Passionate About India

Joseph R. Biden Jr. just became the first US Vice President to visit India in three decades. While India considers this to be a proof of its popularity and widespread influence, there is The People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) proving us all wrong. PLA crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) into India for the nth time this year alone! That China is bullying India has become more a common headline these days – and during a time when India is busy with some ineffective verbal tactics to cajole and persuade its adamant, powerful neighbour. But all along, we’ve seen China adopting the carrot and stick approach while dealing with our nation. How have we reacted? Actually, the more pertinent question is – have we? History stands testimony to the fact that India – more often than not – chooses to sit back and take the blow (or many blows-after-many!) than being proactive in its foreign policy. Is there a wiser justification to the fact that even a much smaller (and weaker perhaps) ...

India had been one of the fastest growing economies till early 2011. For almost half a decade before that, along with China, India was clocking over 8 per cent GDP growth annually and talks among analysts were ripe that India, along with its neighbour, would spearhead Asia’s rise in the new world order of the 21st century. However, things have gone awfully wrong for us ever since! The growth rate has kept plummeting, ebbing now at less than 5 per cent in the previous financial year; even till date, there is little light at the end of the tunnel. Two of the foremost reasons for such bottoming out are dried up investments and a rising current account deficit, which are becoming worse with each passing year as the burden of the global slowdown becomes heavier. While our current account deficit has reached a record 4.8% of GDP in FY 2012-13, as per a recent chamber of commerce report, new investment proposals from domestic and foreign entrepreneurs have dried up by 75% as compared to the ...

The Supreme Court’s recent landmark judgment, which ensures that convicted politicians will now get immediately disqualified from contesting in elections or holding office, marks an end to almost a two decade long tug-of-war between political parties and the Election Commission over the right of electoral candidacy to tainted candidates. While it is surely a landmark judgment and it’s not fair to be critical about everything, yet, the board is split into equal halves in their opinion towards the SC ruling, as pros and cons of the judgment seem to weigh equally. On the one hand, just because a case is hanging against a candidate, it is grossly unfair for the person to be assumed disqualified (due to the hyped up fear of future conviction) – as the allegation could well be fabricated. As it often happens in the political domain, a candidate could be debarred based on false allegation brought about by vested interests to stonewall him from standing in an election. It’s quite easy and...

A nation’s education system is deemed to be one of the most vital pillars of a strong societal structure, and is equally responsible for economic growth. Almost all nations across the world have developed their unique models of education after synchronizing the same with their socio-economic structures. But amidst all, the Western education system since the last few decades has developed and transformed itself as one of the most flexible and most accommodative systems of education. The fact that the Western education system is renowned globally, drawing tens of thousands of students from developing nations, is because of its higher funding and prudent administration. America holds exemplary credentials on this account. One of the first things that the United States did during its developmental years was to invest handsomely on education to create world-class academic institutions. As a cascading effect, the country slowly but surely developed an immense talent and skill base that ...

As the scenario in flood-hit Uttarakhand is heading towards being disastrously grave, where hundreds have reportedly perished, thousands more are missing and many more have been made homeless, I have reasons to wonder whether our disaster management efficiency meets the international standards, or even the very least required standards. In books, the relief measures look ubiquitous – 10,000 armed forces personnel are deployed with food, medicines and clothing; also, the assistance of 18 helicopters and transport aircraft paints an imposing picture. A sum of Rs.1,000 crores is being released along with Rs.1 lakh for every family where any member has perished and Rs.50,000 for families whose houses have been destroyed or damaged. The government’s efforts to provide support seem impressive. However, I cannot help but compare the situation with developed countries; and I doubt whether so many deaths and damage would have occurred there in the first place! The deadly twister that savaged t...

Pedigreed European brands – from Rolls Royce to BMW, from Armani to Marks and Spencer – all evoke awe inspiring respect and admiration. And that’s the case with many expensive European brands glittering in the lives of the rich and famous across the world since many decades (from Rajiv Gandhi’s classic Rolex to Saudi King Abdullah’ pristine fleet of Rolls Royces). These brands, marketed globally by a horde of European MNCs, also got visible support from governments in Europe under the premise that the larger these iconoclastic brands and MNCs grew, the more would grow Europe’s employment base. But as has now been evidenced empirically, contrary to common perception, MNCs and such brands have really not turned out to be the proverbial gold mines for European economies. Far from it, as the situation stands now, multinational enterprises employ less than 1 per cent of the European industrial workforce; greater than 99 per cent of the workforce is employed in Small and Medium Enterpri...

The poster boy of Indian entrepreneurs of the 21st century, Narayana Murthy, is back in business at Infosys – the third biggest Indian tech firm – with a renewed mission to reverse the slide that had happened in his absence. Of course the economic slowdown had its own role to play, but the Infosys slide has been mainly engineered by a rising attrition rate, probably because of eroding values of employee welfare; values that were initially laid down by Murthy himself. The catchword of ‘employees first’ resonating with equal importance to ‘customers first’ was pioneered in India by Infosys, not just as a business strategy to foster higher revenues but also higher happiness levels of its workers. You can call it altruism, but trust me, despite some new-age philosophies preaching against this construct, it is better than the ‘me only’ capitalist doctrines. Even the heartland of United States that was built on the ideals of ‘survival of the fittest’ and showed little sympathy for those who...