Rumi Nations

I put a long, somewhat rambling comment on a Newslaundry article . Enjoy! The 'anger' in this article may be well-founded but it perhaps mangled the economics in comparing India with Greece and in using debt-to-GDP ratio as a barometer of a nation's overall economic health. I don't know how Britain and Japan managed to have such high debt-to-GDP numbers but they are among the most developed and richest nations on Earth — both being members of the G8. How do or did Britain and Japan manage to become so extraordinarily wealthy? Well, the history aside, in the 20th century and after the Second World War, they have been at the cutting edge of various kinds of technological innovations. While Japan has been the center of the automobile revolution in many ways, Britain is home to British Aerospace, Rolls Royce, and many similar companies. I bet if we look at the data of per capita number of doctors or engineers in those countries, the ratio would be better than in Ind...

So what's making the news around the middle of August 2013? Here's a random summary. The staggering corruption being committed by the Gandhi family in general and Robert Vadra in particular is back in the news as Mr. Khemka's official response to the Haryana government has turned up in the media. Here's a news round-up of all articles related to Robert Vadra . Clearly, officers like Mr. Khemka deserve much appreciation from the Government for his extraordinary career of exceptional uprightness. What about a National Award such as a Padma Sri or Padma Bhusan? Clearly, if cricketers and other worthies can be so awarded, it'd not be out of place to confer honest officers with such awards.

The attraction of the Anna movement apart from the topic of anti-corruption which is everyone's favorite whipping boy, was or is the fact that it is empowering. It is weird to compare this movement to the Arab Spring as that would be like aspiring to scale the economic heights that Bangladesh has climbed. Over and shrill nationalism is quite scary as it brooks no dissent. India's core problem is clearly not corruption. But people are easily swayed by symbolism rather than hard realities. This happens even in developed economies such as the United States where opportunistic politicians are harnessing superficial problems such as outsourcing, illegal/legal immigration, big government rather than focusing on fundamental shifts in the nature of the global economic structure. There will be disillusionment at some point. It remains to be seen what happens after that point is reached. It's as clear and true as the Earth moving around the Sun that India won't become a devel...

Oh, already I can see folks yawning ... it's almost second nature to Indians. Only this time, the head of the Medical Council of India has been arrested for taking bribes. When is the head of the AICTE going to be indicted in a similar manner? Education is big business in India. Engineering and medicine remain two dream careers for the millions of youngsters passing school and college every year — their passports to wealth. Yeah, a very pathetic situation over all anyway you look at it. And a complex web that seems almost impossible to simplify. There will always be competition to enter a medical or engineering college because of the sheer population of this country. So, there will always be huge demand for seats in 'private' colleges and so such private colleges will continue to mushroom. It's a lucrative 'business' of course. The 'owners' of such colleges mint money aplenty. And they do not mind 'investing' a little bit at the beginning to get ...

Our revered Army Generals after all turned out to have feet of clay. Surveys generally tend to show the Army as the most 'trusted' institution, as the one institution that has not succumbed to the rot that has become an intrincsic part of most or all other institutions of India. But I always thought that this was a somewhat wishful sort of thinking. If the Army is not as tainted with corruption as other institutions, may be the simple reason for that is that the Army does not have too much scope for indulging in corrupt activities. Where there is some scope for indulging in corruption, Army men show themselves as susceptible to the lure of the lucre as any other Indian. So, the recent land scam in which top generals seem to be involved was not really unexpected. In a country where politicians and bureaucrats and others routinely indulge in scams running into thousands of acers, what is a few acres of land ... I say, let's give them some slack, shall we?