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 ज़िन्दगी के पत्थर, कंकड़ और रेत

Philosophy के एक professor ने कुछ चीजों के साथ class में प्रवेश किया. जब class शुरू हुई तो उन्होंने एक बड़ा सा खाली शीशे का जार लिया और उसमे पत्थर के बड़े-बड़े टुकड़े भरने लगे. फिर उन्होंने students से पूछा कि क्या जार भर गया है ? और सभी ने कहा “हाँ”.

तब प्रोफ़ेसर ने छोटे-छोटे कंकडों से भरा एक box लिया और उन्हें जार में भरने लगे. जार को थोडा हिलाने पर ये कंकड़ पत्थरों के बीच settle हो गए. एक बार फिर उन्होंने छात्रों से पूछा कि क्या जार भर गया है?  और सभी ने हाँ में उत्तर दिया.

तभी professor ने एक sand box निकाला और उसमे भरी रेत को जार में डालने लगे. रेत ने बची-खुची जगह भी भर दी. और एक बार फिर उन्होंने पूछा कि क्या जार भर गया है? और सभी ने एक साथ उत्तर दिया , ” हाँ”

फिर professor ने समझाना शुरू किया, ” मैं चाहता हूँ कि आप इस बात को समझें कि ये जार आपकी life को represent करता है. बड़े-बड़े पत्थर आपके जीवन की ज़रूरी चीजें हैं- आपकी family,आपका partner,आपकी health, आपके बच्चे – ऐसी चीजें कि अगर आपकी बाकी सारी चीजें खो भी जाएँ और सिर्फ ये रहे तो भी आपकी ज़िन्दगी पूर्ण रहेगी.

ये कंकड़ कुछ अन्य चीजें हैं जो matter करती हैं- जैसे कि आपकी job, आपका घर, इत्यादि.

और ये रेत बाकी सभी छोटी-मोटी चीजों को दर्शाती है.

अगर आप जार को पहले रेत से भर देंगे तो कंकडों और पत्थरों के लिए कोई जगह नहीं बचेगी. यही आपकी life के साथ होता है. अगर आप अपनी सारा समय और उर्जा छोटी-छोटी चीजों में लगा देंगे तो आपके पास कभी उन चीजों के लिए time नहीं होगा जो आपके लिए important हैं. उन चीजों पर ध्यान दीजिये जो आपकी happiness के लिए ज़रूरी हैं.बच्चों के साथ खेलिए, अपने partner के साथ dance कीजिये. काम पर जाने के लिए, घर साफ़ करने के लिए,party देने के लिए,  हमेशा वक़्त होगा. पर पहले पत्थरों पर ध्यान दीजिये – ऐसी चीजें जो सचमुच matter करती हैं . अपनी priorities set कीजिये. बाकी चीजें बस रेत हैं.”

The road to safety

The road to safety
India’s roads have acquired a reputation, quite deservedly, of being the most dangerous in the world. Rapid motorisation and fast-paced economic activity over several years have been accompanied by an annual toll of nearly 140,000 accident fatalities; injuries are estimated to be 15 to 20 times the number of deaths. In absolute numbers, more people die in road accidents in India than in any other country. Apart from the human dimension of the tragedy, avoidable death and disability seriously affect economic progress — by some estimates, 3 per cent of GDP is lost in a year due to the carnage. The recent decision of the Supreme Court to appoint a three-member committee to suggest ways to prevent road accidents and ensure accountability offers some hope that a new government at the Centre will be compelled to address the issue as an emergency. It is not as if suggestions for improvements for enhanced safety have not been proposed earlier. The Sundar Committee constituted by the Centre called for an apex agency to be created to assess all aspects of road safety, and to address the lacuna in scientific accident investigation. Although the recommendation was made seven years ago, it has failed to take off. Indians are travelling more miles per capita today, and are at high risk for injury or worse.

Unsafe transport, including services operated by government agencies, are a major part of the problem. Several ghastly accidents involving public transport vehicles have been reported, but the State governments involved have shown little sense of accountability. They routinely challenge even claims for compensation. Their response to the need for improved infrastructure has been woefully weak. In its recent report, the National Transport Development Policy Committee headed by Rakesh Mohan suggested that national, State and local-level institutions be set up, with responsibility to address the issue of safety. There is an urgent need to form these committees, and appoint professionals to them. They must be empowered to upgrade driver-licensing practices, road systems, public lighting and signage. Accident investigation, which remains a neglected area, requires a thorough overhaul, and CCTVs can help determine the cause of mishaps. Also, the neglect of the public district hospital network in most States, and the high cost of treatment at private hospitals affect access to good trauma care for accident victims. The right to life demands that the Central and State governments provide medical facilities at a proximate institution free of cost to all. The Supreme Court panel must give road accidents the status of a public health issue that has acquired alarming proportions. Reform to improve road safety cannot be delayed any longer.

INDIA NOW WORLD'S 3RD LARGEST ECONOMY, BEHIND JUST US, CHINA

INDIA NOW WORLD'S 3RD LARGEST ECONOMY, BEHIND JUST US, CHINA
India is now the world's third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, ahead of Japan and behind the US and China which hold the top two spots. This was revealed by the 2011 round of the World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) released on Tuesday.

"The United States remained the world’s largest economy, but it was closely followed by China when measured using PPPs. India was now the world’s third largest economy, moving ahead of Japan," the report said. (Read report)

It highlighted the fact that the largest economies were not the richest, as shown in the ranking of GDP per capita. The middle-income economies with large economies also had large populations, setting the stage for continued growth, it added.

The report says India "went from the 10th largest economy in 2005 to the third largest in 2011.

Largest economies by share of world GDP, ICP 2011

Incidentally, the economies of Japan and the United Kingdom became smaller relative to the United States, while

Germany increased slightly and France and Italy remained the same.

The relative rankings of the three Asian economies—China, India, and Indonesia—to the United States doubled, while Brazil, Mexico, and Russia increased by one-third or more.

The Philippines and the United States Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement

The Philippines and the United States inked a 10-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to allow a bigger US military presence on Filipino territory. This pact would would give U.S. forces temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to pre-position fighter jets and ships. It allows more US troops into the Philippines for joint military training exercises, but will not permit Washington to set up a permanent base in the Philippines or bring in nuclear weapons to the country.

Strategic importance of the Philippines and US deal:

The Philippines and China are locked in a dispute over the territorial ownership of atolls in the South China Sea, part of a proliferation of maritime hotspots that has stirred up Asian tensions. In the Philippine there are negative sentiments against China which accused of being increasingly aggressive in asserting its claims to the sea. In the wake of these developments, the Philippines has called on the US for greater military as well as diplomatic support. With surging regional uneasiness over the implications of China’s rise, the Philippines has sought greater military ties with the US in recent years.

Thinking about philanthropy

Thinking about philanthropy
Bill and Melinda Gates talk about the importance of philanthropy in the world today

“Well, it’s the most fulfilling thing we’ve ever done…you can’t take it with you and if it’s not good for the kids, let’s get together and brainstorm about what can be done. The world is a far better place because of the philanthropists of the past, and the US tradition here, which is the strongest, is the envy of the world. And part of the reason I’m so optimistic is because I do think philanthropy is going to grow and take some of these things government’s not good at working on…discovering and shining some light in the right direction,” says Bill Gates, the world’s greatest philanthropist.

This is an interview of the couple who while vacationing on the beach decided that they had to do something about the inequities in the world. They saw so much poverty that it touched them. The idea grew into a foundation and Melinda says, “…there are people who have created their own businesses, put their own ingenuity behind incredible ideas. If they put their ideas and their brain behind philanthropy, they can change the world. And they start to see others doing it, and saying, “Wow, I want to do that with my money.” To me that’s the piece that’s incredible…”

Bill Gates adds, “We decided we’d pick two causes, whatever the biggest inequity was globally, and there we looked at children dying, children not having enough nutrition to ever develop and countries that were really stuck with that level of death…parents would have so many kids that they’d get huge population growth, and that the kids were so sick that they really could not be educated and lift themselves up. So that was our global thing. In the US we…both of us have had amazing education and we saw that as a way that the US could live up to its promise of equal opportunity is by having a phenomenal education system. And the ore we learned, the more we realized we are not really fulfilling that promise…and so we picked up those two things and everything the foundation does is focused on them.”

Melinda has all the details in her head like she talks of the need to make contraceptives available to women saying that, “We knew 210 million women were saying they wanted access to contraceptives…and we weren’t providing them because of the political controversy in our country, and to me that was just a crime and I kept looking around to find the person that would get this back on the global stage and I finally realized I just had to do it.Even though I am Catholic, I believe in contraceptives just like most of the Catholic women in the Unites States who report using contraceptives…so we got global consensus and raised 2.6 billion dollars around exactly this issue for women.”

Melinda Gates recounts many of her experiences saying if a woman is not able to get condoms or to convince her husband to use them, then what is the use of talking about them? We have to provide alternatives. Similarly she says it is not the size of the school that matters but the motivation of the teacher. We have place good teachers facing the class. “…I come at it from intuition. I meet lots of people on the ground…and I feel actual delivery is as important.”

Bill Gates gets at it through statistics and the global data; Melinda Gates through being hands on at the grass roots. They both together match the pictures and take decisions.

On a lighter note they find it is not difficult to work together, though they do not spend every moment with each other. They travel separately, they work independently but touch base to share and decide together.

Now they feel it is time to show the world hat their children also believe in what they are doing and so the richest parents are giving their children more compassion and less fortune to weave their future on

A new economic agenda
To become a developed country, India’s GDP will have to grow at 12 per cent per year for at least a decade. Technically this is within reach, since it would require the rate of investment to rise from the present 28 per cent of GDP to 36 per cent

The question before a probable Narendra Modi-led government in 2014 is whether the statistically undeniable economic slide of thelast decade can be halted and a fresh impetus be given to growth in the Indian economy.

The answer is “yes” if good governance norms are properly enforced to enable the Indian economy to grow at 12 per cent per year in GDP for a decade which means efficiently deploying resources to reduce the current incremental capital output ratio from 4.0 to 3.0, and by incentivising the people to save more to increase the current rate of investment (which is domestic saving plus net foreign investment).

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, judged statistically by the dangerous level of fiscal and capital accounts deficit indicators, has squandered national financial and physical resources mainly due to a lack of accountability, corruption and high transaction costs arising for archaic bureaucratic procedures.

Modest goals within reach
This picture emerges from comparative statistics of National Democratic Alliance (1998-2004) and UPA (2004-2014) rule.

Efficient, corruption-free deployment of existing resources that implies a reduction in the capital-output ratio, means a 12 per cent GDP growth rate per year, i.e., a doubling of GDP every six years, and that of per capita income doubling every seven years.

This growth rate over a five-year period can take us into the league of the top three most populated nations of the world, i.e., of the United States, China and India — that is by 2020. Thereafter, India would be able to overtake China over the next decade. That should be the goal of governance for us today.

India is not yet an economically developed nation. India has demonstrated its prowess in the IT, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors and has accelerated its growth rate to nine per cent per year in the first decade of this century, up from an earlier 40-year (1950-90) socialist era average annual growth rate of a mere 3.5 per cent, to become the third largest nation in terms of GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rates.

However, it still has a backward agricultural sector of 62 per cent of the people, where there are farmer suicides because of inability to repay loans. There is a national unemployment rate that is of over 15 per cent of the adult labour force, a prevalence of child labour arising out of nearly 50 per cent of children not making it to school beyond standard five, a deeply malfunctioning primary and secondary educational system, and 300 million illiterates and 250 million people in dire poverty.

India’s infrastructure is pathetic, with frequent electric power breakdowns even in metropolitan cities, dangerously unhealthy water supply in urban areas, a galloping rate of HIV infection, and gaping potholes that dot our national highways.

For a second generation of reforms
To become a developed country, therefore, India’s GDP will have to grow at 12 per cent per year for at least a decade. Technically this is within India’s reach, since it would require the rate of investment to rise from the present 28 per cent of GDP to 36 per cent, while productivity growth will have to ensure that the incremental output-capital ratio declines from the present 4.0 to 3.0.

These are modest goals that can be attained by an efficient decision-making structure, tackling corruption, increased Foreign direct investment (FDI) and use of IT software in the domestic industry. But for that to happen, what is required are more vigorous market-centric economic reforms to dismantle the remaining vestiges of the Soviet model in Indian planning, especially at the provincial level.

The Indian financial system also suffers from a hangover of cronyism and corruption which has left government budgets on the verge of bankruptcy. This too needs fixing. It cannot be rectified by a Reserve Bank of India vitiating the investment climate with an obsession to contain inflationary pressure. It is like killing a patient to lower his body temperature.

India’s infrastructure requires about $150 billion to make it world class, while a new innovation climate requires investment in the education system of six per cent of GDP instead of 2.8 per cent today. But an open competitive market system can find these resources provided the quality of governance and accountability is improved. Auctioning of natural resources such as spectrum, coal, oilfields, and land for commercial exploitation can largely substitute for tax impositions. Obviously, a wide-ranging second generation of reforms is necessary for all this to accelerate India’s growth rate to 12 per cent per year. India has many advantages today to achieve a booming economy. We have a young population (an average of 28 years compared to the U.S.’ 38 years, and Japan’s 49 years) that could be the base for it to usher in innovation in our production process (a demographic dividend); an agriculture sector that has internationally the lowest yield in land and livestock-based products, and also, at the lowest cost of production, a full 12 months a year of farm-friendly weather, and an internationally competitive, skilled and low wage rate, semi-skilled labour at the national level. The advantages are already being proved to the world by the outsourcing phenomenon of skills in the developed world and the cheap supply of labour to oil-rich countries.

Demography as an advantage
Since the world view of economic development has now completely changed, economic development is no more thought of as being capital-driven, but knowledge-driven instead.

For application of knowledge, we need innovations, which means more original research which in turn needs more fresh young minds — the cream of the youth — to be imbibed with learning and at the frontier of research.

For decades since independence in 1947 we had been told that India’s demography was its main liability, that India’s population was growing too fast, and what India needed most was to control its population, even if by coercive methods.

Globally, India today leads in the supply of youth, i.e., persons in the age group of 15 to 35 years, and this lead will last for another 40 years. Therefore, we should not squander away this “natural resource.” We must, by proper policy for the young, realise and harvest this demographic potential.

China is today the second largest world leader in terms of having a young population. But the youth population there will start shrinking from 2015, i.e., less than a decade from now because of a lagged effect of the one-child policy. Japanese and European populations are already fast aging. The U.S. will however hold a steady trend thanks to a liberal policy of immigration, especially from Mexico and the Philippines. But, even then, the U.S. will have a demographic shortage in skilled personnel. All developed countries will experience a demographic deficit. India will not have to experience this if we empower our youth with multiple intelligences. Our past liability, by a fortuitous turn of fate, has now become our potential asset.

Thus, India — by unintended consequences of a relatively unfettered population growth — is now gifted with a young population. If we educate this youth to develop cognitive intelligence to become original thinkers, imbibe emotional intelligence to have a team spirit and develop a rational risk-taking attitude, inculcate moral intelligence to blend personal ambition with national goals, cultivate social intelligence to defend the civic rights of the weak, gender equality, have the courage to fight injustice, and the spiritual intelligence to tap into the cosmic energy (Brahmand) that surrounds the earth, we can then develop an intellectually more advanced species of human being; an Indian youth who can be relied on to contribute to make India a global power within two decades. Only then will our demographic dividend not be wasted.

This goal thus has to be at the core of the economic agenda for the rest of this decade for a new government in 2014.