IS A NEW INDIA EMERGING AT LAST?

Surely, we see hopeful signs. At the candlelight vigils and the human chain in Mumbai after the terror attack, a common placard people held up said: JOIN HANDS AGAINST TERROR. The right spirit! And most certainly one forward step for an emerging new India.

But there's still a long, long way to go. First of all, there must come the realization that IT, BPO and other business successes are a great driving force, but not enough to take India to the level of the world's leading democracies. For that the placards should start saying: JOIN HANDS FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY. And those placards should appear wherever divisive violence erupts - for any of innumerable reasons like caste , language and religion; too often incited by politicians consolidating their power bases at the cost of the country.

Economic successes - where some people get rich - is not enough. A people need to be UNITED and ENLIGHTENED to reach the top bracket. Is that a tall order? (For more INDIA REALITIES stories see other blogs here and at Myspace - www.myspace.com/india_realities - where my latest blog is A NEW YEAR MESSAGE OF CHANGE THE WORLD IGNORES - EVERY YEAR)

IS INDIA THE SOFTEST TERRORIST TARGET?

As I type this blog the latest terrorist attack on Mumbai (Bombay) is not over.
Divisive politics practised by politicians - whose sole concern is to win votes and come to power by turning Indians against each other on the basis of language, caste, religion and flimsier reasons - is the source of every possible kind of violence in the country. They are all acts of terrorism. Obviously, that makes India a soft target.
Further, politicians criticize and try to hamper the work of the ATS (anti-terrorist squad) if the squad invvestigates any group favoured by those politicians.
And, finally, there's something that seems ridiculous in a country that has seen so much terrorist violence. We saw on TV the head of the Mumbai ATS at one of the attacked locations, possibly the Taj hotel. He was not wearing a bullet-proof vest. Were they short of jackets? Did he have to wait for one? I don't know. And he kept fiddling with his helmet and taking it off, because it did not fit him. And the sad fact is that the man died yesterday, felled by terrorist bullets. The question is: Are India's brave anti-terrorist forces equipped well enough to face the challenge?
There are few countries in the world so fissured, whose people are so divided by self-seeking politicians, as India. And that fact makes the country one of the softest terrorist targets.
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, please check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)
My new blog on Myspace is - CAN A TERROR CALAMITY SAVE INDIANS FROM THEMSELVES?

HOW TO VISIT AND UNLEARN AMERICA

Three easy steps.
1. Visit America and admire the airports, malls and highways. And come back with great plans for progress.
2. Visit America and don't see the basic consideratenes and courtesy of the people towards each other on the streets, in queues etc. And keep minds closed to the basic freedoms practised there, like freedom of speech and worship.
3. And, of course, visit America and forget that Obama won.
See? It's so easy to unlearn America!
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, please check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

IS INDIA RISING OR DISINTEGRATING?

Looking at India's international business scorecards or Test cricket scores there's no doubt the country is rising.
But looking at all the self-destructive activity going on across the country, spurred by narrow chauvinism over religion, caste, language-affinity and pettier reasons, it seems the country is disintegrating.
Yesterday, for instance, a young north Indian worker fleeing the city of Mumbai (Bombay) in fear of ethnic violence, was brutally beaten to death in a train by a mob. Today, bomb blasts across the state of Assam have killed at least sixty. The last two months have seen brutal cycles of provocation and retaliation in states across India, including the cities of Mumbai and Bangalore.
In India today mobs who beat up one individual call themselves tigers. And those who destroy the country's unity call themselves patriots.
If ever there was a country rising and disintegrating at the same time, that's today's India.
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories see www.myspace.com/india_realities)

AN INSIGHT CELEBRATING INDIANS WILL NOT LIKE TO HEAR

For many Indians enjoying themselves, to really enjoy themselves it's important that half the world - or at least the neighbourhood - knows they are enjoying themselves. From my childhood in Bombay I remember the high ostentation and high decibels of weddings, birthday parties and festivals. In fact on Divali mornings the more firecracker debris he had in front of his house was one more way for anyone who had more money to show off to neighbours.

There has been no change of attitude in globalizing India. Rather, the 10% of Indians who are now celebrating have even greater opportunities to show off. (Note: WHO recently reported that 75% Indians earn no more tha $2 a day.) During last month's Independence Day celebrations the club near me - managed by top police and other officials - played music that shook the neighbourhood's walls and rattled windows - just as they do on every happy occasion. And recently two of my young friends (who had not met me for two years) surprised me with a visit. Both wanted me to go out to the gate and admire the new big cars they had bought - one an SUV. With no desire to encourage the 'attitude' I refused to oblige. I told them I had no interest in their cars; I was only interested in them personally as friends. Then I told them about this 'insight' and we laughed over it.

Yeah. They laughed; but only because they were friends.

A CHINA vs INDIA INSIGHT THAT WILL ONLY PLEASE THE CHINESE

The Beijing Olympics was a seamless spectacle. Detractors say it's the result of regimentation. The discerning see in the flawless show China's determination to put in every possible effort to succeed as a nation. Nicholas D. Kristof, in his NYT article on the Games, comments that success has carried some young Chinese beyond self-confidence to cockiness.

Self-confidence? Yes. Cockiness? Maybe, among some youth. But as nations, that is the significant difference between China and India. Some years ago, as India's clout in IT and BPO grew, the then national government proclaimed INDIA SHINING to the world. China's advance began circa 1978. Silently. They let their work do the talking. When their products flooded markets everywhere, the world realized China was shining. The Olympics has reinforced that idea.

India meanwhile has gone on to celebrations. Endless singing, dancing, fashion and movie award shows! And other forms of celebrations! For those who have the money. The Nero-like unreality and insouciance of this celebratory mood is obvious when it is placed in perspective against the World Bank's recent estimate of India's ignored reality. India has a third of the world's poorest, about 40 % of the population living under the $1.25 income per day poverty line, and about 75% living below the $2-a-day level.

Who has the recipe for sustained growth? India or China? (For more INDIA REALITIES stories, please check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

BANGALORE'S 'UNWALKABLE' PAVEMENTS

I have blogged earlier about Bangalore's amazing pavements. Now a study has confirmed that Bangalore has some of the most walker unfriendly pavements even among Indian cities. The experts considered walkable space and obstructions on footpaths.
The average non-expert observer will notice in addition:
1. Potholes and bad maintenance of footpaths. Obviously, due to money swindled away.
2. New pavements at varying heights, even up to a foot and a half high. Obviously, the more the concrete dumped, the more the money that can be swindled.
3. Wherever possible, beauty-loving homeowners convert the public footpath in front of them into enclosed private gardens.
4. If there is some walkable space that is where someone must park his car/scooter/bicycle as obstructively as possible.
All this, in a country notoriously lacking in courtesy to pedestrians! And who cares for the handicapped? (For more INDIA REALITIES stories, please check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

SHARING IRRESPONSIBILITY

Poverty of individual responsibility for the common good is a feature of countries where people subvert their own future.

In India, for example, hardly anyone - including all political parties - feels guilt about going on a rampage, stoning-burning public property and taking innocent lives over the pettiest issues.

Does that set a global benchmark for irresponsibility?
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, please check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

INDIA'S GREAT GROWTH STORY

Globalizing India is in a phase of hectic growth. Starting with malls and luxuries. Faberge and Vuitton first. Toyota and Jaguar first. Later, if wisdom permits, the superpower hopeful will come down to the less important. Like clean drinking water for millions. Or power supply that doesn't fail every day in cities. Or pavements people can walk on safely. Or minimal health care for all.

Meanwhile, as India grows, the poor and hungry are advised to take care of themselves. And, for God's sake, stay out of sight!
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, do check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

FAIRER THAN THE FAIREST? - INSIGHT INDIA

India 2008 has discovered an instant coffee version of cricket. With international players. And cheerleaders imported from the U.S. Like everything globalizing India touches, the IPL has turned cricket to gold, raking in millions of dollars.
Half way through the play-offs newschannels reported that at one venue two black cheerleaders were asked to sit out.
And I thought of all the Indian matrimonial ads where almost everyone wants a fair spouse.
And I thought of the huge sales of fairness lotions in this country.
Then I remembered the time an Indian (whom I thought I knew well) took me to a Starbucks in California. No empty tables outside. I sat with a young African. We chatted. He was from Senegal. An IT executive. And smart. The Indian brought our coffee, handed me mine, and, without saying a word, walked off to find another table for himself. Crude. Rude. What's his problem? I wondered. Deep-seated pretensions? Delusions of fairness? Folly?
Neither globalization nor all the fairness lotions in the world can make India a European country.
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, check out www.myspace.com/india_realities)

BUNGLE BEES OVER BANGALORE

Election day, today, has put a stop to the buzzing of the bungle bees. For weeks the buzzing had grown louder and louder - to noise pollution levels. All bee parties claimed they were responsible for making Bangalore an IT hub.

None of them admitted that if they and officialdom had any clue in the 90's of where computers were headed, the chances were that IT would have been hit by taxes and corruption. Or if those bees (from more than one party) had succeeded in their long years of struggle to end the teaching of English, IT had no chance in India. And no bunglers gave credit to the talent and patience of young Indians that helped the great leap in software.

So the big election issue before voters in Bangalore and the state is to decide which of the bungler bee parties is slightly less unbelievable. But that seems a question impossible to answer!
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, do check out www.myspace.co/india_realities & www.ibibo.com/wahpmji)

CAN CRICKET CAUSE A COMPUTER CRISIS? - INSIGHT INDIA

Many of today's well-known Indian cricket players came up the hard way. By breaking neighborhood windows. Parents defended their right to do so against all comers, including the ill and elderly. Those parents' only concern was the physical well-being of their children.

With the new Indian Premier League's auction buying up cricket players for up to 1.5 million dollars, the situation has changed dramatically. Parents - who hope to float in the moolah - are encouraging every little twerp (who needs his mother to pull up his white cricket trousers) to go out and crack the ball. And windows.

What does this trend mean for India's future? Will it be Cricket! Cricket! all the way? Will we in the years ahead have to outsource software jobs to America? Very sad. A sure way to economic suicide - as Americans are slowly learning today.
(For more INDIA INSIGHT stories check out www.myspace.com/india_realities & www.ibibo.com/wahpmji)

CRAZY GLOBALIZATION - INSIGHT INDIA

Imagine a country where any time mobs start running on the streets. And the stoning and burning begins. For any reason. Like sharing water resources with a neighbor state in the same country. Or antipathy to migrants from other parts of the country. Imagine a country where no political party feels any guilt about going on a rampage in towns and destroying public and private property and hurting people. Imagine that country building more and more glass malls and offices. Perfect targets for violence.

That's globalizing India today. And if that's not crazy, what is? (For more India Realities stories see www.myspace.com/india_realities & www.ibibo.com/wahpmji)

FACTS ABOUT INDIAN FIGURES

Statistics can often give a glimpse of the true story, provided figures are not dreamt up. Indian literacy figures tend to include those who can scratch their name on a black board. The poverty line should be held at the waist; but Indian statistics tends to hold it at ankle level. The result is that utterly poor families earning two dollars a day are above the poverty line.

But figures told facts on the day newspapers bugled that 4 Indians were among the top ten Forbes billionaires. Inside pages of the same papers said India had more polio cases now than any other country...and infant mortality had risen above the levels of even poorer countries like Bangladesh.

Wealthy Indians (who don't have to worry about polio or infant mortality) are celebrating non-stop, pretending they are not here but in the West.
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories see www.myspace.com/india_realities and www.ibibo.com/wahPmji)

ADVANCED TRAFFIC SYSTEMS IN INDIA INC. - INSIGHT INDIA

As globalization progresses traffic on Indian roads operates on the principle of optimal use of minimal space. In general the idea, you can say, is that in space a rat can get through a cat must try to.
So...if there's space a pedestrian can barely squeeze through, that's where a two-wheeler must try to shoot through. If there's space enough for a two-wheeler to go through, that's where an autorickshaw must try to swerve through. If there's space enough for an autorickshaw to go through, that's where a car must try to race through. If there's space enough for a car to go through, that's where bigger public transport and heavy vehicles must try to bulldoze through. On Indian roads you see daredeviltry at its peak.
Of course, accidents are inevitable due to such optimal utilization of space. In a country rising on the wings of globalization, that doesn't really matter.

(More INDIA INSIGHT stories at www.myspace.com/india_realities)