the faculties traveling with us.. free-a irukaathu. And our Thatha driver will be using the Brake pedal more than the accelerator to make sure that it takes atleast twice the time to reach the destination. Aiya was traveling by this bus for sometime but athuku mela thaangala. So I shifted to mofussil buses. Arambathula I took bus pass and traveled in select buses that allow passes but later I realized that the trouble of traveling in them is not worth the money and thus I shifted to other buses. Initially I’ll travel on foot-board only if there was no other go but found it to be so enjoyable that I started to travel on it regularly. Add to that KKPs comedy on board. We’ll have elaborate discussions about everything there.. as if we had no other place.
Looking back it all looks a little stupid to take such risks but I cannot deny that I enjoyed every bit of it.
After completing BE it was 3 long years before I actually traveled on foot board (this time it was out of need :) )– that was once in Hyderabad – it evoked all those fond memories but it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be without my friends, without those discussions about KKPs adventures (or should I say misadventures! ), without those gossips, those last minute revision before exams.. the list would never end.. and all this in just a span of 30 minutes everyday.