Free up Education Sector NOW !! & fire Arjun Singh

[sidchhikara]

All,

Here is a passionate rant from Atanu Dey on the above topic.

Begging for a World Class University

May 28th, 2008 · 4 Comments (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#comments)

Consider this scenario. Someone you know imprisons his grown up children and does not allow them to go out and do jobs that they are fully capable of doing. He also locks up his productive assets and prevents his children from using them. Then he goes around begging his neighbors for help with feeding his family as he does not have any income. The words that spring to mind upon considering this man’s behavior are words like contemptible, immoral, stupid, pathetic, pitiable, and sad........

Read the whole post here: http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#more-1210 (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#more-1210)

What do the people on this forum think?

[spdeshwal]

You know Siddharth, Bharti ji has mentioned about a command that only Moderators have access to, ""Kick"

Manmohan Singh should use that command, " Kick Arjun Singh" out without any further delay.


Cheers!

[jitendershooda]

You know Siddharth, Bharti ji has mentioned about a command that only Moderators have access to, ""Kick"

Manmohan Singh should use that command, " Kick Arjun Singh" out without any further delay.


Cheers!

Ha ha ha ha ... Deshwal ji ... jib te aap Australia gae ho ... aapki posts mein ek gajab ka change hai ... kya baat hai ... bus aise hi KOTUHAL-VASH pooch liya ... ha ha ha

Sid bhai ... tun karda choh mein aya rahe se sari haan in politicians pe ... sachi mein sochun tha ek issa sa IAS chahiye ... susra aur kime na to jit jit posting hovegi TNSheshan ki dhalan change lyavega .... have a thought bhai on my suggestion ... DESH HIT MEIN JARI ... :)

Er yo link na khulya ... it seems to be good information ... please paste the main discussion here itself ... if you have time ... thanks.

[sidchhikara]

Ha ha ha ha ... Deshwal ji ... jib te aap Australia gae ho ... aapki posts mein ek gajab ka change hai ... kya baat hai ... bus aise hi KOTUHAL-VASH pooch liya ... ha ha ha

Sid bhai ... tun karda choh mein aya rahe se sari haan in politicians pe ... sachi mein sochun tha ek issa sa IAS chahiye ... susra aur kime na to jit jit posting hovegi TNSheshan ki dhalan change lyavega .... have a thought bhai on my suggestion ... DESH HIT MEIN JARI ... :)

Er yo link na khulya ... it seems to be good information ... please paste the main discussion here itself ... if you have time ... thanks.

Jite, here is the full article....


Begging for a World Class University

May 28th, 2008 · 6 Comments (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#comments)

Consider this scenario. Someone you know imprisons his grown up children and does not allow them to go out and do jobs that they are fully capable of doing. He also locks up his productive assets and prevents his children from using them. Then he goes around begging his neighbors for help with feeding his family as he does not have any income. The words that spring to mind upon considering this man’s behavior are words like contemptible, immoral, stupid, pathetic, pitiable, and sad.

Those words sprung to my mind when I read an article “India at foreign door for varsity - Appeal for help after half a century (http://telegraphindia.com/1080528/jsp/frontpage/story_9331088.jsp#)” in The Telegraph (Calcutta, India.)

New Delhi, May 27: India has asked Britain for financial and technical assistance to set up a new “world class” university (WCU), nearly half a century after it last asked for foreign help in starting a premier education institution.
Junior higher education minister Purandeswari Devi has also asked her British counterpart Bill Rammell for assistance in upgrading facilities and teaching standards at the Indian Institutes of Technology, government officials told The Telegraph.
I hang my head in shame to see India debased so pathetically. Indians are second to none when it comes to talent, drive, hard work, and entrepreneurial ambition. Whenever they have had the freedom to do so, Indians have demonstrated all those through their considerable success. Until very recently, those success stories have mainly been associated with Indians abroad because it was in free countries such as the US that they had the freedom to achieve their destiny. The government of India, until very recently, following the enlightened policies of socialism, denied its citizens the freedom to achieve, to build, to compete in the world, to serve domestic and foreign markets. To the limited extent that the government has deviated from its avowed socialistic goals of scaling the commanding heights of the economy by controlling every minute aspect of the economic lives of its citizens, the people and corporations of India have prospered and gained global respect and attention.
Why does the government of India continue to imprison the educational system even now? What is the reason that it will not allow Indians the freedom to build educational institutions in India? Why does the government then go out with a begging bowl to foreign governments asking for help with building “world class universities” when Indians are quite capable of doing so?

Do you have any doubts that Indians can build world class institutions of learning? Let us recall that the world’s best universities were in India once upon a time. That was a time when India did not have “The Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India” and did not have a minister for higher education or an education minister. Do you have any doubts that India has world class scholars and professors? Just two days ago I had the honor of meeting two celebrated Indian professors — both working in world class universities abroad. You cannot examine the faculty list of any top class American university without picking out dozens of Indians on it.

[sidchhikara]

Why, oh, why does the government of India have to imprison the education sector? There may be many reasons for India’s pathetic economic performance. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, let’s be honest about this. India is pathetically poor. Sure the GDP is growing at a respectable rate after decades of 2 and 3 percent Nehru rate of growth but that growth rate is on a really small base. India’s per capita GDP of US$700 cannot be compared to the per capita GDP of the US of US$28,000.) It is my opinion that one of the primary reasons is that its education system is flawed. It is also my considered opinion that the reason for India’s pathetic educational system is that the government has total control over it.
So back to the question: why does the government control the educational system? I believe it does so because it is the life-blood of the economy. By controlling that, it gains a stranglehold on the economy which it can exploit for its objective of extracting every bit of rent that it can. Let’s remember that government is made up of people — the bureaucrats and politicians. People are motivated by self interest. Through their control, they gain personally in terms of power, prestige and most importantly money. Like any monopolist, these people limit the supply of educational opportunities and then ration out the limited supply to favored groups to buy their allegiance. Reservations based on caste, religion and other non-relevant criteria are obvious symptoms of this rent-seeking rationing.
Control is the operative word. The last paragraph of that Telegraph article is revealing. It says,

The universities will be controlled by the Centre but kept distinct from existing central universities, and will be nurtured to compete with institutions like Harvard and Cambridge.
Centralized micro-level control is inimical to growth and development at the macro-level. We have to continually refer to those sectors where the government has relinquished control (even partially) and note how those sectors have prospered. And why shouldn’t they prosper? As I never tire of pointing out, there is nothing inherently lacking among Indians that they cannot build world class companies. It need not be necessarily so but the broad generalization is forced on one after even a cursory examination of India’s economy that the Indian government is the greatest impediment to India’s economic growth, and that the government of India is perhaps the greatest enemy of the Indian people.
Allow me to quote some more from the Telegraph:

Sources said Purandeswari told Rammell at a meeting in Delhi yesterday that India needed assistance in modernising teacher-training programmes in higher education.
Faculty support — a euphemism for greater participation of guest lecturers from the foreign country — was another request put forward by Purandeswari, the sources said, adding that she also dwelt on skill development — educating students for the job market — as a “key issue”.
Rammell is learnt to have told the minister that the UK was in the process of restructuring its own skill development process, and was willing to share its experiences.
The two ministers are expected to meet again in London on July 18 or 19.
The sources said India, at yesterday’s meeting, indicated its desire to firm up details of the plan before the end of the year. Higher education secretary R.P. Agrawal asked Rammell if the deal could be finalised by July, but the British minister evaded any commitment to a timeline. [Emphasis added.]
Now why would the British government official not be overly eager to help India in this regard? Let me try to answer that. If my allegiance were to Britain, the last thing I would like to see is that India become so successful in the education sector that it hurts British interests. In fact, I would wake up every day and give thanks to the gods that the Indian government has crippled India’s education system and thus ensured that Britain continues to gain from the flight of human capital from India. Lacking educational opportunities in India, those among the talented Indians who can afford it are forced to go to the UK and the US for higher education. Once there, they add to the human capital of those foreign countries as they settle down and further enrich their adopted countries. I don’t blame them. Humans value freedom like they value the air they breathe: without it, they suffocate and die.

[sidchhikara]

(Aside: Just moments ago, the power failed. Yesterday afternoon where I live in Pune, the power failed about a dozen times, with outages ranging from a few minutes to half an hour. God alone knows how long this failure would be. Power here is predictably unpredictable. My laptop power will last about 3 hours and I just hope that the power returns before too long. You need not ask which agency is responsible for power in Pune. It is the Maharastra State Electricity Board — a government undertaking. Now back to the current rant.)
So will the US and the UK help out India build world class universities in India? Like hell they will. Indians are forced to spend billions of dollars each year in education abroad. (Estimates are of the order of US$10 billion annually.) They have to be stupid to do something that will hurt their national interest. They will not only lose the income from providing education to India, they will lose out on the added human capital. And most of all, they will lose jobs that Indians educated well in India can do in India.
Here’s a story from the NY Times of April 4, 2007, which should scare the pants off of the Americans: India’s Edge Goes Beyond Outsourcing (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/business/worldbusiness/04rupee.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin). They are witnessing job flight to India on a scale that they had not anticipated. Corporations such as Boeing, Morgan Stanley, Eli Lilly, Accenture, IBM, Airbus, Cisco, and Microsoft are mentioned in the context of the number of jobs they are transferring to India. Here’s a bit:

With multinationals employing tens of thousands of Indians, some are beginning to treat the country like a second headquarters, sending senior executives with global responsibilities to work there. For example, Cisco Systems, the leading maker of communications equipment, has decided that 20 percent of its top talent should be in India within five years; it recently moved one of its highest-ranking executives, Wim Elfrink, to Bangalore, the center of the Indian industry, as chief globalization officer.
(Just by the way, last month I met Wim Elfrink at the opening of a Cisco Systems training and development center in the Zensar campus in Pune.)
So what is happening over here? Globalization. It is the erasing of national boundaries with respect to jobs that can be outsourced through the magic of the recent revolution in information and communications technologies (for services) and manufacturing jobs through the magic of the 52-year old (http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/04/27/box-happy-50th-birthday/) shipping container revolution. Transnational corporations shifting jobs wherever they find labor-cost arbitrage opportunities.
Yes jobs are moving to India. So far, the foreign corporations are picking up the low-hanging fruits among the employable in India. But that well (to mix metaphors shamelessly) is going to go dry very soon. From the NYT article:

. . .specialists warned that a continued flow of work to India required drastic improvements in its educational system and basic facilities. Water and power shortages are endemic, and industry experts predict that India could lack 500,000 engineers by 2010. Yet the country has already tapped a deep well of English-speaking engineers, attracting more outsourced work than any other country.
(Oh goody, the power just came back on. Now I can save this draft and continue my rant.)
Within just two years, India will face a shortage of half a million engineers! If that is so, the labor-cost advantage of India will most certainly disappear as the price of engineers will be bid up. As it is the reported churn among software engineers in India is phenomenally high and wages are going up 30 percent per annum by some estimates.
Wouldn’t liberalizing the educational system be the most rational response to solve the shortage of skilled manpower? Yes, it would. Will it be done? Not if India continues to have a ministry of higher education and a minister of education of the likes of Arjun Singh.
Economist Alan Blinder has characterized outsourcing as “the third Industrial Revolution.” The first one was missed thanks to the British: they were the colonial power ruling India and it was not in their interest to see that India become an industrial giant. I don’t blame the British. If I was a loyal Britisher, I too would not like to hurt Britain’s interests. The second industrial revolution (I am guessing) that Blinder refers to is the off-shoring of manufacturing that mainly happened to the East Asian tigers and later to China. India missed that because of the Nehruvian socialist policies of barriers to foreign investment, archaic labor laws, xenophobia’s, and plain old fashioned stupidity.
This third industrial revolution bus is about to depart. India does not seem too eager to get on that one. No, I take that back. Indians are desperately impatient to get on this one. They are struggling to get on board. But the government of India is doing its best to prevent that from happening. It is as if the government is saying, “Just try to get on that bus and we will break your kneecaps for you. Don’t you dare escape from our clutches.”
If I had my way, I would charge junior higher education minister Purandeswari Devi with treason for having debased the country by begging a foreign nation for assistance with doing something that Indians can do. She has shamed Indians and implied that Indians are incapable of creating world class universities. I think that all Indians in the education professions — both at home and abroad — should tar and feather her for her direct insult at them. Shame on you, Ms Devi. Just resign from your post and go beg for a living instead of feeding at the taxpayers’ expense — the tax payers whom you insult so deeply.
End of rant.
Tags: Rants (Warning: May cause offense) (http://www.deeshaa.org/category/rants-warning-may-cause-offense/) · The Dismal Failure of our Education System (http://www.deeshaa.org/category/education/the-dismal-failure-of-our-education-system/) · Why is India Poor? (http://www.deeshaa.org/category/development/why-is-india-poor/)

[sumeetmalik]

The comments there are also quite funny. He is being asked to shut up with his rants or 'sarkar dwara tapka diye jaoge'.

I read this article in Time that spoke about ISB and talked about privatization of Indian and Chinese education.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1682255,00.html

It is clear that the universities abroad are eager to make alliances in India. And India is capable of hosting world class universities.

'Not everyone in India welcomes the newcomers. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh relies on leftist parties for its political survival, and those parties and some student activists are against foreign universities, which they see as a threat to India's indigenous education system. "I really don't think foreign universities are the answer to our problem," says Amrita Bahri, 22, president of the Delhi University Students Union. "They may surely develop the infrastructure, but they will also surely inflate the fee structure and make education more of a commercial venture."
Operating abroad poses challenges for the outsiders too. Indian universities set aside almost half of all admissions slots for students from "listed tribes," or lower castes. The quota system has helped millions who would otherwise not be able to attend university, but it also prevents schools from controlling the academic quality of their student body. A proposed bill would exempt foreign universities from this form of affirmative action, but their administrators worry that future governments might rescind the exemption.'

Also it touches about the problems it has had in China. Infact today Tyler Cohen wrote about it as well.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/05/the-education-e.html#comments

'University education in China is skyrocketing. In 1996 China had less than 1 million freshmen, in 2006 there were over 5 million freshmen. The freshman class is continuing to grow and university graduates, of course, are just 4 years behind. About half of the entering students are in a hard science or engineering program. As a result, China today produces 3 times more engineers than the United States and will quickly overtake the U.S. in total graduates.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/28/chinaed.png (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/28/chinaed.png)
Many people worry about what the Chinese education explosion means for the United States but I am optimistic (http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/13/dismal-economics-growth-oped-cx_ata_0116dismal.html). First, as China and other countries grow wealthy the incentive to invest in R&D is increasing. If China and India were as wealthy as the U.S. the market for cancer drugs, for example, would be eight times larger than it is today - and a larger market means more new drugs for everyone.
Second, the growth in Chinese education is increasing the supply of new ideas and that too is a benefit to people around the world.
Surprisingly, China's education system is being transformed to a considerable degree by private forces. As late as 1999 the Chinese government paid for most university education but from 2001 onwards tuition and fees account for more than half of total educational expenditures.
I have drawn much of the data in this post from a fascinating new paper, The Higher Educational Transformation of China and its Global Implications (http://search.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1106576) by Li, Whalley, Zhang and Zhao. The paper has much else of interest.
I will be traveling to China to give a talk at Yunnan University in late June and will report on the transformation as it looks on the ground.'




All,

Here is a passionate rant from Atanu Dey on the above topic.

Begging for a World Class University

May 28th, 2008 · 4 Comments (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#comments)

Consider this scenario. Someone you know imprisons his grown up children and does not allow them to go out and do jobs that they are fully capable of doing. He also locks up his productive assets and prevents his children from using them. Then he goes around begging his neighbors for help with feeding his family as he does not have any income. The words that spring to mind upon considering this man’s behavior are words like contemptible, immoral, stupid, pathetic, pitiable, and sad........

Read the whole post here: http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#more-1210 (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#more-1210)

What do the people on this forum think?

[sidchhikara]

The comments there are also quite funny. He is being asked to shut up with his rants or 'sarkar dwara tapka diye jaoge'.

I read this article in Time that spoke about ISB and talked about privatization of Indian and Chinese education.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1682255,00.html

It is clear that the universities abroad are eager to make alliances in India. And India is capable of hosting world class universities.

'Not everyone in India welcomes the newcomers. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh relies on leftist parties for its political survival, and those parties and some student activists are against foreign universities, which they see as a threat to India's indigenous education system. "I really don't think foreign universities are the answer to our problem," says Amrita Bahri, 22, president of the Delhi University Students Union. "They may surely develop the infrastructure, but they will also surely inflate the fee structure and make education more of a commercial venture."
Operating abroad poses challenges for the outsiders too. Indian universities set aside almost half of all admissions slots for students from "listed tribes," or lower castes. The quota system has helped millions who would otherwise not be able to attend university, but it also prevents schools from controlling the academic quality of their student body. A proposed bill would exempt foreign universities from this form of affirmative action, but their administrators worry that future governments might rescind the exemption.'

Also it touches about the problems it has had in China. Infact today Tyler Cohen wrote about it as well.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/05/the-education-e.html#comments

'University education in China is skyrocketing. In 1996 China had less than 1 million freshmen, in 2006 there were over 5 million freshmen. The freshman class is continuing to grow and university graduates, of course, are just 4 years behind. About half of the entering students are in a hard science or engineering program. As a result, China today produces 3 times more engineers than the United States and will quickly overtake the U.S. in total graduates.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/28/chinaed.png (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/28/chinaed.png)
Many people worry about what the Chinese education explosion means for the United States but I am optimistic (http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/13/dismal-economics-growth-oped-cx_ata_0116dismal.html). First, as China and other countries grow wealthy the incentive to invest in R&D is increasing. If China and India were as wealthy as the U.S. the market for cancer drugs, for example, would be eight times larger than it is today - and a larger market means more new drugs for everyone.
Second, the growth in Chinese education is increasing the supply of new ideas and that too is a benefit to people around the world.
Surprisingly, China's education system is being transformed to a considerable degree by private forces. As late as 1999 the Chinese government paid for most university education but from 2001 onwards tuition and fees account for more than half of total educational expenditures.
I have drawn much of the data in this post from a fascinating new paper, The Higher Educational Transformation of China and its Global Implications (http://search.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1106576) by Li, Whalley, Zhang and Zhao. The paper has much else of interest.
I will be traveling to China to give a talk at Yunnan University in late June and will report on the transformation as it looks on the ground.'

I also read this post on Marginal Revolution.
Our people are capable of doing great things ... but our country has a massive underclass .... they blur the focus. Unless they get educated, changes will be slow and the politicians make sure they donot get the opportunity to get an education. Its really hard to get out of this cycle.
At this point in our country any positive change will come from corporations who might stand to make a buck from it ...... they are primarily responsible for all the changes in the last 10 or so years.... by bribing the government. Ironically, i trust the corporations to speak for me and the rest of the middle class more than this government propped up by our uneducated and stupid junta.

[sumeetmalik]

I also read this post on Marginal Revolution.
Our people are capable of doing great things ... but our country has a massive underclass .... they blur the focus. Unless they get educated, changes will be slow and the politicians make sure they donot get the opportunity to get an education. Its really hard to get out of this cycle.
At this point in our country any positive change will come from corporations who might stand to make a buck from it ...... they are primarily responsible for all the changes in the last 10 or so years.... by bribing the government. Ironically, i trust the corporations to speak for me and the rest of the middle class more than this government propped up by our uneducated and stupid junta.

Yep...like he says 'Markets in everything'. Unfortunately there are a lot of educated morons also who find this idea blasphemous apart from the politicians who understand it fully well and don't want it to happen. However I am still hopeful. Things have changed a lot and its now reached a point that it is almost impossible to reverse or stop it.

[sidchhikara]

Yep...like he says 'Markets in everything'. Unfortunately there are a lot of educated morons also who find this idea blasphemous apart from the politicians who understand it fully well and don't want it to happen. However I am still hopeful. Things have changed a lot and its now reached a point that it is almost impossible to reverse or stop it.

Yeah thats what I am betting my money on.

Also, in the next election it would be great if a government is formed without the communists.

I look at the agenda for Congress and BJP for 2004 They have not botheres to update it !!!..... the links are here...

http://www.bjp.org/Press/mar_3104a.htm

http://www.congress.org.in/

Here's what they say about Education:

Congress...


Education, Health
The UPA government pledges to raise public spending in education to least 6% of GDP with at least half this amount being spent of primary and secondary sectors. This will be done in a phased manner,
The UPA government will introduce a cess on all central taxes to finance the commitment to universalize access to quality basic education. A National Commission on Education will be set up to allocate resources and monitor programmes.


The UPA government will take immediate steps to reverse the trend of communalization of education that had set in the past five years. It will also ensure that all institutions of higher learning and professional education retain their autonomy. The UPA will ensure that nobody is denied.. professional education because he or she is poor.


Academic excellence and professional competence will be the sole criteria for all appointments to bodies like the Indian.Council for Historical Research, Indian Council for Social Science Research, University Grants, Commission, National Council for Educational Research and Training, etc. Steps will be taken to remove the communalization of the school syllabus that has taken place in the past five years. A review committee of experts will be set up for this purpose.


A national cooked nutritious mid-day meal scheme funded mainly by the central government, will be introduced in primary and secondary schools. An appropriate mechanism for quality checks will also set up. The UPA will also universalize the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme to provide a functional anganwadi in every settlement and ensure full coverage for all children. The UPA government will fully back and support all NGO efforts in the area of primary education.


Proper infrastructure will be created in schools for NCC. NSS, physical development, sports and cultural development of all students.



BJP ..........


Education for All: We believe that both society and the Government at all levels must give top priority to meeting the goal of "Quality Education for All" since education aids both economic growth and social development. Its importance in the emerging Knowledge Economy has increased manifold. Enriched human resources of our one billion population can propel India into a higher orbit of development with limitless possibilities in the new century.

The BJP's ideal of good education is one expressed in Swami Vivekananda's profound words: "Education for Man-Making and Nation-Building". India needs a system of education that opens the doors of knowledge to all citizens, develops their talents and skills, anchors them strongly in human values and Indian culture, reinforces their patriotism, and equips them to explore opportunities both in India and abroad. Because of inadequate and unbalanced attention by successive governments in the past, India continues to face major challenges in education. Our strategy for overcoming these challenges and unleashing the potential of the India's enviable human resources has the following underpinnings:


Steadily raising the total spending on education to 6% of the GDP by 2010, with enlarged public-private partnership.

Achieving complete eradication of illiteracy within a decade. For this, we will ensure that every child goes to school, every school is made accountable to the community, every State is made accountable for its quality education status, and appropriate resources both from Government and non-government sources are mobilized to match our ambitious goals.

Further intensification of measures aimed at education of the girl child, and spread of education among SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities.

Improving the standards of education at all levels of the Educational Pyramid from primary to university.

Making quality education affordable to a common Indian family. No student should be deprived of access to higher education for lack of resources. Hence, scholarships and soft loans should be made widely available.

While encouraging private investment, necessary steps will have to be taken to check commercialization of education.

Rectifying the biases in history education, increasing the moral and cultural content in syllabi, and restoring the neglected focus on character-building.

De-bureacratising the administration of our educational institutions; autonomy to centers of excellence; empowering teachers; and maximizing community participation.

Enlarging the partnership between Government and the private sector, and between industry and universities, to promote world-class R&D.

Making India a preferred higher education destination for students from all over the world. This would not only reduce huge spending abroad by rich Indians, but also enable India to earn significantly from higher education.
Look at the highlighted parts above in the manifestos. I can bet $100 that most of their efforts will be spent on that. BJP seems a little more amenable to privatization of education.... Congress is just full of $hit.... but we all know that these manifestos are tossed into kachra peti as soon as they get power.

[ygulia]

Yep...like he says 'Markets in everything'. Unfortunately there are a lot of educated morons also who find this idea blasphemous apart from the politicians who understand it fully well and don't want it to happen. However I am still hopeful. Things have changed a lot and its now reached a point that it is almost impossible to reverse or stop it.

I agree with this gentleman. Whatever party comes in power, it is almost impossible to reverse this trend of upward growth.

[sidchhikara]

Begging for a World Class University — Part 2

June 3rd, 2008 · No Comments (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/06/03/begging-for-a-world-class-university-part-2/#comments)

This is a follow up to the previous post, “Begging for a World Class University (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/).” In this I will address two responses to the post: one, the comment left by Aditya (http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/05/28/begging-for-a-world-class-university/#comment-124151), and two, a post by Pramode titled “A Question (or two) for Atanu (http://pramode.net/2008/05/29/a-question-or-two-for-atanu/)“.

First let me take up Aditya’s comments, which are substantial and I am grateful for the time he took to express his point of view. He writes:

I sincerely doubt if Indians are capable of building LARGE world class institutions EFFICIENTLY, without external assistance.
While asking for help does not make anyone particularly proud, I don’t see any shame in approaching a university system consistently known for its high standards and asking for administrative, structural and vision related guidance. This is not a begging bowl scenario, in my opinion. Learning from the best and involving them formally and intimately is an excellent idea, and a respectable form of learning.
Self reliance
I am all in favor of learning from others. In fact, one can achieve very little if one steadfastly refuses to learn from others. (See related post “Ideas on the road to development (http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/11/16/ideas-on-the-road-to-development/)“, where I discuss briefly the two gaps: the ideas gap and the objects gap. The ideas gap is more constraining and can be bridged by judiciously learning from others. Also see “On Gandhian self-sufficiency (http://www.deeshaa.org/2004/07/03/on-gandhian-self-sufficiency/)” where I argue that ” A goal that seeks self-sufficiency (at any level of analysis) is a prescription for poverty — not just of the body but also of the mind. We are deeply and inalienably connected with all others, however one defines the ‘other.’)
A sure-fire recipe for poverty is to insist on inventing everything before you use it. “Not invented here and therefore we will not use it” is the philosophical underpinnings of the disastrous “import substitution industrialization” (ISI) that Nehru thrust down India’s throat.
Now it is silly to expect Indians to build world class educational institutions by 6 PM next week Saturday if they are only allowed to do so. Today’s world class educational institutions were not built last week. It took them hundreds of years. Indians will not take that long because it has the benefit of the learnings of those institutions. But I am confident that India can have excellent institutions within our lifetimes, iff the government allows Indians the freedom to do so.
Learning by Doing
I am repeating myself but this point is worth repeating till there is no mistaking the essential lesson. There is such as thing as learning by doing. If you allow people freedom to do something, then over time you find some people who get pretty good at doing something. This is a natural process — as natural as natural selection. The marketplace is a strict but fair taskmaster and given sufficient time, it picks winners.
The problem with Indian education is that it is not free. It does not allow the natural selection to take place. The government either runs the institutions (Type 1) or permits some to run educational institutions by licensing them (Type 2). IITs are an example of the former. Those who get the permission to run educational institutions are generally those who have political power or can buy political power. They buy their permissions and run the Type 2 institutions.
IITs
Let’s stick with Type 1 for now. Aditya in his comment writes about his experience at an IIT and his assessment of the quality of teaching there which was good. (Note “was” as opposed to “is.”) But he points out that even the IITs are inflexible and don’t keep up with the times. He thinks it is the mindset which is rigid. I am not surprised. The IITs receive public funding and that is a good thing but only to a limited extent. The drawbacks of public funding are many but the most debilitating bit is that they are prone to political meddling. But aside from all that, IITs operate in a sellers’ market and therefore have very little incentive to actually perform.
Just to remind ourselves, IITs are not universities. They are technical teaching colleges. Their job is to teach some useful technical skill. How good are they at that? I am not sure whether they are any good or not. No one can dispute that some IIT graduates are extremely successful. It is, however, not clear how much value addition the IITs actually do. The top 1 percent of any population can be expected to be good. The IITs, because of their reputation and the fact that they operate in a supply-constrained environment, have the luxury of picking about one or two percent of the applicants. Take any highly motivated bunch of people, select the top few from them, make them compete for grades for a number of years, and it does not matter whether you are good at teaching or not — the resulting graduates are bound to be good.
What if there were hundreds of IITs? What if there were so many that the IITs had to compete amongst themselves to get the best students, instead of the students having to compete to get into a handful of IITs? What if the IIT tuition fees were priced at full cost instead of the heavy public subsidy? What if the intake of the IITs were the average student (instead of the cream of the high-school classes)? If with an average quality intake the IITs produced above average output, one can confidently assert that the IITs do indeed add value; otherwise one can reasonably suspect that the IITs are simply sorting mechanisms merely separating the good students from the not so good.

[sidchhikara]

Other institutions
There are hundreds of type 1 (that is, government funded and controlled) institutions. Most are nothing to write home about with the possible exception of the IITs and IIMs. These successful type 1’s don’t face much competition because free entry is not allowed. Those that the government allows are what I have labeled type 2. Type 2’s don’t pose a threat to the premier type 1’s because the type 2’s are not really interested in performing. Once an institution has the permission from the government, it can get into the business of recovering the costs it had incurred in getting the permission. It can recover the costs because it is also operating in a sellers’ market. Desperate for any sort of degree, people scramble to get into one of these and parents often go into considerable debt to pay for the outrageous under-the-table bribes. Because these type 2 institutions never lack willing customers, they could not really care less about what they teach.
Shifting gears
Let me shift to a different sector to illustrate the major point that I wish to make in this post. Consider the automobile sector in the 1970s in India. There were two manufacturers only and free entry was not allowed. The two companies turned out shoddy cars that were of 1950s vintage. They had no incentive to improve the product because people would be willing to take anything they could get their hands on — and indeed waited for years to get their “allocation.” There was a thriving black market for cars as well. People were willing to pay a premium even for those shoddy cars just so that they won’t have to wait for years. The sector was controlled by the government and for the best of reasons: because manufacturing cars was too important an economic function to be left to free private enterprise that only government control could ensure a plentiful supply, assure quality, and prevent the public from being cheated by unscrupulous private companies.
Imagine that someone had claimed that India could not ever manufacture cars that could meet global standards back in the 1970s. Absolutely reasonable claim. It takes decades of manufacturing cars in a competitive market to learn how to make cars. By not allowing not allowing that learning to occur in the Indian manufacturing sector, the government guaranteed that Indians could not ever manufacture cars.
We all know the rest of the story in the automobile sector. It was liberalized and now Indians are manufacturing cars that can compete in the world markets. But note: India is not a Japan or a Germany in terms of the automobile sector. Indian manufacturers are learning. For now they are collaborating with foreign firms but soon enough they will be competing with the best. For a while now India has been a supplier of intermediate goods to the global automotive sector. (Note especially the phenomenal success story of Bharat Forge.)
Free markets
Analytically the free-market story is simple. Allow firms to enter the market. Let them compete. Firms learn by doing. Let the market pick the winners. The result: world class products. So also the socialist-economy story is analytically simple. Rigidly control who enters the market by predetermining the “winners.” Forbid competition and thus ensure that there is no learning by doing. The result: shoddy products.
The lesson is simple to learn provided one is willing to learn: competition that arises from allowing firms free entry into the market is good for everyone. Refusing to learn that lesson is too costly and India cannot afford not to learn that lesson.
Now back to education. Aditya writes:

I don’t believe Indian universities are far enough along that with the improved communication methods and additional money available that they could be transformed to a world class institution, completely indigenously.
Quite true. India cannot build world class institutions without learning from others. But even learning from others requires a certain degree of preparedness. India cannot build Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Berkeley overnight and cannot do so under the current system of absolute government control of the educational sector. What can it do? India can allow free entry into the education sector. Indian firms will figure out as best as they can what to do. Some will collaborate with foreign institutions perhaps or figure out some other strategy. In the end, the competition will ensure that those that have been most successful in learning succeed in the marketplace.
What will not work is for an “education minister” to go around with a begging bowl to foreign officials for aid in building world class universities while continuing to keep the same old rigid system of government control of the sector. Even in the unlikely event that some foreign government agrees to help, what can it actually do? What does help entail? Will the governments come and build the infrastructure, hire the faculty, set up the research labs, determine the curricula, admit students, teach the courses, conduct the research, administer the tests, and grant the degrees? The best they can do is to say, “We have good universities in our country. Do come by and see what they are doing. Do the same thing.” If Indian cannot learn by carefully observing what it is that makes those institutions tick, I don’t see how else India can emulate — and later surpass — their success.

[sidchhikara]

Liberalization as a dirty word
Now to address the question that Pramode CE raised:

Atanu’s solution?
Liberalise. Liberalise. Liberalise.
That brings up my questions. One, isn’t the Indian education system already “liberalised”?
First, I have often (though not in the present instance) found that “liberalize” is thrown back at me in an accusatory tone, as if I was recommending something dishonorable and immoral. For life of me I cannot understand what it is that people don’t like about freedom. Does it frighten them to think that they have freedom? Are they so insecure that they find comfort in restrictions on behavior? Have decades of living in a socialistic state where some official sanction is required for even the most trivial of enterprises warped their psyches to the extent that freedom is seen as threatening?
Which part of the cry, “Freedom, freedom, freedom!” don’t they understand? What makes them think that living under bondage and under the paternalistic dispensations of politicians and bureaucrats preferable to living as free humans? That’s the question that I struggle with. I think that Indians have to introspect deeply and answer that question first before India can truly hope to achieve its potential.
Let me throw out a conjecture: Indians have lived so long in the socialist prison that they have forgotten the meaning of freedom. They falsely believe that they are already free. Are Indians the largest group to suffer a sort of collective Stockhold syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome)? [Emphasis mine]
That could explain the frequently raised question: “Isn’t the Indian educational sector already liberalized?”
In India today, you cannot run an educational system without government permission. That permission is not given freely but under certain conditions. One condition — not mentioned in the books of course — is a very fat bribe. The other conditions require that you have to be a “trust” or a charitable organization and whatever resources you put into it, you can never ever recover. Then the real shackles come out: everything that you do, you will do only as the government dictates. Whom you hire, how much you pay, whom you admit, what you teach, how long you teach — every trivial matter is dictated by the government. What is worse, the dictations of the government are usually harmful to the whole enterprise and process of teaching and learning.
If this system is called “liberalized,” I am sure that the word means something else to others than what I think it means.
Conclusion
We have a long way to go. The path to development is not easy even with eyes wide open. With eyes firmly shut, it is well nigh impossible to make any progress. India is poor today because Indians lack freedom.
Let’s remember that India was a British colony and therefore Indians did not have freedom, and were dictated to by their colonial masters. The result of that lack of freedom was a steady decline of the economy. By the time the British departed, India was impoverished. In fact, having extracted whatever they could, the British left because the well was sucked dry and little of economic value remained. The institutions that the British had built in India were for the extraction of wealth from India. Controlling every aspect of the economy was the means that the British employed for enriching Britain at India’s expense.
The British have been gone from India for over 60 years. In their place, Indians inherited the system of extraction and exploitation. The Indian government continues in the grand old tradition of the British: control, permit, license, quota. And the effect is the same: impoverishment of the economy and continued misery of the people. Yes, the gora sahibs left but in their place the indigenous brown sahibs are doing quite well.
I am quite sure that corporations are not benevolent higher beings whose only motive is universal peace and prosperity. I am sure that firms supply to my needs out of their self-interest. But in a free market, the firms have to compete for my patronage because otherwise I will go to their competitors. That is what essentially distinguishes private firms from governments: firms have to please me but the government knows that I am a captive and I am powerless against its whims and fancies. That is what frightens me about government control of education: it prevents me from choosing, it denies me freedom.
The denial of freedom is a common enough occurrence in the world for us to be sure of one thing: someone gains and that gain is at someone else’s expense. People wouldn’t be in the denying of freedom business unless it made sense to do so. This is so trivially true that I feel stupid even mentioning this. But then, how frequently do we ask who exactly is gaining by the denial of freedom in Indian education? Someone has to be gaining and we must have a national debate to expose them because the nation is losing any hope of a decent future as a result of their greed. These people should be identified and charged as traitors.

[devdahiya]

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE AND PSYCHOPHANTS ON HELM......GOD ONLY CAN SHAVE THE QUEEN.ARJUN SINGH CAN NOT BE REMOVED FOR NOW.......NEXT SUGGESTION SID....? If people like him chould be checked and shown their places then this country must have progressed beyond imagination.Education today is a big business and a tool of VOTE BANK.......Unfortunate situation indeed.Layman not interested,educated fear the goons....balance busy in arranging food for the dinner..........That is the truth......Arjun singh and people like him get heat stroke if moved away from AC for two minutes.What is happening in Haryana is more shameful and pathetic.ITs a tall order and remedies limited or none......................REVOLUTION is shaping...its a matter of time.

[sumeetmalik]

whoa, this time it's quite a passionate piece. And full of reasoning.
This guy is spot on. Although I don't think he shares my optimism for the future, whatever little I have.

As a side note, I want to share about this book called 'The White Tiger' (http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=620390)by Arvind Adiga. I heard about it recently and it's on top of my list to read. It talks about a servant killing a master. I never thought I would see that in Indian literature or films so soon. If you have seen the documentary on the DVD version of 'City of God' you will exactly know what I am talking about. There is a guy behind bars who says on camera that why is a rich guy so special. If I don't have it, I will get it. By any way.

When I was in Mumbai, I always wondered, what stops these poor people living in inhuman conditions to attack me for money. There was not a single answer but I think Stockholm Syndrome that Atanu talks about was a part of it.

Here I am attaching a Q&A with the author which is quite insightful.
Q&A





http://www.simonsays.com/images/pix.gif
1) Who are some of your literary influences? Do you identify yourself particularly as an Indian writer?





It might make more sense to speak of influences on this book, rather than on me. The influences on The White Tiger are three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in order), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. The odd thing is that I haven't read any of them for years and years -- I read Ellison's Invisible Man in 1995 or 1996, and have never returned to it -- but now that the book is done, I can see how deeply it's indebted to them. As a writer, I don't feel tied to any one identity; I'm happy to draw influences from wherever they come.
2) Could you describe your process as a writer? Was the transition from journalism to fiction difficult?
A first draft of The White Tiger was written in 2005, and then put aside. I had given up on the book. Then, for reasons I don't fully understand myself, in December 2006, when I'd just returned to India after a long time abroad, I opened the draft and began rewriting it entirely. I wrote all day long for the next month, and by early January 2007, I could see that I had a novel on my hands.
3) From where did the inspiration for Balram Halwai come? How did you capture his voice?
Balram Halwai is a composite of various men I've met when traveling through India. I spend a lot of my time loitering about train stations, or bus stands, or servants' quarters and slums, and I listen and talk to the people around me. There's a kind of continuous murmur or growl beneath middle-class life in India, and this noise never gets recorded. Balram is what you'd hear if one day the drains and faucets in your house started talking.
4) This novel is rich in detail -- from the (often corrupt) workings of the police force to the political system, from the servant classes of Delhi to the businessmen of Bangalore. What kind of research went into this novel?
The book is a novel: it's fiction. Nothing in its chapters actually happened and no one you meet here is real. But it's built on a substratum of Indian reality. Here's one example: Balram's father, in the novel, dies of tuberculosis. Now, this is a make-believe death of a make-believe figure, but underlying it is a piece of appalling reality -- the fact that nearly a thousand Indians, most of them poor, die every day from tuberculosis. So if a character like Balram's father did exist, and if he did work as a rickshaw puller, the chances of his succumbing to tuberculosis would be pretty high. I've tried hard to make sure that anything in the novel has a correlation in Indian reality. The government hospitals, the liquor shops, and the brothels that turn up in the novel are all based on real places in India that I've seen in my travels.
5) In the novel, you write about the binary nature of Indian culture: the Light and the Darkness and how the caste system has been reduced to "Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies." Would you say more about why you think the country has come to be divided into these categories?
It's important that you see these classifications as Balram's rather than as mine. I don't intend for the reader to identify all the time with Balram: some may not wish to identify with him very much at all. The past fifty years have seen tumultuous changes in India's society, and these changes -- many of which are for the better -- have overturned the traditional hierarchies, and the old securities of life. A lot of poorer Indians are left confused and perplexed by the new India that is being formed around them.
6) Although Ashok has his redeeming characteristics, for the most part your portrayal of him, his family, and other members of the upper class is harsh. Is the corruption as rife as it seems, and will the nature of the upper class change or be preserved by the economic changes in India?
Just ask any Indian, rich or poor, about corruption here. It's bad. It shows no sign of going away, either. As to what lies in India's future -- that's one of the hardest questions in the world to answer.
7) Your novel depicts an India that we don't often see. Was it important to you to present an alternative point of view? Why does a Western audience need this alternative portrayal?
The main reason anyone would want to read this book, or so I hope, is because it entertains them and keeps them hooked to the end. I don't read anything because I "have" to: I read what I enjoy reading, and I hope my readers will find this book fun, too.
I simply wrote about the India that I know, and the one I live in. It's not "alternative India" for me! It's pretty mainstream, trust me.
8) How did your background as a business journalist inform the novel, which has as its protagonist an entrepreneurial, self-made man? With all the changes India is undergoing, is it fostering change within its population, or are the challenges and costs of success as great as they were for Balram?
Actually, my background as a business journalist made me realize that most of what's written about in business magazines is bullshit, and I don't take business or corporate literature seriously at all. India is being flooded with "how to be an Internet businessman" kind of books, and they're all dreadfully earnest and promise to turn you into Iacocca in a week. This is the kind of book that my narrator mentions, mockingly -- he knows that life is a bit harder than these books promise. There are lots of self-made millionaires in India now, certainly, and lots of successful entrepreneurs. But remember that over a billion people live here, and for the majority of them, who are denied decent health care, education, or employment, getting to the top would take doing something like what Balram has done.
9) One thing at the heart of this novel, and in the heart of Balram as well, is the tension between loyalty to oneself and to one's family. Does this tension mirror a conflict specific to India, or do you think it's universal?
The conflict may be more intense in India, because the family structure is stronger here than in, say, America, and loyalty to family is virtually a test of moral character. (So, "You were rude to your mother this morning" would be, morally, the equivalent of "You embezzled funds from the bank this morning.") The conflict is there, to some extent, everywhere.
10) What is next for you? Are you working on another novel?
Yes!



Liberalization as a dirty word
Now to address the question that Pramode CE raised:

Indians have lived so long in the socialist prison that they have forgotten the meaning of freedom. They falsely believe that they are already free. Are Indians the largest group to suffer a sort of collective Stockhold syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome)? [Emphasis mine]
Conclusion

I am quite sure that corporations are not benevolent higher beings whose only motive is universal peace and prosperity. I am sure that firms supply to my needs out of their self-interest. But in a free market, the firms have to compete for my patronage because otherwise I will go to their competitors. That is what essentially distinguishes private firms from governments: firms have to please me but the government knows that I am a captive and I am powerless against its whims and fancies. That is what frightens me about government control of education: it prevents me from choosing, it denies me freedom.
The denial of freedom is a common enough occurrence in the world for us to be sure of one thing: someone gains and that gain is at someone else’s expense. People wouldn’t be in the denying of freedom business unless it made sense to do so. This is so trivially true that I feel stupid even mentioning this. But then, how frequently do we ask who exactly is gaining by the denial of freedom in Indian education? Someone has to be gaining and we must have a national debate to expose them because the nation is losing any hope of a decent future as a result of their greed. These people should be identified and charged as traitors.

[sidchhikara]

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE AND PSYCHOPHANTS ON HELM......GOD ONLY CAN SHAVE THE QUEEN.ARJUN SINGH CAN NOT BE REMOVED FOR NOW.......NEXT SUGGESTION SID....? If people like him chould be checked and shown their places then this country must have progressed beyond imagination.Education today is a big business and a tool of VOTE BANK.......Unfortunate situation indeed.Layman not interested,educated fear the goons....balance busy in arranging food for the dinner..........That is the truth......Arjun singh and people like him get heat stroke if moved away from AC for two minutes.What is happening in Haryana is more shameful and pathetic.ITs a tall order and remedies limited or none......................REVOLUTION is shaping...its a matter of time.

Arjun Singh and Shivraj Patil top the list of immoral, corrupt, sycophant politicians. They are unimaginably annoying and deliberately incompetent. Sonia Gandhi ke wafadaar kutte.

[sidchhikara]

whoa, this time it's quite a passionate piece. And full of reasoning.
This guy is spot on. Although I don't think he shares my optimism for the future, whatever little I have.

As a side note, I want to share about this book called 'The White Tiger' (http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=620390)by Arvind Adiga. I heard about it recently and it's on top of my list to read. It talks about a servant killing a master. I never thought I would see that in Indian literature or films so soon. If you have seen the documentary on the DVD version of 'City of God' you will exactly know what I am talking about. There is a guy behind bars who says on camera that why is a rich guy so special. If I don't have it, I will get it. By any way.

When I was in Mumbai, I always wondered, what stops these poor people living in inhuman conditions to attack me for money. There was not a single answer but I think Stockholm Syndrome that Atanu talks about was a part of it.

Here I am attaching a Q&A with the author which is quite insightful.
Q&A






http://www.simonsays.com/images/pix.gif
1) Who are some of your literary influences? Do you identify yourself particularly as an Indian writer?






It might make more sense to speak of influences on this book, rather than on me. The influences on The White Tiger are three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in order), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. The odd thing is that I haven't read any of them for years and years -- I read Ellison's Invisible Man in 1995 or 1996, and have never returned to it -- but now that the book is done, I can see how deeply it's indebted to them. As a writer, I don't feel tied to any one identity; I'm happy to draw influences from wherever they come.
2) Could you describe your process as a writer? Was the transition from journalism to fiction difficult?
A first draft of The White Tiger was written in 2005, and then put aside. I had given up on the book. Then, for reasons I don't fully understand myself, in December 2006, when I'd just returned to India after a long time abroad, I opened the draft and began rewriting it entirely. I wrote all day long for the next month, and by early January 2007, I could see that I had a novel on my hands.
3) From where did the inspiration for Balram Halwai come? How did you capture his voice?
Balram Halwai is a composite of various men I've met when traveling through India. I spend a lot of my time loitering about train stations, or bus stands, or servants' quarters and slums, and I listen and talk to the people around me. There's a kind of continuous murmur or growl beneath middle-class life in India, and this noise never gets recorded. Balram is what you'd hear if one day the drains and faucets in your house started talking.
4) This novel is rich in detail -- from the (often corrupt) workings of the police force to the political system, from the servant classes of Delhi to the businessmen of Bangalore. What kind of research went into this novel?
The book is a novel: it's fiction. Nothing in its chapters actually happened and no one you meet here is real. But it's built on a substratum of Indian reality. Here's one example: Balram's father, in the novel, dies of tuberculosis. Now, this is a make-believe death of a make-believe figure, but underlying it is a piece of appalling reality -- the fact that nearly a thousand Indians, most of them poor, die every day from tuberculosis. So if a character like Balram's father did exist, and if he did work as a rickshaw puller, the chances of his succumbing to tuberculosis would be pretty high. I've tried hard to make sure that anything in the novel has a correlation in Indian reality. The government hospitals, the liquor shops, and the brothels that turn up in the novel are all based on real places in India that I've seen in my travels.
5) In the novel, you write about the binary nature of Indian culture: the Light and the Darkness and how the caste system has been reduced to "Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies." Would you say more about why you think the country has come to be divided into these categories?
It's important that you see these classifications as Balram's rather than as mine. I don't intend for the reader to identify all the time with Balram: some may not wish to identify with him very much at all. The past fifty years have seen tumultuous changes in India's society, and these changes -- many of which are for the better -- have overturned the traditional hierarchies, and the old securities of life. A lot of poorer Indians are left confused and perplexed by the new India that is being formed around them.
6) Although Ashok has his redeeming characteristics, for the most part your portrayal of him, his family, and other members of the upper class is harsh. Is the corruption as rife as it seems, and will the nature of the upper class change or be preserved by the economic changes in India?
Just ask any Indian, rich or poor, about corruption here. It's bad. It shows no sign of going away, either. As to what lies in India's future -- that's one of the hardest questions in the world to answer.
7) Your novel depicts an India that we don't often see. Was it important to you to present an alternative point of view? Why does a Western audience need this alternative portrayal?
The main reason anyone would want to read this book, or so I hope, is because it entertains them and keeps them hooked to the end. I don't read anything because I "have" to: I read what I enjoy reading, and I hope my readers will find this book fun, too.
I simply wrote about the India that I know, and the one I live in. It's not "alternative India" for me! It's pretty mainstream, trust me.
8) How did your background as a business journalist inform the novel, which has as its protagonist an entrepreneurial, self-made man? With all the changes India is undergoing, is it fostering change within its population, or are the challenges and costs of success as great as they were for Balram?
Actually, my background as a business journalist made me realize that most of what's written about in business magazines is bullshit, and I don't take business or corporate literature seriously at all. India is being flooded with "how to be an Internet businessman" kind of books, and they're all dreadfully earnest and promise to turn you into Iacocca in a week. This is the kind of book that my narrator mentions, mockingly -- he knows that life is a bit harder than these books promise. There are lots of self-made millionaires in India now, certainly, and lots of successful entrepreneurs. But remember that over a billion people live here, and for the majority of them, who are denied decent health care, education, or employment, getting to the top would take doing something like what Balram has done.
9) One thing at the heart of this novel, and in the heart of Balram as well, is the tension between loyalty to oneself and to one's family. Does this tension mirror a conflict specific to India, or do you think it's universal?
The conflict may be more intense in India, because the family structure is stronger here than in, say, America, and loyalty to family is virtually a test of moral character. (So, "You were rude to your mother this morning" would be, morally, the equivalent of "You embezzled funds from the bank this morning.") The conflict is there, to some extent, everywhere.
10) What is next for you? Are you working on another novel?

Yes!

That sounds like a must read. I will pick it up.

As far as the poor people mugging others is concerned ... they do that quite a lot. That is why there are lot of house break-ins (my parents house and everybody I know has their house/business broken into one or more times), pickpocketing, chain-snatching. The difference between Desi and American chors is that desi chors donot use deadly force... because a deadly weapon costs a lot of money and also they don't listen to gangsta rap. In most cases, they donot have a street cred to defend.
So yeah, in all fairness you are right, their final impact is less compared to criminals... say in America.

Then obviously there are other types of thieves like police and other government people..... and the government itself is the biggest legally authorised thief - more than 1/3 of your pay goes toward taxes ..... which are then used by Mayawati to erect giant statues of herself.

check this out for Mayawati's statue fetish if you have'nt already.

http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/where-your-taxes-go-34/

Although, I would gladly agree to public tax money being used for plastic surgery on Mayawati ..... after plastic surgery she might look somewhat similar to Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo.

[sumeetmalik]

That sounds like a must read. I will pick it up.

As far as the poor people mugging others is concerned ... they do that quite a lot. That is why there are lot of house break-ins (my parents house and everybody I know has their house/business broken into one or more times), pickpocketing, chain-snatching. The difference between Desi and American chors is that desi chors donot use deadly force... because a deadly weapon costs a lot of money and also they don't listen to gangsta rap. In most cases, they donot have a street cred to defend.
So yeah, in all fairness you are right, their final impact is less compared to criminals... say in America.

Then obviously there are other types of thieves like police and other government people..... and the government itself is the biggest legally authorised thief - more than 1/3 of your pay goes toward taxes ..... which are then used by Mayawati to erect giant statues of herself.

check this out for Mayawati's statue fetish if you have'nt already.

http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/where-your-taxes-go-34/

Although, I would gladly agree to public tax money being used for plastic surgery on Mayawati ..... after plastic surgery she might look somewhat similar to Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo.


Ha ha ha...your post cracks me up. I would agree on the tax money to ship that guy in prison from Rio and let him deal with Mayawati. I think she is too ugly to be worked upon by plastic surgeons. Plus if she undertakes a surgery, she would then pull the previous statues down and ask new ones to be erected in their place!

[sidchhikara]

Ha ha ha...your post cracks me up. I would agree on the tax money to ship that guy in prison from Rio and let him deal with Mayawati. I think she is too ugly to be worked upon by plastic surgeons. Plus if she undertakes a surgery, she would then pull the previous statues down and ask new ones to be erected in their place!

Hahaha ! I forgot about this negative externality.
Then Mulayam Singh would also want surgery. Hmmmm ! who would he want to look like ...... maybe Indra Nooyi again .... to one up Mayawati.

[sumeetmalik]

Hahaha ! I forgot about this negative externality.
Then Mulayam Singh would also want surgery. Hmmmm ! who would he want to look like ...... maybe Indra Nooyi again .... to one up Mayawati.


hahaha...yep, it will start a silicon and plactic race amongs the indian politicians.
I again digress. Check out the Ukranian Prime Minister. If such a beautiful woman asks for statues, I would understand. Heck, I will be okay with tax payers money being spent on paying artists and photographers to paint and picture her.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2292/1805126206_c26a2de50e.jpg

[sidchhikara]

hahaha...yep, it will start a silicon and plactic race amongs the indian politicians.
I again digress. Check out the Ukranian Prime Minister. If such a beautiful woman asks for statues, I would understand. Heck, I will be okay with tax payers money being spent on paying artists and photographers to paint and picture her.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2292/1805126206_c26a2de50e.jpg


Beautiful !!!! That perimeter choti is deadly !!

With Hillary's campaign winding down, she will be on top of Bill Clinton's TODO list. If he gets within 100 miles of her, NY Post will have to double their order of ink.
I wonder what her education policy is. Dress and smell nice in school and always look good.

[sumeetmalik]

Beautiful !!!! That perimeter choti is deadly !!

With Hillary's campaign winding down, she will be on top of Bill Clinton's TODO list. If he gets within 100 miles of her, NY Post will have to double their order of ink.
I wonder what her education policy is. Dress and smell nice in school and always look good.
hahaha. Clinton's TODO list. hehe. ahem... She is a well preserved woman(almost 48). She seems feisty though. She was on third on Forbes most powerful women's list and has oil business background. And she made over the head braid a rage.
I don't know about her education policy but I wish her foreign policy is friendly to foreigners. I am heading there as US goes into recession and elections!