Okay blogopytes time for some reading.
India Is Growing, But Indians Are Still Starving – much is made of the coming of the Indian juggernaut but until they can actually feed their people they will continue to lag behind the other emerging superpower China.
The Only Thing That Really Matters.
When We’re Cowed By The Crowd – why thinking like everyone else is a crap idea.
WSJ ……..Ravi Venkatesan, until this week chairman of Microsoft Corp.’s India arm, says his nation is at a crossroads. “We could end up with a rather unstable society, as aspirations are increasing and those left behind are no longer content to live out their lives. You already see anger and expressions of it,” he says. “I strongly have a sense we’re at a tipping point: There is incredible opportunity but also dark forces. What we do as an elite and as a country in the next couple of years will be very decisive.”
… “What has globalization and industrialization done for India?” asks Mr. Venkatesan, Microsoft’s former India chairman. “About 400 million people have seen benefits, and 800 million haven’t.”
Calorie consumption by the bottom 50% of the population has been declining since 1987, according to the 2009-10 economic survey conducted by India’s Ministry of Finance, even as those at the top of society struggle with rising obesity. Mainly because of malnutrition, around 46% of children younger than 3 years old are too small for their age, according to UNICEF.
Infrastructure in cities and the countryside remains woefully inadequate: In recent years, China has added, on average, more than 10 times as much power as India to its electricity grid each year.
Data from McKinsey & Co. show that the number of households in the highest-earning income bracket, making more than $34,000 a year, has risen to 2.5 million, from 1 million in 2005. But the ranks of those at the bottom, making less than $3,000 a year, also have grown, to 111 million, from 101 million in 2005.
[Can these figures be correct? There are probably > 2.5 million households in Taiwan making over $34k a year!]
… India’s modernization was expected to prompt a mass movement of workers from farms to factory floors—a critical component in the transformation of China, South Korea and other Asian nations. But manufacturing as a share of India’s economy stood at 16% in 2009, the same as in 1991, according to the World Bank.
Services have increased dramatically as a proportion of gross domestic product, rising to 55% in 2009, from 45% in 1991, according to the World Bank, becoming the chief engine of India’s economic strength. But many of the fastest-growing areas, such as finance and technology, employ relatively few and rely heavily on skilled employees. The entire software and technology-services sector, including call centers and outsourcing, directly employs just 2.5 million workers, a tiny fraction of the overall work force.
Until India can feed its people then it will always lag other nations because of the simple nexus between malnutrition and lower average IQ’s. People who are starving never reach their full potential.
