I have been reading a lot of articles about India's so called economic boom. But most of the articles are one sided and they are talking about the IT and BPO industries. These two industries hardly represent the Indian economic picture. We have stopped talking about our education,medical,infrastructure, and other things which determine the development of our society. In these sectors India is no better than the poor sub-Saharan African regions.We should stop comparing everything with US or other 'developed' western countries. We are far behind than China in all ythe developmental aspects and we are also behind most of the developed ASEAN countries. Even countries in transition economies like in the eastern Europe (Estonia, Hungary, Poland....) are far better than us in social standards and infrastructure. If we have to compare with some countries then I think we should compare with these countries. There is no glory in saying that we are the largest democracy. When more than 60% of the population cannot read and write and in the rest 40% people are good at only writng their names, there is no meaning of democracy. All corrupted people are taking the benefits of all the development fruits and majority of the population are living in the dark.
RE:Don't compare India and US !
by Suhrud on May 12, 2007 06:04 PM Permalink
Yes Pradipta, our 'boomtime' is actually rather uneven. In fact, people say that the gap between the rich and the poor is actually widening. Socio-cultural development on the other hand is actually worsening. Population and migration to cities is growing out of proportion to the infrastructure, and everything is getting thrown off balance.. There is nothing in India like the uniform development of the US. India has grown in fits and starts, and a 3-D graph of development will only show a hilly contour than an undulated plane. Till the day comes when Indians get immediate attention along the lines of 911, we cannot say we are a developed nation.
Yet, there is no doubt that the IT and BPO sectors do have a bubble effect on the economy. Indeed if you see, salaries across the country have increased, in any sector - be it Finance, Consumer goods or even PSUs. College education costs have increased. Real estate prices have increased and the stock market does not need mentioning. None of this is due to IT alone, but to a general trend of globalization that is sweeping across India. India is today when the SE Asian economies were about a decade or so ago.. And possibly, like their meltdown, we could be headed for one too, since our economy is now so closely linked to that of the rest of the globe..
