Is this some kind of joke? By mid century, India will get choked by poor infrastrucuture. IT will take a day to travel 15kms to office by then. This of course assuming that India will still be intact after all the communal riots over mandir-masjid.
As an NRI, Internet is the source of news about for me. Not a single day passes without someone who is someone says India will be the greatest country in next 50 years or next Century which is pretty safe as at least half of us would not be alive by then. Earlier it was Ancient India was greatest and now next century. What about this century? Don't get me wrong. I am a very patriotic India still clinging to my Indian Passport, regulalry repatriate all my savings and my heart swells with pride looking at these articles.
But how long this false sense of pride? How much are we investing in basic infrastructure, public health and education? Rich and Poor divide is growing every minute. Not to mention the epidemic proportions of corruption and lack of accountability in our political and public admin systems.
You should have a dream to realise it but you should also strive to achieve it.
Five year plans have become a farce and this needs a credible alternative.
Unless we as a Nation have a Common Agenda like we had during our Freedom Struggle, these will remain dreams and our furture generations will be blaming us for missed opportunities.
While acknowledging the credentials of the Economist, I have the following doubts in my mind making his reliability. * None of the Countries or organizations which he has advised in the past turned the fortunes, they all have gone down in economy and eventually disintegrated. * certain of the key aspects like water and agriculture were taken very lightly by him - why? * Technology is not the solution, assimilation of technolgy and usage to the maximum extent is vital. * Ethical aspects and uncontrollable genetic reactions, which only Multinational drug corporations can research afford to develop medicines come along with genetically modified food. * How many of these things are affordable from indian stand point. * UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a free country for about centuries and scientifically and technologically besides politically and strategically advanced and planned nation with very good constitution which aims at Equality/freedom/democracy. - Can we in our current disposition match them atleast in another century ?
Mr.Jeffrey D Sachs is of the opinion that by the mid of this century india will overtake USA in absolute size. I find his comments pessimistic, In my opinion this would happen much faster, may be by 2020. The reasons for my optimism are as under :- 1. One can assume that india will grow at n% and USA also at say (n-m)%. But, both of these assumptions will be beyond anyone assumptions. US may degrow at certain rates and india will grow at a very fast pace. 2. Most of USA's properity is due to the artifitially high $ rate.At the most, within next 10 years, this is going to disappear. This will change the entire business scnario of the world. 3. Indians, when work at their own speed, no one in the world will be in a position to compete with them.
Hence, all this is going to happen faster than any of these expets predict.
