India-a Super Power In The Making - Page 7

highsea · 06-21-2006, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronic

...errmmm... I wasn't showing any concern for the education system there... all I said is that students here stand academically higher then Western students... I mean, with what you learn there, you will never be able to pass a simple entrance test for a good school here, let alone a college...

Good God, I can't believe I'm arguing with a kid who hasn't even graduated high school.

Tronic, you obviously come from a priveleged family, and that's great for you. Not everyone in your country has the opportunities you have, I hope you make the most of them.

In the US, everyone has access to the kind of education I spoke of. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, the opportunity is there- it's up to the individual to make of it what he will. My father was a millworker.

India still has a way to go.

From the CIA factbook:

Adult literacy (over 15 years of age)

India: 59.5%
USA: 99%

Vaman · 06-21-2006, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highsea

In the US, everyone has access to the kind of education I spoke of. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, the opportunity is there- it's up to the individual to make of it what he will. My father was a millworker.

As good as the US education system may be, lets not go nuts here.
If everyone in the US had the same opportunities, situations such as these wouldnt arise:

Quote:

College divide threatens to keep the poor in poverty

By PAUL NYHAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The letters began arriving her sophomore year. The University of Southern California, UCLA, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Washington all courted Janae Brown, attracted by her B-plus average and a national academic award.

The interest was reward for the years Brown wedged college courses between her high school classes and a job selling shoes at J.C. Penney. With each honors class and paycheck, she moved closer to college and her goal of a white lab coat and medical degree.

Three years later, the Seattle native sits at a dingy 4-foot-wide cubicle, making $11 an hour chasing down delinquent Bank of America customers. Instead of attending the UW's first day of classes Wednesday, Brown, now 19, will go to work amid Renton's empty office buildings, fast food joints and car lots, one more kid in a stubbornly large group from poor families who are not in a four-year college.

Despite the lofty goals of presidents and policy-makers, over the past 30 years the poor have made little progress earning bachelor's degrees, increasingly the key to better jobs and middle-class security.

In 2003, 8.6 percent of the nation's poorest young adults earned bachelor's degrees by age 24, barely up from 7.1 percent in 1975, according to Postsecondary Education Opportunity, a higher education research group. This trend persisted even as more students enrolled in college overall.

"I am worried that we will become a stratified economy, like many in Latin America where the prosperous and the advantaged stay prosperous, and the poor and disadvantaged stay poor," Harvard University President Lawrence Summers said in an interview.

The divide between the wealthy and poor in educational opportunity threatens to perpetuate the cycle of poverty for thousands of working poor families. More than 147,000 low-wage employees fall into that category in King and Snohomish counties, and more than 80 percent of them never graduated from college.

The reasons low-income students don't go to college are complex and subtle -- pressure to help support their families financially, parents who offer little help because they never went to college themselves, and a system that drops many poor students into their senior years of high school unprepared for and unaware of the benefits of higher education.

The unrelenting rise in college tuition, which is squeezing both the lower and middle classes, only makes it harder.

The results of the problem are far clearer in an economy where a bachelor's degree has replaced a high school diploma as the minimum requirement for many jobs that pay decent wages.
After getting bumped off track last year, Janae Brown of Renton is once again trying to make her way to the UW.

If you stop at high school you'll make nearly $20,000 less a year, on average, than if you get through college.

College plans interrupted

In 2004, entering her last semester at Ingraham High School in North Seattle, Janae Brown was well on her way to a four-year university.

The quiet 17-year-old took classes at a nearby community college, completed the UW Early Scholars Outreach Program and even trained as a medical assistant just to get a taste of health care work.

Along the way, Brown skipped many high school rites of passage. She didn't play varsity sports, march in the band, cheer for the football team or get in much trouble. The only hints of teenage rebellion are two small piercings in her nose and upper lip.

The fourth of nine children pushed hard to get into college, so hard she became anxious and sick. She began skipping meals as she worked to become the first of her siblings to enroll at a four-year school.

"When you graduate from college, that's the big deal," Brown said during a lunch break from her job at the collections agency. "I know so many people who right out of high school just got a job and ended up there for 10 years."

With deadlines approaching in her senior year, she started working on applications to the UW and USC and finished up her honors class work.

On the all-important SAT, Brown's 1060 score ranked above the national average and at the state average, even without an SAT-prep program. After school, she didn't have time for extra classes before driving to Northgate Mall to sell shoes.

Four months from graduation, Brown's college plans began to unravel.

At a time when many high school seniors were putting final touches on college applications, Brown lost her home.

Brown's grandparents, Doris and Melvin Riddick, who raised her since she was a baby, said they got caught in a real estate scam they read about in a free supermarket circular.

Their deal to buy a home fell through after they had given up their rental home. They wound up homeless.

The college applications and financial aid packets were left unfinished, eventually tucked into a shoebox and placed inside a Castle Storage room after the family moved into a motel on Aurora Avenue for a few months.

Brown stumbled over two of the most common obstacles that poor college applicants face: a pressure to work in struggling families and a lack of money.

The Riddicks were raising five of Brown's siblings on the $35,000 Melvin made in a good year as a mechanic, stepping in after Brown's parents disappeared into crack and cocaine addiction. They didn't have much left for Brown's college education.

Brown chipped in $150 to $200 a month to the family budget, and her own expenses ate up much of her savings.

"She had everything except the resources," said Anthony Shoecraft, Brown's mentor at the YMCA. "She is the rock of the family. ... A huge part of her life was definitively put on hold."

At least Brown had grandparents pushing her toward higher education. When parents don't attend college, they don't always understand the application process, the amount of available financial aid and the potential importance of a four-year degree, experts say.

Plenty of struggling parents want their kids to go to college, but some are just too busy working multiple jobs or are simply unaware of their options.

"Kids on Mercer Island, the expectation when they get out of bed in the morning is they will go to college," said Mark Pursley, the director of the Boys & Girls Club in White Center, one of King County's poorest neighborhoods. "The parenting is the biggest (factor) ... in a kid's life."

With fewer people pushing lower-income kids toward four-year schools, many don't feel ready for college, counselors and academics say.

Harvard University dangled the possibility of a free ride in front of kids at the White Center Boys & Girls Club last year, but counselors couldn't get a bite.

Why? Plenty of the students appeared qualified, but no one thought they belonged at Harvard, according to Ryan Schaedig, education director at the club.

"College is a foreign word out here for a lot of these teens," Schaedig said. "They say, 'I am not a Harvard student. I would never make it there.' "

Lack of adequate preparation

The truth is many low-income students are not ready for top schools. Too often, no one ensures that they take every college-required course. Or students become lost balancing school, a few hours of sleep, a poor diet and part-time jobs to help their families, student advisers say.

"We have a bunch of kids who are inherently bright enough but who don't have the grades, don't have the SATs, don't have the foundation," Pursley said.

After graduation, 53 percent of poor high school students are ready for college, while 86 percent of wealthy graduates are prepared, Lawrence Gladieux, author of the book "The College Aid Quandary," told Congress in 2002, citing data developed for the Education Department.

"I don't think the problem is at the higher-ed level. The problem is the K-12 schools are not adequately preparing kids to go to school like college," said Neal McCluskey, education policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

Consider this: Over the past 30 years, the 32 percent gap between the percentage of low-income students and wealthy students attending college has barely budged, researchers have found.

And at the nation's top 19 schools, only 6 percent of those graduating in 1999 were the first in their family to attend college, according to the new book "Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education."

A University of Washington survey revealed that 11.6 percent of the 2004 freshman class came from families earning less than $25,000 a year, while 37 percent belonged to families making $75,000 or more.

College wasn't a priority in Jessica Swails' family when she was growing up in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula. Her father lived in Seattle, working as a welder and mechanic on the waterfront, and her mother raised the family on the peninsula. Swails dropped out of high school at 17 and was pregnant soon after.

But she never forgot how her parents struggled. When she saw a flier touting college aid for high school dropouts at a nutritional clinic a few years later, she grabbed it.

Today Swails is still cleaning houses, but she completed an associate degree in small business at Shoreline Community College last spring.

"When you are poor, (it's) hard enough just feeding your kids, making sure they are taken care of. You don't really have time to look for the future," said Swails, 26. "You are never going to make enough to get ahead without some sort of education."

Jobs go to 'other people's kids'

Going to college is not the only answer to poverty, but a four-year degree raises the odds that someone will make the leap to a stable, middle-class life.

The national unemployment rate in August for workers holding only high school diplomas, 4.7 percent, was more than double that of those with bachelor's degrees or more, 2.1 percent.

There is little doubt about the cash value of a bachelor's degree. In Washington, college graduates typically enjoy far higher pay -- $21.81 an hour on average -- than high school graduates, who earn an average of $9.80 an hour, according to the state's Employment Security Department.

The gap is expected to grow in a U.S. job market increasingly dominated by those who serve others rather than manufacture things.

The 21st-century economy rewards education by creating lots of high-paying service jobs that require degrees -- for lawyers, doctors and computer programmers, for example -- and lots of low-wage jobs requiring little education -- for janitors, warehouse workers and home health aides.

Fewer jobs exist in the middle for high school graduates.

"Now you have to have a B.A. to enter the economy to be able to support a family at minimum," argues Frances Contreras, an assistant professor at the UW's School of Education.

These new economy realities are eroding the belief some Seattleites have that the city retains plenty of good-paying blue-collar jobs.

Washington state is one of the leading suppliers of new-economy jobs in software, biotechnology, telecommunications and other sectors, said Ed Lazowska, who holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Endowed Chair in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington.

But Washington ranks a lowly 49th out of 50 states in the proportion of its 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in public four-year institutions, Lazowska added.

The state's "economy is creating these jobs," Lazowska said, "and they are going to other people's kids."

Tuition pains and gains

The problem of few poor kids on university campuses has been around for decades, but there are signs of progress.

Over the past year, some of the nation's leading schools -- Harvard, Yale and the University of Virginia -- offered to cover more of the educational costs for students from low-income families. At Harvard, for example, a student whose family earns less than $40,000 a year won't pay a dime to the school.

The University of Washington doesn't make similar offers, in large part because it relies on the state for funding. Ivy League schools have massive endowments -- Harvard alone boasts $19 billion -- that make it far easier to pay the bills of low-income students.

The free-ride initiatives are the most dramatic signs of a movement by presidents of some elite universities away from popular need-blind scholarships.

But such offers aren't worth that much in places like White Center, where kids aren't even confident enough to apply.

All schools can do more simply by sending "the message out that poor kids can come here," said Gladieux, the former head of policy and research at the College Board.

While those on the bottom of the economic ladder struggle the most, middle-class families also pay a steeper price for college these days. At the UW, tuition has jumped 187 percent from 1990 to this year, where it stands at $5,610 for Washington residents.

Baby steps

After getting bumped off track last year, Brown is once again trying to make her way to the University of Washington.

With her grandparents now settled in a North Seattle apartment, Brown lives on her own in Renton. She enrolled at Bellevue Community College this fall, another step toward a bachelor's degree and then, perhaps, medical school.

"I know for sure I am not going to put off school any longer," Brown said.

She still faces plenty of challenges getting through school. Just 50 percent of students who enroll in community colleges nationally with the idea of getting bachelor's degrees ever transfer to four-year schools, according to Education Department statistics.

Brown, though, has one critical advantage: a supportive family full of role models. One uncle went to Columbia University, another graduated from the University of California-Berkeley and a third graduated from California State University-Long Beach.

Even her mother spent a couple of years at USC before dropping out.

And the matriarch of the family, Grandmother Riddick, 69, who studied at the University of Panama for a year, expects Brown to go even further than others in her family. It just may take a little longer. She likens the process to jumping on stones to cross a creek.

"You slip and your foot gets wet," Riddick said.

"You still got to go on."

RESOURCES

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer relied on a wide variety of national and local experts, academics, counselors, non-profits and government agencies for the analysis and data used in this report. Sources not quoted directly in the story include:

# "Condition of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students," edited by Donald Heller

# "America's Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education," edited by Richard Kahlenberg

# "Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education," William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, Eugene Tobin

# Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance

# "Fast Track to College: Increasing Postsecondary Success for All Students"

# "Keeping America's Promise: A Report on the Future of Community College"

# Education Commission of the States

# Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Labor Department

# U.S. Education Department, National Center for Education Statistics

# State of Washington, Board for Community College and Technical Colleges

# National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, former analyst Jennifer Delaney

# U.S. Census Bureau

# Mary Barnett Lockman, worker-retraining program, Seattle Central Community College

# Paula Koontz, educational consultant, former college adviser at Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle

# Marla Skelley, Northwest Education Loan Association

# The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

# Washington Bridges to Opportunity project

# University of Washington

# Washington Research Council

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/..._access27.html

percentage_plyr · 06-21-2006, 13:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highsea

Good God, I can't believe I'm arguing with a kid who hasn't even graduated high school.

Tronic, you obviously come from a priveleged family, and that's great for you. Not everyone in your country has the opportunities you have, I hope you make the most of them.

In the US, everyone has access to the kind of education I spoke of. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, the opportunity is there- it's up to the individual to make of it what he will. My father was a millworker.

India still has a way to go.

From the CIA factbook:

Adult literacy (over 15 years of age)

India: 59.5%
USA: 99%

highsea.....college education is india doesnt cost a thing,literally.
u know wat was the fee for my entire 6 yrs at a MED. SCHOOL 400 usd$
lol....no kiddin.
3,000 rupees a year times 6=18,000 rupees.

to say its subsidised wld be an understatement.u have any idea wat the med. school fee in america r like????!! well,they cost an arm & a leg to be brief.
my frnd doing masters in public health from harvard had to shell out 52,000 USD=2.5 million rupees for a 9 month course!!!

so college education,in the govt. colleges in india is well within reach of everybody.

& then its upto them to make the best use of their oppurtunities.

the trouble is with the very limited reach of PRIMARY EDUCATION.

primary education
basic health
malnutrition

these r the things to be conquered first & foremost.........the engineering feats....missile dev.......satellite imaging are a distant distant priority for our country,or at least thts the way it should be.

Akshay · 06-21-2006, 14:49 PM

I paid Rs. 3870(approx $90) per semester for my engineering fees.

Vaman · 06-21-2006, 14:51 PM

Pathetic.. the govt. has no business subsidising higher studies.

Tronic · 06-21-2006, 18:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highsea

India still has a way to go.

From the CIA factbook:

Adult literacy (over 15 years of age)

India: 59.5%
USA: 99%

I agree... but lets see here... America had a head start of about.... 200 years!!! so... I think we're doing just fine considering that our nation is still only about 50 years old...

highsea · 06-21-2006, 18:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaman

As good as the US education system may be, lets not go nuts here.
If everyone in the US had the same opportunities, situations such as these wouldnt arise...

Vaman, I was specifically referring to K-12 education. Nowhere in my comments did I discuss my college years. And equal opportunity certainly is no guarantee of equal results...

PP- Yes, college is much cheaper in India by far! In the US, to get grants or scholarships, you need very good marks (a little luck doesn't hurt either) unless you are native (What OoE calls First Nation). I funded my own college education with a combination of grants, scholarships, and a job. I managed to get through without any debt, but that was about 25 years ago.

Tronic- I agree we have a head start. Never said we didn't.

What I don't agree with is the narrow-minded and sweeping statements you made in the beginning of this thread. You pass judgement on the US education system and call it inferior to India's, but the facts don't support your claims. Look- I don't know about IIT, maybe it's the best school in the world. I really don't care, it has no bearing on my life.

But to claim that Indians are just smarter than anyone else is pure arrogance (and pretty racist to boot).

Tronic · 06-21-2006, 19:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highsea

Tronic- I agree we have a head start. Never said we didn't.

What I don't agree with is the narrow-minded and sweeping statements you made in the beginning of this thread. You pass judgement on the US education system and call it inferior to India's, but the facts don't support your claims.

well please, then do read my posts again... I never said our education is "superior" to the US... I said it is "tougher" MUCH tougher... the education issue is debated here and the government has promised for reforms in the education system to decrease the immense burden on the kids... so it is not "superior" to the US system... it is just tougher...

Quote:

Look- I don't know about IIT, maybe it's the best school in the world. I really don't care, it has no bearing on my life.

I never highlighted that IIT is the best institution in the world... I just said it is the toughest institution to get into...

Quote:

But to claim that Indians are just smarter than anyone else is pure arrogance (and pretty racist to boot).

ok, well maybe, saying "smarter", I used the wrong word... let me re-phrase... "Indian students are more "capable" in the academic field then their counterparts in the US, simply because we go through a LOT more sh!t then the US kids can even imagine..."

PS: And I don't see how my previous statement is racist... unless you associate Indians with only one race!!!

Vaman · 06-21-2006, 19:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highsea

Vaman, I was specifically referring to K-12 education.

Oh ok.. us third worlders here have a problem reading.
Equal opportunity for everyone with reference to K-12 education you say?
Here goes:

Quote:

Education: What About the Poor?

by Chris Cardiff

In various forms, the question "what do we do about the poor?" outstrips all others as the most frequently asked question about separating school and state. The implicit assumption, only natural after 60 years of the welfare state and 150 years of government control of education, is that government is the only entity capable of looking out for the poor and educating them.

Both the historical record and present conditions invalidate this assumption. There is no evidence that poor children were denied an education in the nonslave states before the government takeover of the schools in the mid-1800s. Since then, educational opportunities for the poor have declined steadily.

While government control of education harms all families, children of low-income families are damaged most severely. Our inner-city government schools resemble prisons with their metal detectors and armed guards on patrol. Described as 'poverty mills' by critics, these institutions cannot educate; they can only warehouse children. Despite spending over 300 billion taxpayer dollars on education every year, our existing system of government schools is not meeting the needs of low-income families.

The full separation of school and state means rescinding government-compelled attendance, curriculum, credentialing, accreditation, and financing. The issue of providing educational opportunities for the poor hinges on financing. Restated, the question becomes: how will low-income families be able to afford education for their children without government handouts?

The Second Largest Entitlement Program in the World

With expenditures of over $316 billion per year, education is the second-largest entitlement program in the United States (and the world), ranking behind Social Security but ahead of Medicare-Medicaid [1]. Providing educational pportunities for low-income families can be met without edu-welfare by replacing the government educational dole with a system of private scholarships (or private vouchers) funded by charitable donations.

As part of the movement toward a free market in education, dozens of private scholarship foundations for elementary and secondary school-age children have proliferated since J. Patrick Rooney, chairman of Golden Rule Insurance, inaugurated the first one in 1991. These charity-financed programs encourage family involvement with their children's education and schools by requiring participating families to choose a school that matches their needs and to pay part of the tuition themselves.

These programs are successfully providing the means for over 10,000 children to attend independent schools today. Is it realistic to expect them to replace our gigantic edu-welfare system? How much money would these programs need to help all low-income families? The answer is comparatively very little.

Running the Numbers

A simplified static analysis of educational funding requires two numbers: how many children (or families) will need financial assistance to attend independent schools, and how much will it cost them? As a rough estimate, one-third of families -- 16 million children -- will need financial assistance. Half of these, eight

million, are classified as 'poor' by the U.S. Census Bureau, while the other half could be considered lower middle-class.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, private school tuition averages between $2,500 and $3,000 per year. A typical private scholarship program provides up to half (some pay more than half, most have ceiling amounts). For this simplified static analysis, assume $1,500 scholarships-half the cost of the upper end of the range. (It's easy to improve on this model by developing a sliding scale of scholarships based on financial need, ranging, for example, from $750 to $2,250 but averaging $1,500).

If all 16 million poor and lower-middle-class children were provided a $1,500 scholarship, educational opportunities in today's independent schools could be opened for all low-income families for only $24 billion.
.
.
.

http://www.self-gov.org/freeman/9607card.html

percentage_plyr · 06-21-2006, 20:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronic

... so it is not "superior" to the US system... it is just tougher...

:

highsea,i"d have to agree to that...indian school students need to do a lot more hustling manipulation & undergo needless pressure than their american counterparts.

Quote:

"Indian students are more "capable" in the academic field then their counterparts in the US, simply because we go through a LOT more sh!t then the US kids can even imagine..."

let me RE-REPHRASE IT......indian students go through a lot more sh!t than their american counterparts.period.there r moronic students too among them(who pass high school)..there r exceptionally intelligent ones too.

i can say this bout an indian student vis-a-vis an american one......on an average,an indian student would tend to be a bit better at hustling.....manipulation.....thinking on one"s feet & playing to one"s strength than a western student.mainly becuz his surroundings demand him to be so,& he has grown up knowing that & doing that.

Quote:

But to claim that Indians are just smarter than anyone else is pure arrogance (and pretty racist to boot).

not racism really,i suppose,misplaced excessive nationalism.with a health dose of arrogance.& that adolescent testosterone!

gunnut · 06-21-2006, 21:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaman

As good as the US education system may be, lets not go nuts here.
If everyone in the US had the same opportunities, situations such as these wouldnt arise:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/..._access27.html

Quick, call Jesse Jackson. It's the whiteman's fault...

The poor will always have fewer opportunities than the rich. The beauty of the capitalist economy is that anyone is free to move up or down the economic ladder. Notice the report says "over the past 30 years the poor have made little progress earning bachelor's degrees." It doesn't say women or blacks or hispanics or natives can't make progress getting degrees. It says "poor" which is not an immutable factor. You can go from rich to poor or from poor to rich, but you can't go from black to white or native to hispanic.

If a poor man, through sheer hard work and inginuity, makes it into middle class, and receives a degree, he is no longer included in this statistic, because he's "not poor" any more.

Does that make sense to anyone?

Vaman · 06-23-2006, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut

Quick, call Jesse Jackson. It's the whiteman's fault...

The poor will always have fewer opportunities than the rich. The beauty of the capitalist economy is that anyone is free to move up or down the economic ladder. Notice the report says "over the past 30 years the poor have made little progress earning bachelor's degrees." It doesn't say women or blacks or hispanics or natives can't make progress getting degrees. It says "poor" which is not an immutable factor. You can go from rich to poor or from poor to rich, but you can't go from black to white or native to hispanic.

If a poor man, through sheer hard work and inginuity, makes it into middle class, and receives a degree, he is no longer included in this statistic, because he's "not poor" any more.

Does that make sense to anyone?

Actually you are not making any sense.
I understand that the term "poor" is not immutable, but what you are suggesting is a statistical blackhole. I have way too much respect for even american statisticians and anlaysts to assume they make as elementary mistake as that.

Captain Drunk · 06-23-2006, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronic

I agree... but lets see here... America had a head start of about.... 200 years!!! so... I think we're doing just fine considering that our nation is still only about 50 years old...

Only 50 years? From ‘Mahabharat’ times I’d say more than 5000 years. We’ve already had our glory days as a Superpower for more centuries than Egypt, Rome or anyone else has and probably will again

Captain Drunk · 06-23-2006, 10:28 AM

Not to mention flying around in those subsonic......"Vimanas" haha

Vaman · 06-25-2006, 12:54 PM

Great article yet again by the only columnist I care to read :

Quote:

Jawaharlal Nehru wrote his seminal history, The Discovery of India, during the British Raj. But now we have a very different discovery of India by the western media.

Time magazine has a cover story on India in its US edition with the blurb "Why the world's biggest democracy is the next great economic superpower."

Earlier, The Economist, UK, came out with a 15-page survey of India concluding that the Indian elephant has learnt to fly. In the 1990s, India was seen as a chronic underperformer.

Then the rise of Indian computer software created a new image. India was first projected to enter the big league by the BRIC report of Goldman Sachs in 2003, which predicted that India would have the third largest GDP in the world by 2050.

Then came the CIA vision report for 2020, predicting the rise of China and India as economic superpowers. These reports were initially greeted with scepticism. China had a proven track record but not India.

Indeed, India's GDP growth dipped to 5.5% per year in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002), down from 6.7% in the Eighth Plan. However, soon afterwards India began exceeding BRIC projections.

GDP growth averaged over 8% in the three years 2004-06. Indian manufacturers, earlier terrified of Chinese competition, suddenly took off. Indian software companies showed that they were not just low-wage players but could rise up the value chain.

Indian pharma and auto companies started acquiring companies across the globe. They even invested in China. Growing competitiveness translated into surging profits and a stock market boom.

The Sensex rose from 2900 in 2003 to 12700 by May 2006. Investment guru Marc Faber said that if forced to invest all his money in either the US or India, he would choose India.

The Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement of July 2005 was diplomatic recognition of India's new status as a rising power. I am gratified by the West's Discovery of India. Yet, much of this is unwarranted hype.

ndia has a thin veneer of world-class people. But beneath this lies a cesspool of injustice, corruption, poverty, and callousness. The impressive outer layer is thickening, but much too slowly.

The most significant indicator of the rot is that 150 of India's 600 districts are now affected by Naxalite violence. The rot is worsening, not improving. Can such a country really become an economic superpower?

In every miracle economy, success has been made possible by a joint effort by the government and private sector, with each doing what it does best.

The government has provided a good business climate plus good human and social investment that enables ordinary people to take advantage of new opportunities.

Private business has flourished in such conditions, growth has accelerated, and poverty has declined. This has happened to some extent in India. Yet, it seems laughably short of what is required to become a superpower.

The police-judicial system has collapsed. The Jessica Lal and BMW cases confirm that anybody with money, muscle and influence is effectively above the law. Criminals move into legislatures and cabinets to ensure they cannot be prosecuted.

The confidential report on the Narmada Dam oustees portrays astounding official callousness compounded by brazen lies. Time magazine reports that 3,500 travellers per year die falling off overcrowded trains in Mumbai, more than the deaths caused by the Godhra riots or Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal.

Primary education, health and water supply are supposed to be provided by the government, but its performance is pathetic despite enormous expenditures. Teachers teach only half the time.

Only one in 14 children in classes three-four can write their names without private tuition (Pratichi report 2002). Health clinics are typically shut, or have no medicines.

Private providers of education, health and water are filling the gap, a saving grace, but the poor can least afford these. Huge subsidies for irrigation and fertilisers benefit mainly larger farmers, and huge urban subsidies benefit the richer half of the population.

Child malnutrition is worse in India than in Africa. The share of children getting full immunisation is down from 52% in 1998-99 to 44.6% in 2002-03. India now has the most AIDS cases in the world (5.7 million).

The poverty ratio has fallen to 22%, a good achievement, but 242 million people are still below the poverty line. Democracy provides some avenues for redressing grievances.

But the steady rise of Naxalites shows how limited this benefit really is. Democracy without rule of law is a weak institution. Yes, India does have a growing world-class business community.

But unless the state is transformed from a callous exploiter into one that actually serves citizens, unless we get a half-satisfactory police-judicial system, unless we create incentives that reward desirable behaviour of officials and politicians and penalise undesirable behaviour, I doubt if India can become an economic superpower.

06-21-2006, 14:49 PM	#94 (permalink)
Akshay formerly ab041937 *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 06-27-05 Posts: 1,523 Country:	I paid Rs. 3870(approx $90) per semester for my engineering fees. __________________ If at first you don't succeed, call it v1.0!

06-21-2006, 14:51 PM	#95 (permalink)
Vaman Banished Join Date: 11-06-03 Posts: 1,043	Pathetic.. the govt. has no business subsidising higher studies.

06-23-2006, 10:28 AM	#104 (permalink)
Captain Drunk Banished Join Date: 01-02-06 Location: Goa, India Posts: 825	Not to mention flying around in those subsonic......"Vimanas" haha