There was a farmer who worked by sweat of his brow. Albeit he was was hardworking, he could manage only pennies. But he was satisfied with what he earned and same was the case with his dependents. One day luck came to his door and he found a piece of diamond in his field. Exuberant farmer sold that diamond and in reward got Dollars. His life style changed, expectations of his family members heightened. He started living a lavish life. Slowly and slowly the money started evaporating. All the money was gone, but the demands, the change in life style was permanent. He had to finally sell all of his belongings and the rest of the story is not of interest. Precipitous growth was the cause of his failure. His development was not sustainable.
Though a bit exaggerated but his a picture quite resembling our nation. We are developing at the rate of 9% for the last three years. I have no intentions to be called as skeptical, but we (our economists, politicians) should mull over this high pace of our growth. When one is at the height he needs to be more careful. Do we meet up the requirements of being called as a developed nation (which we aim at)? is the question to be asked.
Crude oil hike is the global problem. The rates hike was inevitable. But, the way country has reacted to it, raises questions about the sustainability of our development. Suddenly people were on the roads. Bandh was called on in West Bengal. Opposition party (they follow this term literally and oppose every thing), is demanding for the resignation of PM (who was once the governor of RBI and deserves our confidence). The growing up inflation is causing incessant furore in the people. Our "economic ship" is not able to withstand this little turbulence. How can we expect it to sail over the choppy sea of development? People, in our country seek for the reasons to come on road. They block trains for 15 days to demand for reservation. They forcefully organize bandhs, burn buses, if some one mutilates the shrine of some minister's wife. They burn trains, kill thousands in riots over religious and lingual differences.
Envisage a condition, that India has grown up to the levels of United States, and faces something like sub prime crises, recession as in US. Would we able come out of that. Do the people of India have that mental strength to keep their cool in such situations. The ranking of India in the literacy rate chart is 147 out of 170 listed nations. We have a literacy rate of 60%. Among other BRIC nations, Brazil has 80% and China and Russia with 90% each. The point is not that we should slow our pace of growth, but it is that we should increase our infrastructure to meet up with that. Frivolous to this, our government has further reduced the percentage of money to be spent on educational purposes. A large portion of the youth is suffered from diseases. Our dependence on imported crude is quite high and is growing tremendously. These are not the the signs of sustainable growth.
We should give some importance to these issues that will pave the future of our development. A sustainable development can take us to the heights and a "farmer diamond" can simply act as cataclysmic for us.
It's an important rule in kite flying that, weak kite should be flown at lower altitudes, as wind is strong at heights and the kite would not be able to bear that. Same was the case with the farmer of the above story, and same is the case with us.
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7 comments:
Ye sab kya hain!! It's High time that you get back to work :P..
On the post: Very good thoughts and more impressive presentation.
Keep it UP!!
Nice thoughts. We need to have more sustainable as well as more well distributed development-distributed across political boundaries, across caste and class, across any known boudaries. Till the time there are people who don't seem to find any other way to resurrection but reservation we are in a shitty state.
Although a few of our industries are performing very well and so is a portion of our society, that is, the educated middle class, we should be aware that this is a very small portion of the society.
If we expect people of our country to be stronger, care should be taken, as you mentioned, to provide education and before that the very basic needs to them.
Go to Orissa or Bihar and one could not believe that it is India of 21st century progressing at an unbelievable pace.
Nice thoughts...the infrastructure needs to be developed very quickly...infact, since ages Narayan Murthy has been lamenting about the state of infrastructure in Bangalore...infact, if u remember, there were huge posters and banners in Bangalore decrying the infra and support system and thereby kind of forcefully urging the authorities to do the needful...that is why, the subsequent shift of software industry to hydy, pune and now chandigarh...so, solutions always find their way...
so, are we ready?...I'd say, more than ever...ofcourse, as you pointed infrastructure and education sector need dramatic improvements
When this slowing down started, I read many articles stating that the fundamentals of the country are still strong and that still holds...
and as far as subprime crisis is concerned...a very impt factor was very low interest rates kept by US fed chairman Alan Greenspan (who was dubbed the Economist of the century before the crisis)...so, subprime won't affect us but yes, if it does, an extrication wud be difficult
lastly,
things i did not love:
the farmer story...felt overall structure was disorganised with you digressing between certains themes and ideas...
overall theme of the passage...was it about pressing the point for infrastruc, educatin etc... or sustainable development coz... the term sustainable development refers more to development without degrading the environment (courtsey ES403 perhaps)
and the minister's wife's shrine wala sentence...inappropraite usage of some words...frivolous for example (not sure though)
things I loved:
Opposition party (they follow this term literally and oppose every thing), is demanding for the resignation of PM (who was once the governor of RBI and deserves our confidence)...
the kite story (too good)... dramatic improvemts in english...had to use wordweb at 3-4 places
waiting for the next sunday's edition :P
hey Manpreet,
Nice one, and I couldnt have appreciated it more than nw for the special circumstances I am in. Nevertheless, I would just suggest to dig a bit more, get deeper into the issue with not just our country but the entire globe in your domain and I believe you will definatly find many "interesting things".
Sustainable growth is the basic most need for any human soceity/group/race/blah/blah to exist. It really was a very well written article, the the kite thing was jus too appealing.
Cheerz
LA
Sustainable Development !
I feel that we at India have made a brilliant effort towards achieving the goal of this sustainable development. Atleast what I feel is that our government machinery (remove the politicians but the IAS officers) are quite aware of this necessity.
This might be the main reason why the BJP government went for privatisation in the fields like airport development (Awesome Bombay airport), communication sector (airtel, reliance, vodafone), hotel industry and Real Estate Development (GMR, DLF and sahara).
The government has become quite aware of the limited natural resources it has, especially in power sector and has aptly moved towards US for the nuclear deal. It is also driving people to work on many non-conventional energy resources. Tulsi Tanti the founder of Suzlon, does not operate only in India but also is the leading face in europe. These efforts are nothing but moving towards sustainability. Currently the Enterprenuership cell at IIM Ahemdabad floated a business plan in field of harnessing solar energy.
Apart from energy sector, we can see evidence of sustainability in food production sector. India hasn't faced shortage of food over the past decade as a whole. It has been exporting food grains over all the years. And the exports are increasing every year. We have made development in field of fertilisers and seeds research. We are making progress in biotechnology. Read Biocon, a major in company in biotechnology in the world is Indian.
We are the leaders in medical services all over the world. Patients from US and Europe come down to India for various cures. If you say money is a big factor, then it is not so. Why would one risk his/ her life for some money. The reason is indian doctors provide a service comparable to the world.
I would like to conclude with the idea that its not like india has not aspired for sustainable development, it continues to pursue it.
I won't say anything about the main theme and the points raised by you as a lot of people have done that already. However, I agree with Chandak about one thing - your English is still not correct, although it's improving. I am not an expert in English and I don't know much about English grammar, but I can usually tell when a paragraph appears correct.
I think that your article still doesn't feel right. It's difficult for me to point out the exact mistakes, but they are definitely there and unfortunately there seem to be many of them. I am sorry to say this, but I think you would like an honest...appraisal?
But all said and done, you are definitely improving and have used some nice words. Keep it up and don't forget to keep the appropriate links as your Gmail status.
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