Quote of the Week
We are on the razor’s edge. It is up to us to decide whether we go this way or that way.
Nandan Nilekani, Founder and Co-Chairman, Infosys.
Full context of the quote below:
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India Knowledge@Wharton: One last question: Since your book is titled, “Imagining India,” what kind of an India would you imagine for your grandchildren and their children?
Nilekani: My point in this book is to say that India is at a strategic opportunity. This is a result of its demographics, its entrepreneurs, its technology prowess, its democracy, the fact that the world is ageing while we are young; the fact that we have English as a language. All these are unique attributes.
If we make full use of this opportunity, India could be a role model for the 21st century. The reason is that you are talking about a billion people reaching prosperity, living in a peaceful manner, in a democracy, handling extraordinary diversity. I mean, the whole issue today is the so called “clash of civilizations.” India has — daily — all those civilizations, and yet they all co-exist. The ability to show this combination of development, diversity and democracy, will make India a very successful country, if we do it right.
But we can also go the other way. The same demographic dividend could turn into a disaster if we do not harness the energy of our people well. Once their aspirations have been unleashed, they could become disgruntled and disaffected by lack of jobs and lack of economic growth, and then they can also become a source of violence and divisiveness. We are on the razor’s edge. It is up to us to decide whether we go this way or that way.
Also read: “Imagining India†– A Book Review
I didn’t expect such farce from Nilekani but once he joined the government led by Congress, his utterings sound the same as of Congressis… Farce, lies, hogwash
Technological Prowess:
Nilekani should know that even his company does nothing which can be called as Innovation. All infosys does is write programmes and not create programmes. India is unable to manufacture even a gun or a vehicle or a rail engine or a rail coach or a plane or a helicopter or a building or a great engineering feat.
Entrepreneurs:
Indian entrepreuners don’t do anything on own and rely on models of foreign country… Most of organizations are still Lala culture. Eg Bajaj Auto ran without competition for ages and produced antique vehicles like Bajaj 150, super, chetak. Bajaj still is novice in automibles. Tata is still novice in vehicle manufacturing technology, steel manufacturing technology. As far as BPO/ ITO is concerned, it is no more than a human factory which does same job over and over again. Who is cheap matters… Human value does not matter in BPO/ ITO. Ask Nilekani would he advocate outsourcing of jobs from Indian companies to Chinese or Bangladeshis if they can do the job cheaper?
If we make… Role model 21st Century:
Airy fairy statement… One famine on a national level and I would like to see where is Nilekani and his mumbo jumbo. The way India is going it can be role model for poverty. People shitting in open, livig in inhumane conditions, draining on resources of competents, begging around etc.
Mr Nilekani needs to take a deep look on the surroundings of a city as train enters or leaves a city to smell and see realty or spend a good one year in slums to closer look at realty.
“We have English as a language”, What a slave and ignorant mentality! How much English was spoken in last China Olympic?How much English Chinese leaders speak? Are they behind us in economic prosperity? Every European country is proud of its language. Most parts of European country, you will find peoples can’t or won’t speak English (personal experience). What about Israelies, most of whom are derectly or indirectly from Europe, why didn’t they chose English. I live in Wales, most part of the year, it a is a bi-lingual
principality, with Welsh getting momentum.Estonia, a small country of 1.5 million peoples. They got rid of the Russians and brought back Estonian as their language. They are doing well with IT ( Skype is their contribution)
I spend quite a lot of time in Madeira . Tourist population are more than the local population-all the year round. Many have settled their permanently. Go to an office or bank, you will srtuggle to find somebody who speaks English.
In fact, Europeans and Americans are keen to learn Chinese.
We are also polluting our languages by importing English into it.
Then, this is “secular” India, meant for minorities.( In India minorities mean followers of imported Abrahamic religions, Parsees or Sikhs are not minorities.)
Murthy and Nilkeani have turned and bit the hand that has fed them and made them what they are.
It was the absence of the incubus of socialism in IT and the absence of government regulations that made infosys.
Now, with billions under their belt, murthy can be seen on TV spouting hogwash, noting how pranab’s disastrous budget is a ‘panacea’ for the middle class.
So much for being ‘incorruptible’. The mere smell of a carrot of power was enough for these guys to lie.
PS: I think it was shantanu who pointed out that in nikelani’s 100000 page book, “hindu” does not find mention even once.
We deserve our fate.
Indian poverty is what sustains the Indian IT giants, Infosys included.
The basic ingredient of their “success” is wage arbitrage.
What “Technological Prowesss” ? Indian IT is more than anything else, a game of numbers — not prowess. Thousands of coders clocking hours, and their man-hours sold at 2 to 3 times cost.
If Indians were poorer (and willing to work for less) the IT companies would have been more successful. Think of that !
When the going was good , Infosys should have done R&D. They just did service for overseas companies. Further , they could have started a very good pvt University or even adopted a campus ( They have given money to IIT Kanpur etc and done some charity). But the real thing would have been to do a breakthru in innovation , like an unique operating system to compete with Microsoft etc. Indians are good service persona and the urge to innovate from India soil is very low.
One of the ways in which R&D and the overall IT industry could get a boost, especially with the U.S. economy in doldrums, is for the Government to start projects like the unique ID number, which they have proposed. This would give a large impetus for domestic demand for IT. (It seems even Microsoft is interested in a piece of this project).
Another project which really requires IT is the area of land records. One of the truly difficult things in India is find out titles, whether is a lien on the land and property and what is the accurate assessed value. If there was some way to computerize this and give access to information to everyone, then we might be able to do away with all the underhand dealings and the black money.
We often are unable to understand why western countries are so successful, and we take them at their word that it is pure capitalism which sparks innovation. However, examine any western nation, and you will find enormous public funding of research. Governement grants to university labs and departments is what funds initial research; only when the research is at a latter stage of being easily converted to an economically viable product does private industry step in. Even in the case of the internet, the system was initially developed in the universities (MIT and UCLA) and later adapted to commercial use. The initial research was supported by various politicians including Al Gore .
Relying on the private sector alone to give us innovative products and services is believing that profit motive will lead to higher ideals and goals. This doesn’t really happen. Private industry tends to, as a rule, only focus on current profits rather than future potential profits (which are too risky). That is why you see automobile manufacturers stonewall attempts to have cars running on alternate fuel; that is why pharmaceutical companies are more interested in coming up with another medicine for cholesterol instead of doing the research for a vaccine for malaria or AIDS.
To Harapriya:
Indian private companies will vansih for lack of innovation like Hindustan Motors Ambassador which is only bought by government. All Indian companies produce cheap shits and nothing high end. The use of Indian products as you find level of income going up, lessens. The difference is in between baniyan (vest) like lux or rupa and jockey. If companies are unable to change with progress, thank god, chimps like bajaj will be out.
@Rohit. There is a difference in government funding research and government running businesses. I never said that the government should run businesses; in fact the government should get out of all business ventures including having public steel companies, running tourism hotels etc. But government can fund private research through university grants and also grants to private labs which are engaged in useful research.
The fundamental problem is that even our smartest politicians may not be smart enough to recognize opportunities.
I am reminded of what Gandhi’s vision was–self reliance. Part of that self- reliance was the idea of local sustainable economic activity where the local demand could be met by adequate local supply. Globalization on the scale that we have done always puts our economic well-being in the hands of forces beyond our control. Who would have thought two years ago that irresponsible lending by American banks would affect global economy so badly?
People seem to think that it was globalization which brought about better products; actually in the case of India, the liberalizing of regulations which allowed more local companies to compete is what started the ball rolling in the direction of giving more products. Outside competition is good in some areas like automobiles and electronics. But has it really been good for our farmers. We are finding all our cottage industries in dire straits not because of competition from other local industries, but from cheaper chinese products. So which is the greater good, having cheap products or providing employment to people who have no other skills.
In addition, India seems to have no strategic thinking in terms of preserving resources for future use. We are not preserving our water or land resources. An example would be iron which we used to export to china . Finally in 2007, because of the pressure from steel manufacturers, this policy was revised and we are using the iron ourselves .
Globalization has resulted in a very funny world model, where countries sacrifice their own populations’ well being in order to send products to America and Western Europe, but mostly America. Thus, if you want the best tea or rice from India, you need to buy it in America. I remember last summer having a tough time getting alphonso mangos because apparently they had all been exported to the middle east. Isn’t that funny, not getting mangoes in India (mangoes orignated in India and its shape finds place in all our ancient arts)
To Harapriya:
Government funding research… It is already in place and I do not think that it has yielded any results… Private funding research… Tata have been doing it and also ITC etc but no significant breakthrough. The tyre companies especially MRF leads in research and development. Even Michelin/ Goodyear/ Bridgestone cannot beat MRF in the tyres segment.
Going back to comments by users… Dipak Chakrabarti has pointed out a good reason… Language which can then be liked to thought process… Think about it. Ashoka Pillar is a feat in metallurgy.
To Harapriya:
One more on globalization, ignoring country’s needs etc.
I am in service… i.e., employed by someone… Shudra class. My job is to serve in best manner to my employer and it is my right to find best employer. If American can be better employer than my employer, I will work there. Similarly, the agriculturist has the right to get the best for his produce. His job is not to feed you. It is your choice to buy his products at a price which is commanded by market forces (market forces without manipulation).
# 9… Apologize for mistake… Iron Pillar in honor of great king Chandra…
To Shantanu:
You should open a topic on relevance of language, thought process, innovation. Dr Dipak Chakrabarti can contribute something on the same. But do form a proper conclusive post discussion is over. Don’t leave topics open for discussion for ages.
All: Thanks for the comments…Hope to respond soon.
The country will simply keep lurching from one crisis to the next. It can never have a real strategic focus just an urgent crisis to tide over. Yesterday was some fellows with guns showing up in Mumbai, today is some flu virus, and so forth. Some of say the country is simply ungovernable. It is indeed very very difficult to change all this.
Which leads me to the main point – we are at the crossroads, and I suspect India will not make it. Time is short. Practically speaking, the fact of the matter is that the control of the Congress and left of centre parties at the Centre seems unlikely to be broken in the next 10-15 years. So it will simply be more of the same and then it will be too late. Just consider the vacuous “reforms” the HRD minister is proposing – this was a great opportunity and the country squandered it. Again. Sad.
On Nilekani. I’d say he sought to actively contribute by working in the Government at the Centre and for that he needed to toe the party line or at least the middle ground. Otherwise he will only be writing another book, a clever one perhaps, but what purpose would that achieve? Nilekani chose to leave out contentious stuff which will provoke needless controversy and focus on the policy issues only.
They say – when you are in Government you get up in the morning and think what do I do today. When you are in opposition, you get up in the morning and think what do I say today. This becomes important because good ideas and people in the opposition are waste. The only thing that matters is the bunch in power. Consider this – if Sardar Patel were in the opposition rather in the Government of the day because of his differences with Nehru how much worse it would have turned out.
Good points…
Consider this – if Sardar Patel were in the opposition rather in the Government of the day because of his differences with Nehru how much worse it would have turned out.
It would have been an utter disaster…