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India and China have been on the news for their exponential growth in the past few years. With India’s economy growing at an unprecedented 8%, are we seeing any improvement on the country on a macro-scale? Perhaps, it’s too soon to see changes. Technology and out-sourcing is the primary cause for the boom in our economy. With such a narrow cause, we are providing opportunities for a slice of India’s work force. I suppose this is good because we do produce over a million technology/engineering related graduates a year. The cream of the crop is absorbed by elite companies to enrich their employee base with talented, skilled workers to increase their profit margin. In the recent years, we have also seen an influx of employment from the medical, law and business sector, to alleviate bloated costs of foreign companies, as we provide a cheaper, yet brilliant task force for routine jobs.

However, it seems like the improvements in standards of living are purely urban, and in the upper bourgeoisie. The rural parts are still impoverished, and people die unnecessarily from lack of basic amenities and food. Agriculture is still the largest source of our income, and that has not seen the necessary change to help the farmers from difficulties. I believe that the money needs to be allocated differently, and we need to make changes in our domestic policy to alleviate the conditions of the common man. For one, we spend an obscene amount of money on Defense. Also, we need to fix our foreign policy issues related to Pakistan. A lot of our problems stem from that dispute.

The plight of the common populace of the country has not changed, and till that happens, our progress is inconsequential. We do NOT want to further alienate the poor, and create a rift between the upper and lower economic classes. Right now, the rich are getting richer, and poor are staying poor. The only improvement has been in the standard of living of youth in technology, business, medical and law job sectors. That is not right. We need an overall positive change, not segmented.

The inspiration for this post is from Pankaj Mishra’s op-ed “The Myth of New India” in NY Times.

If the op-ed is unavailable on NYT, follow the link below for the full article.

Read the complete article »