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India Shining? - Part I

In the BRIC report by Roopa Purushotakhaman and Dominique Phillips of Goldman Sachs, India, Brazil, Russia and China have been touted as the economies of future. This comparison has caused many Indians to believe that we are at par with the other 3 nations. But all the other 3 BRIC nations are way beyond India as far as infrastructure is concerned.

Also, if one compares the other 3 BRIC countries (referred to as BRC henceforth) with India, one would see some striking differences. Firstly, numbers of Diaspora are much larger for India than for any of these countries. Secondly, while the other three have relied for their current rise primarily on manufacturing outsourcing, India relies equally on services sector both primary services and outsourced services.

Going a little deeper into the economic policies, one again notices a wide difference. India, in its initial years of development, did not invest in much on development of basic infrastructure like roads, water, and primary education etc. The emphasis remained on projects that came much higher in the development chain like – Higher Education (read IIT, REC, IIS etc), Large Scale Industry (read PSUs) etc. The emphasis was on macro rather then micro development. While it seemed the right thing to do at that time, this phenomenon has had its effects. Seen from another perspective one realizes that these investments have amounted to subsidizing individual comforts (cheap education, easy employment, etc) which is obvious given that India is a democracy. In comparison, BRC have invested in public comfort like roads while individual life there is not easy enough (for example, becoming an engineer is quite expensive).

The average Indian today feels that public infrastructure in India is a mismatch to his personal standing (which is much better than an equivalent BRC citizen). On the other hand, in BRC, people are now striving for personal uplift because the standard of public infra is higher than standard of their personal lives. One can also argue the converse that citizen of BRC do not posses the high-quality skills which Indians do. On either side we would find that Indians as individuals are much better poised than what they collectively stand for while the situation is exactly opposite in BRC. This is probably one reason for immigration quotient being high among Indians than among BRC citizen.

Comments

  1. great analysis dude
    u kinda saved my butt
    had a presentation on bric report in class thanks

    is this a miracle or mere coincidence

    ReplyDelete

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