Claire - I am peeved - I'm sure on behalf of many of your readers and subscribers - that you think we haven't read your books! I have "Screw the beautiful forevers" on Kindle, and I read it at least a couple of years ago. (How could I skip a book with such a title!)
Seriously, I agree with most of what you say about India. From 2009 to 2019, my entire team was in India, and I visited them and toured multiple cities where our company's offices were located once or twice a year for two weeks at a time. I could see, year by year, how rapidly India changed for the better.
The best example was the ride from the Chennai airport to the hotel. In the earlier years, during the entire extent of the trip the streets were lined with people - families - living literally on the sidewalks. That started to change around 2013-14. In 2019, during my last visit, the sidewalks were clear! Extreme poverty indeed disappeared - at least there; I haven't been to Mumbai since 2014, so I can’t confirm if those vast slums have improved; they made a tremendous impression on me back in the day.
My experience with the folks I met through work was that the birthrates of the higher educated layer of the population collapsed as much as they have elsewhere – pretty much everyone I met well enough to have a personal conversation with turned out to have one, two, or at most three children, even though they were very excited at the prospect of passing China in the overall population race.
India is an incredibly diverse country – it has 22 official languages and over 700 altogether! Yet, I observed a very strong sense of unity and national pride. I was fortunate enough to attend a Republic Day Parade in New Delhi, and those feelings were palpable.
I noticed a remarkable mix of intense competitiveness and practical cooperation, exemplified by Indian roads. Every vehicle fights to be ahead of every other one, yet the traffic continues to flow even in the absence of (or disregard for) stoplights, or in the face of obstacles that would cause Western roads to become parking lots.
As you observe, there are still numerous challenges, not the least of which are the legacy of its experiment with socialism and the protectionist tendencies I detected.
I have no doubt that the Indian economy will continue to grow; I would suggest, though, that the key number to track should be GDP per capita, not the overall economy, which is a factor of the huge population advantage.
India needs to get more aggressive as a leader of the free world - partner with other free countries. They can take some pressure off the US in the Indian Ocean. It seems to me that the US is ready to step down a notch globally (not a good thing, but it seems to be happing) and better for India to step into that vacuum than China, Iran or Russia.
Wow, you read that? I'm delighted! But Amazon never sent me a statement saying that someone had purchased it. I wonder why not? Surely I should be paid some part of that, right?
I don't remember the transaction exactly, but I certainly have it in my Kindle library! I wish there were a way to attach a screenshot to this... I'll send it via Gmail.
Great read. Especially enlightening was the portion on health care and it’s innovations. I’m sorry and not just a bit horrified on how you had to witness its function first hand.
Great article (though haven’t completely finished it yet). I like the concept of frugal innovation. It does seem like there are *some* advantages that come with being a late developer on the national level. In particular, you’re not burdened by many of the same dysfunctional legacy institutions that tend to lock in various inefficiencies at scale. This reminded a little bit of the book “Startup Nation” about the Israeli experience.
Thanks for posting. Lots caught my eye, more than I can reproduce and lots rings very true to me in the light of the time period I visited India more than forty years ago through a Group Study Exchange Grant sponsored by Rotary International. I was even asked, during that visit, by a small group of interested Rotarians and their associates, who had perused my bio, to offer a defense of my Master's Thesis entitled :"A Critical Analysis of the Proof of the Immortality of the Human Soul in the Work of Thomas Aquinas." What other place in the world might that event have taken place? In all honesty, they were bored and feigned satisfaction with the presentation after about twenty minutes, but I recall that aspect of my visit with fond amusement. In closing, "Every Indian knows that education-and education alone- is the pathway to the middle class. Exactly as American higher education has fallen into terminal disrepute, Indians are scrambling like mad to get a serious education." Amen.
This article was so great that it convinced me (in addition to the other comments here) to buy the book! Really really interesting.
So glad you thought so!
Claire - I am peeved - I'm sure on behalf of many of your readers and subscribers - that you think we haven't read your books! I have "Screw the beautiful forevers" on Kindle, and I read it at least a couple of years ago. (How could I skip a book with such a title!)
Seriously, I agree with most of what you say about India. From 2009 to 2019, my entire team was in India, and I visited them and toured multiple cities where our company's offices were located once or twice a year for two weeks at a time. I could see, year by year, how rapidly India changed for the better.
The best example was the ride from the Chennai airport to the hotel. In the earlier years, during the entire extent of the trip the streets were lined with people - families - living literally on the sidewalks. That started to change around 2013-14. In 2019, during my last visit, the sidewalks were clear! Extreme poverty indeed disappeared - at least there; I haven't been to Mumbai since 2014, so I can’t confirm if those vast slums have improved; they made a tremendous impression on me back in the day.
My experience with the folks I met through work was that the birthrates of the higher educated layer of the population collapsed as much as they have elsewhere – pretty much everyone I met well enough to have a personal conversation with turned out to have one, two, or at most three children, even though they were very excited at the prospect of passing China in the overall population race.
India is an incredibly diverse country – it has 22 official languages and over 700 altogether! Yet, I observed a very strong sense of unity and national pride. I was fortunate enough to attend a Republic Day Parade in New Delhi, and those feelings were palpable.
I noticed a remarkable mix of intense competitiveness and practical cooperation, exemplified by Indian roads. Every vehicle fights to be ahead of every other one, yet the traffic continues to flow even in the absence of (or disregard for) stoplights, or in the face of obstacles that would cause Western roads to become parking lots.
As you observe, there are still numerous challenges, not the least of which are the legacy of its experiment with socialism and the protectionist tendencies I detected.
I have no doubt that the Indian economy will continue to grow; I would suggest, though, that the key number to track should be GDP per capita, not the overall economy, which is a factor of the huge population advantage.
This is fantastic.
India needs to get more aggressive as a leader of the free world - partner with other free countries. They can take some pressure off the US in the Indian Ocean. It seems to me that the US is ready to step down a notch globally (not a good thing, but it seems to be happing) and better for India to step into that vacuum than China, Iran or Russia.
If you haven't seen this 8-minute video yet about "India After America," I highly recommend it.
https://youtu.be/41AEoEkgDm0?si=IHtVWTLo2u2Ifdbl
Wow, you read that? I'm delighted! But Amazon never sent me a statement saying that someone had purchased it. I wonder why not? Surely I should be paid some part of that, right?
I don't remember the transaction exactly, but I certainly have it in my Kindle library! I wish there were a way to attach a screenshot to this... I'll send it via Gmail.
Thank you! I'll figure this out.
I wonder if it's actually a bestseller, but the profits have been going to some other account?
Great read. Especially enlightening was the portion on health care and it’s innovations. I’m sorry and not just a bit horrified on how you had to witness its function first hand.
Great article (though haven’t completely finished it yet). I like the concept of frugal innovation. It does seem like there are *some* advantages that come with being a late developer on the national level. In particular, you’re not burdened by many of the same dysfunctional legacy institutions that tend to lock in various inefficiencies at scale. This reminded a little bit of the book “Startup Nation” about the Israeli experience.
Thanks for posting. Lots caught my eye, more than I can reproduce and lots rings very true to me in the light of the time period I visited India more than forty years ago through a Group Study Exchange Grant sponsored by Rotary International. I was even asked, during that visit, by a small group of interested Rotarians and their associates, who had perused my bio, to offer a defense of my Master's Thesis entitled :"A Critical Analysis of the Proof of the Immortality of the Human Soul in the Work of Thomas Aquinas." What other place in the world might that event have taken place? In all honesty, they were bored and feigned satisfaction with the presentation after about twenty minutes, but I recall that aspect of my visit with fond amusement. In closing, "Every Indian knows that education-and education alone- is the pathway to the middle class. Exactly as American higher education has fallen into terminal disrepute, Indians are scrambling like mad to get a serious education." Amen.