As a US-raised Indian I'm not familiar with the macro details. But I've been living in India for the past few years working for a startup, so let me identify some low-hanging fruit.<p>1) Incredibly, shockingly poor hygiene. Dirty black rags being used repeatedly to dry plates at restaurants. Idlys being cooked on plastic sheets inside hot streamers. Infernoes of uncollected trash burning on streets. Rats and cockroaches everywhere including your toothbrush at night.<p>2) Utterly horrifying road conditions. Potholes large enough to cause motorcycle crashes every 100 feet. A culture of not giving the other motorist more than 6 inches on any side. Driving on the wrong side of the road, including on highways. It's incredibly stressful to think about your odds when you leave the house.<p>3) A political system that no-one is optimistic about. Stories are rampant of politicians buying votes by giving free household appliances away to the poor, and then doing nothing in office to help them.<p>4) An education system that isn't remotely good enough. Miserable professors, antiquated curriculums that churn out the IT coolies we're so famous for.<p>5) Congestion so bad you hardly ever leave a 5-mile radius. People tend to hang out based on which neighborhood they live in, because a trip to a friend's place more than 5 miles away can turn into an hour-long slog on terrifying roads.<p>6) A culture of being cheap. If you're only willing to tip your waiter 10 rupees, it may help out your savings rate, but it certainly won't help the waiter buy his kid a computer someday. Same goes for our beloved household servants, who get paid $150 per month at best, $40 at worst to clean our floors.<p>But to voice a conflict that everyone who lives here talks about, I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions.
I am optimistic about India, in spite of all the problems. First, almost all the problems are accounted for by the $1200 GDP per capita. It is hard to visualize just how scarce resources are to solve problems when you are that poor. At the municipal level, annual budgets of $20-$30 per capita would be considered good in India, even in a relatively prosperous city (by Indian standards) like Chennai. Lack of hygiene and sanitation are almost entirely explained by that $20 per capita.<p>If you read the history of cities like New York and London a century and a half ago, they had very similar problems to what a city like Chennai is going through.<p>Now the reason for optimism: the skill level among young Indians is growing rapidly, thanks to the spread of basic education and growing aspiration among all classes of Indians. That is the foundation on which economic growth is built, and economic growth is the only way we are going to solve our other problems.
>The average age of cabinet ministers is 65. The country has never had a prime minister born in independent India.
>One man who might buck that trend, Rahul Gandhi, is the son, >grandson and great-grandson of former prime ministers.
>India is run by gerontocrats and epigones: grey hairs and groomed heirs.<p>Aside from that wonderful turn of phrase, this may well be the key concept: India has long been run by entrenched interests for their own benefit and the situation shows no signs of abating.
What I have learned is that Indians severely lack "social intelligence". I am not talking about the kind which makes you good with people. I am talking about, how much a person thinks that What is good for people surrounding you is also good for you. I think average indian's such intelligence is perhaps is in negative.<p>I have seen people throw trash on the streets without any regard for others. Same goes for every other resources and issues. Each indian lives in a bubble of their own home, which is perfectly clean but total disregard anything outside the walls.<p>There are some socially enlightened groups like Ugly Indians (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/123459791046618" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/1234597910466...</a>) doing great work, which I hope extend to the entire country.
>Worryingly, a growing share of household saving is bypassing the financial system altogether, seeking refuge from inflation in gold, bricks and mortar.<p>This is great. It means it's a kind of sustainable. 1) In case of a crisis (which will come) It won't be thrown back too much.<p>1) I think India is anything but sustainable due to their enormous population growth.
India reminds me a lot of what Taiwan used to be. About 10-15 years ago, they were a big joke when he came to cycle manufacturing. The quality of the bikes they produced and the factories there were horrible sweatshops.<p>Then, they started getting better. They updated their technology, they had better trained workers to run the new machines. Then bike manufacturers started to see what was going on, and started moving big chunks of their manufacturing over there. Last time I checked, companies like Giant, Trek, and Specialized all have some of their manufacturing over there now. Their factories are some of the most advanced manufacturing plants in the world.<p>I think India has the same potential, but its still about 3-5 years from realizing its own potential. It will be interesting to see if it can make the jump, or remain a great "what if. . " story line.
I did a research a while back. For an entrepreneur, there are only two things he can make broadly, products and services. While services is a another thing, new products depend on a major workforce of prototyping industry.<p>Product Development in short is: Idea --> CAD File -- Prototype<p>It appears, that most of the prototyping firms, do not pick up from in the middle, i.e, If I had a Idea, no firm was ready to produce a CAD file. Even China based prototyping companies only take CAD files, and do not help you, with the CAD generation.<p>Meaning, if you don't undergo, a extensive training in software like Solidworks or AutoCAD which is both expensive and time consuming, or not find a engineer already well trained in them, you have no scope of converting your idea into a reality.<p>This is a bottle neck for entrepreneurs in India.
India is too large a country with dysfunctional democracy and bureaucracy which is hard if not impossible to fix. Indian states are liguistically, culturally and ethnically separate republics. The true way out for India is to follow an EU style governance formula, where ethnic states become autonomous republics with a common parliament, common currency and common defence mechanism. Indian states once released from the shackles of a centralized bureaucracy can perform much better and develop faster. States like Kerala, Tamilnadu and Gujarat can achieve developed nation status with in few decades at most. Kerala alone can become a $250B economy from the current $65B if only it is allowed to mend its own affairs.
The biggest problem with India is the lack of nationalism. Most Indians are not proud of India. If they were, all it's problems would get fixed for real. India is like 'Europe' - each state is a country of it's own. My solution to the whole problem is to spin off many states into separate countries. The people would be lot happier that way - most don't want to live together anyway. And then have some sort of schengen visa to enable free movement between states. 'State' level nationalism is a lot lot lot more than 'Country' level nationalism.
I'm not Indian, but I <i>truly</i> hope that India rises above it's current economical level, for <i>the good of the entire world.</i> Having whole generations of very hard-working (<i>too</i> hard working!) young people that have grown with an unhealthy tolerance for very bad working conditions, work abuse and for bad living conditions <i>decreases the quality of working conditions worldwide (or in EU and US at least)</i> and enforces a stereotype that will only turn back to hurt the younger generations of Indians.<p>My advice to qualified hard-working Indians (or any other qualified and educated people emigrating for a poorer country to a richer one):<p>1. be <i>PROUD</i> of yourself, don't be willing to work for 2x less just because you've just immigrated to an EU country or to the US (or for 10x less if you're working in your home country for an outsourcer)! you don't deserve less!<p>2. stop selling yourself with the "I can work really hard" label on your head - every employer and manager will <i>respect you less as a human being</i> if you do so, even if they may value you more (as in "business value", <i>not human value!</i>). (let me tell you something: even if business owners and top managers paint themselves as <i>hard working guys</i>, they just do it to project this image to their employees - 50% didn't get there by working <i>hard</i>, but by working <i>smart</i> an by good delegation and externalizing skills; only 10% probably got there by sheer hard work; and the other 40%... let's just say you don't want them as your role models :) )<p>3. once you get to a certain skill level, grow a bit of <i>smugness</i>, <i>pride</i> and <i>condescendence</i> for God's sake (it's healthy for you, trust me!), and try to wear the "reluctant genius" hat form time to time instead of the "hard working bee" one, even if it's not who you are - it teaches people the value, scarcity and tricky nature of "high quality wetware", it teaches that they have to pay top dollars for brainpower and accept that it will not always work as they want it and they just have to put up with this!<p>4. don't be afraid to <i>show Uncle Sam the finger</i> if you get caught in an US VISA trap, like being unable to quit your job because you'll loose your H1B VISA or something - this is <i>demeaning</i> and you shouldn't work in a country that puts you in such a situation, even if you'd earn more and learn more than anywhere else! You shouldn't because you don't have to: <i>the "rich" world is bigger than the US:</i> there's Canada, Europe, Australia, rising economies in South American countries etc.<p>Be angry, but also be <i>proud</i> and don't sell yourself short even if it hurts you in the short run - by asking for more and doing less you're actually making the world a better place for your children, even if it seems against your intuition and values!
Words, words, and more empty words!<p>> But the likes of Bharat Forge and Mahindra & Mahindra prefer to employ sophisticated machinery rather than abundant labour.<p>Surely, it employs labour. Why does the author claim that machines are preferred over labour? What does he compare it with? Where are the numbers?<p>> At the other end of the spectrum are innumerable tinpot workshops, employing handfuls of people and outdated methods.<p>Sure, there are such workshops. Everywhere.<p>> What India lacks is a Mittelstand of midsized, labour-hungry firms.<p>Anything to back up this claim? How does India compare to other countries on this front? Where is the data? Where is the analysis?<p>> These include India’s notorious labour laws which, on paper, prevent factories firing anyone without the state’s permission.<p>Is this really true? What Act/Article Number should I be looking at?<p>My impression of the article is that it is a tale /
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, /
Signifying nothing.