Why India still remains a developing country .. an eye opener !

On July 17, 2009, in India thoughts, Random thoughts, by Swapnil
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This was forwarded to me by one of my colleagues and I thought it was worth putting it on my blog. I do not know the original author of this post so can not divert the credits to him / her unfortunately.

Anyways, an interesting perspective and worth a read though.

Old Story (global Version):

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs, Come, winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. And the Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Indian Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up  supplies for winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant’s a fool and laughs; dances: plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls  a press conference and demands to know why ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN, show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to the video of  the Ant in his comfortable home with a table  filled with food.

The world is stunned by sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of  the Ant’s house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Mayawati states this as ‘injustice’ done on minorities.

Amnesty International and Ban ki Moon criticize the Indian government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace of prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for ‘Bengal Band’ in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian railway trains, Aptly name as the ‘Grasshopper Rath’.

Finally, the Judicial Committee  drafts the ‘Prevention of Terrorism  Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA], with effect from beginning of winter.

Arjun Singh makes ‘Special Reservation’ for Grasshoppers in the Educational Institutions and in Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it’s home is confiscated by the government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ‘A Triumph of Justice’

Lalu calls it ‘Socialistic Justice’.

CPM calls it the ‘Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden’.

Ban Ki Moon invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Moral of the Story

Many years later …. ….

*The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley .

*100s of Grasshoppers  still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India

and …

As a result of loosing lots of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India still remains a developing country …!!!

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India’s disastrous World Twenty20 campaign .. what went wrong and way ahead?

On June 16, 2009, in Sports thoughts, by Swapnil
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I would just like to summarize India’s campaign in the ICC World Twenty20 in one word – Self-destruction !

Mr Cool & the captain of the team Mr Dhoni led from the front to ensure that the campaign is ended in a disastrous mode. Another defeat at the hands of South Africa put a final nail in the coffin, which was already prepared when India lost to England in the second Super Eight game earlier.

dhoni During the entire course of the tournament, it always seemed like very few players actually cared about win. It was visible from the appearance of quite a few players and most notably Dhoni, that they are playing in a pub tournament and not in the world cup. Many decisions that were taken were weird and lacked common sense. The matches were lost from a potential winnable position.

I am sure there will be an angry reaction back home in India after the performance of the team in this campaign.

I just hope, the public do not go insane and do silly things.  After all, we need to keep in mind that this is a game and not a matter of life & death.

Apparently the effigies of the players have been burnt back home and people have come out on streets protesting the way the team performed. Just the reflection of the hope everyone carried and how the hope came down crashing during last 2 weeks or so.

There were few bright sparks in the performance, most notably from Yuvraaj Singh, who once again showed that he carries the team on his shoulder and India always do well when he plays well. It was unfortunate that he did not get proper support from other so called marquee players when we needed most.  Rohit Sharma did well and did not let the absence of Sehwag be an issue at the top.  Ojha also enhanced his reputation during this tournament as a sensible spin bowler.  So its not all doom & gloom for India and we can look forward to build a good team again.

Few visible problems that would require BCCI to intervene and sort out would be to get rid of the supposed rift within the team. It was really unfortunate to see in today’s match the rift between Dhoni, Yuvraaj. The run out of Dhoni was a complete lack of coordination and when Harbhajan got Dhoni as his runner, the following 3-4 balls turned the game upside down and got India virtually out of the game as Harbhajan & Yuvraaj both got out.  The way the entire Sehwag episode was handled and he was sent back, looked suspicious to everyone.

I would hate to say that, but it is apparent that success has got into the head of Dhoni and he looked too overconfident in the decisions he took during the matches at various stages. I just hope its not true and as a true fan, would believe in the theory of IPL taking its toll on them and having fatigue as an issue. 

I would hope this defeat will put some sanity in the heads of BCCI authorities and selectors about the policy they need to follow in future tournaments. After all, even if the players are supposed to be professionals, you can not expect them to perform at highest level consistently week after week without having a proper break.

IPL was supposed to be a gold mine for new players to make their name in the international tournament and I hoped the IPL II to provide few. There were few really good players who players real good cricket but were not given chance in the world cup and India went with traditional tried & tested team.  The new players could possibly have played with bit more passion and aggression than Dhohi and co, I would have thought !

Anyways, enough of bashing and time to turn attention to somewhere else, where chances of success are more !

Hey, what about supporting India Women team who are into Semi finals of ICC Womens World Twenty20 and have a good chance to show the boys how its done !!

All the best to you girls! I just hope you do well!

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A quick reflection on the India Elections and expectations from new Government !

On May 19, 2009, in India thoughts, by Swapnil
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So the elections in India are over and we know officially that the Congress led Government is on the cards. Not a much change as such for common people but I have been pleasantly surprised by the way the common people in India have voted in favour of one party. This is something I think has not happened since a long time and is definitely a welcome change !

india-election Although I have been away from India for a great part of last 5 years of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) rule in India, but whenever I have been, I was probably impressed by the progress work done by them, particularly in the Delhi area where I was the most frequent visitor. The region has definitely progressed well on infrastructure front, but I think few things that the new Government needs to ponder, in my opinion are,

  • Robust internal security Plan -  After what happened in Mumbai, definitely the Indians are in no mood to have another episode of such terrorist mayhem.  Although the previous Government in power (UPA only) had formed something called NIA (National Investigation Agency) which is a national level security agency. It is still unknown what is the structure of the NIA and what procedures & powers are given to the country’s elite force (expected to be).
  • Economic reforms / development – Although the infrastructure upgrades have been planned well since the times of Vajpayee Government but this government is expected, now since they are on their own, to carry them forward with a rapid pace. The massive projects like national highways development, golden quadrilateral, river-interlinking were started during the BJP government should be taken forward with a purpose and be completed to assist the development of the country. 
  • IT & Telecommunications – Although India has long been pressing its position as a leader in “providing” IT Services to the world, its about time we start “consuming” these services within to strengthen the IT & Communication infrastructure in the country. Its such a shame that 3G network is introduced only few weeks ago in India and the average broadband speeds in India are ranked 115th in the world ! The Government & the IT ministry should be really focussing on how to improve the infrastructure and making the high end technology available to the public at affordable rates.
  • Better civilization & public rights – Although RTI (Right to Information) has gone a long way in giving the public a right to know what is happening with respect to various public / personal issues managed within Government, I guess India is still divided over several issues such as castes systems, religion & regionalism. The Women in average Indian society still do not have equal rights as Men and this is really sad to be seen in the 21st century.  The Government needs to step up and create laws that would allow equal rights to all Indians irrespective of Caste, Religion or Region.  Check out my extended thoughts on this on my blog post on Protectionism & Economy.
  • Promote entrepreneurship – Not only in the IT, but the entrepreneurship should be promoted across various sectors. We need innovative solutions that would resolve practical problems such as shortage of electricity, water, food etc., we need young Indians to come forward & get into entrepreneurship.  Do you still remember the person who supposedly developed the petrol using tree leaves ! What happened to him and his project? And remember project Rainbow that used paper to store Terabytes of data ! What about ‘Sakshat’, the $10 laptop?  We need more entrepreneurs to come forward and lead India into the new century.  Read my thoughts on entrepreneurship in India & education system here.
  • Reform the education system – The current education system needs reforms to allow innovation rather than follow up!  We need innovative methods of education rather than reading and mugging up the books, which, in practical life are of little or no use !!  Read more here..

Well, these are few thoughts I could jot down. Might be many more, but your comments are always welcome.  Do leave your comment if you could spare few seconds.

Thanks & more later !

 

[ Image taken from here ]

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Heading to India … for good !

On April 29, 2009, in Mind thoughts, by Swapnil
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So finally within next couple of months my stay in the UK is coming to an end … …

aeroplane_cartoon Having stayed here for more or less best part of last 5 years, this had become my second home away from India !

London, where I stayed for all these years been a wonderful experience to say the least. Although not as vibrant as any Indian city (read Pune), London has its own aura about being one of the great cities in the world. 

Experiences have been mixed for us during all these years some being kind, welcoming  and wonderful whilst some being very cruel and unwelcome!

Some of the good things includes the friends I collected here in the UK that have helped me during all those years. The first school of my daughter and her early early education was really wonderful experience.

Anyways, now I would be looking forward to managing my journey back and reducing my footprint from the UK over next few weeks.

Really looking forward to live a great life back in India and in my own home, I bought 4 years ago but never stayed in !!!

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An interesting debate – why do Indians do not produce entrepreneurs !

On April 27, 2009, in Strategy thoughts, by Swapnil
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In my last article on entrepreneurship I wrote about the lack of entrepreneurship and innovation in India and the root cause in the education system that was adopted over the years.

Today, on the coffee table, we had another quick debate on this and one more topic that came out was the way we Indians think ! One of my colleague referred to an interview given by Infosys Chief Mentor Mr Narayana Murthy,

Indians are really good thinkers .. but not very good doers !

By the way, the word Indian is used in the context of people “living and working” in India. This should rather not be used in the context of Indians living abroad and shining there !

Ok, coming back to the quote I wrote above, I said I could not have agreed more with Mr Murthy and I would stick to my statement here. The reason I think he is right is the fact that when I correlate it with how I (average Indian wannabe great) think and act on the massive amount of ideas I generate .. I really feel the same.

In last few months, I have been having few solid ideas in my mind and I really wanted to build some portals to drive the entrepreneurship within me.

Most notable ideas I had were to to do with Childcare in India and Educational portal across major engineering colleges.

The biggest problem I am having is availability of like minded fellow colleagues who are interested in entrepreneurship.  The job I am in currently does now allow me to have these kind of colleagues around and that have the same drive as me to do different things .. :-(

In case you are wondering what kind of job I do in IT, I am a support consultant and in my job, the only thing that has importance is problem solving and incident management skills .. nothing to do innovation & initiatives ..

Anyways, enough of my own problems and coming back to the original topic of why Indians do not make it into entrepreneurship. The root cause I wrote in my earlier post was about the education system which just enforces you to learn what is in the book and does not encourage innovation nor independent thinking. So effectively, does not encourage you to “DO” things differently. All you end up with is to “Do what is told”.

I do not completely dismiss the thinking & doing of Indian IT companies and the very fact that India has become a giant IT outsourcing destination as well as world’s back office shows you that we Indians “Do” things fantastically well “when” the path of how to do is already defined.

The lack of core product companies, innovation houses, VC funding in India shows and supports the argument given by Mr Murthy. May be Government needs to think differently here and encourage the entrepreneurship via supporting the start ups etc.

Anyways, as usual the final thinking I would leave on you guys.

Please do leave a comment on my blog if you agree / disagree with my comments.

Cheerio

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