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?
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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!
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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