I've missed you, Blog

Dear blog, i've been away for almost a month, and its sacrilageous on my part to do so. A lot has passed since my last post, like the great showing of Indian golfers in tournaments in Asia and Europe, the airports in various cities trudging along, the Democrats coming back to near power in the United States, and a lot of other paraphernalia that has affected my life in one way or the other.

Last week, the Supreme Court had rejected Reliance Energy's case against the awarding of the Delhi/Mumbai airport contracts to GMR and GVK consortiums respectively. That supposedly was the last hurdle that these consortiums would have faced in their endeavour to transform the current airports from pig stys to worldclass establishments.

A lot of hullabaloo is being raised about the state of Indian infrastructure. These days, its not about the state per se but more about the investment that is being put into it. While it is growing by leaps and bounds, it is never enough to satisfy any media commentator the world over.

Our tens of billions of American dollars of investment are still dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of American dollars of Chinese investment, and that status quo has remained for all of last decade and all of this one.

Here is what my fragile little mind can't understand, and maybe I am wrong when I write this, but this is how the governments in India, at the state and center, seem to work - we have no money, you have the money, but we will not let you do your thing because of 'policy' restrictions. The new mantra in this Con'gress led government is something called public-private partnership. I haven't really looked into how it works, but I think it is something like government letting the private sector do their thing while the government will try to cut red tape and give them enough freedom to build and control what they have built. Now I am certain this is not exactly how it works, but I think its something to that effect. I think it also involves the government taking a stake in the project but giving the managing control to the private company. Like the new airports that are coming up have minority stakes owned by the Airports Authority of India and some of the respective state governments.

While all this infra talk is taking place, the Indian economy seems to be growing at a brisk rate, although the background chatter of a widening economic chasm between different classes and sectors is growing louder. While many argue that this economic growth is not worth a lot because it is not generating the necessary growth in employment, there are many other reports that say that different sunrise sectors have the ability to create millions of additional jobs. Who do I believe? Being the nationalist and the optimist and the saner person I am, I am going to say that this growth is here to stay, and despite what the naysayers say, this growth will trickle down and trickle wide.

By the way, today is Children's Day. On Pandit ji's birth anniversary, I think we must take a vow to make this country a better place for our children. We must work hard to get them out of hazardous jobs and into schools. my heart cringes at the level of exploitation that the children in our country face. In addition to that is the problem of malnourishment. Most of the world's malnourished are in India. So tell me, after all these years of a green revolution, what have we achieved? Very little, to tell you the truth. India produces enough to feed itself, but much of it is lost on its way to the poor and needy. And is there anybody to care? Well, the common man is too stuck up in him/herself and too meek to do anything, and the netas and babus and police are happily taking a cut of all the stolen food, and so this wheel keeps going round and round.

Is sadi mein humarein liye Bhagwan ne sirf achhi baatein hi sochi hain, yeh mera vishwas hai. Parantu Bhagwan ne yeh bhi socha hai ki agar humein apne aapko sudharna hai to humein hi sabse zyaada mehnat karni hogi.