My Musings-Take or Leave IT

 

Let me start of with The Economist and The Business Week. That in no way takes off the importance of our own newspapers and magazines. The cover story of the September 1st –7th, 2007, issue of the Economist is about Google (Who is afraid of Google?). Business Week is not far behind. A series of article has come on the topic. Back home a series of write up on rupee hardening, sub-prime mortgage crisis about the tenor of these writings. My belief is that the undertones of these writings were not as upbeat as before. There was a time when the business futurologist had sworn by the prospects of digital revolution, which they thought would continue well over several decades. My lurking fear is that perception is waning, though I wish I should be proved wrong. A newspaper report in India has highlighted as to how Indian IT companies are loosing business due to increasing bankruptcies reported in US of the private equity funds, which has outsourced huge contracts to Indian companies. Reputed companies and consultancies in US are closing down their arms, which primarily catered to the sub prime mortgage market. That has affected their operations in the emerging markets like India since they have started the stocktaking of their portfolios of investment.

 

There are economists, who share a gloomy perception for the world economy in the coming months and years, though the figures rolled out on world trade, investment and the like are not in tandem with such happenings. Is it a forewarning to tighten the belt to eschew a global slow down? Perhaps, yes. If so, good for all of us since the businesses operate not on profit alone. Expectation of profit, I believe, is a key driver of businesses. And at the same time, it is prudent not to wish away the negative moorings of the predictions. What are they? Let me surmise some of them; US productivity is sliding, Europe’s growth steam in manufacturing is faulting, Japan’s graying population is worrying, demographic shift in Latin America and Africa would create a mismatch between the demand and supply of the world manpower, lesser interest of the students in pure sciences and mathematics would slow down the innovative spirit, to name a few.

 

Where does India stand in the milieu? When countries one after the other are loosing the demographic advantage, we are gaining an advantage. Our population is the youngest in the world, whereas China’s demographic landscape may have more grayed people than the working ones in a decade or so. Turnout of students from the engineering and other technical institutions will be much more than the population of a small country like Guatemala. Our continental market is expanding and deepening. There is an exponential surge of entrepreneurs in the country, creating more employment and wealth. Viewed against the contemporary global problems, these are no doubt, our strong points that keep us in good stead.

 

What then can hold us back? Foremost, I would say is our digital divide that widens the gap between then rich and the poor. We have not put to full use the potential of our IT power. It has helped us to be reckoned among the comity of nations as a power-if not a super power’–in the making. It helped us to take the entrepreneurship from the confines of an historical legacy enjoyed by a few on account of their birth and affluence. It helped us to build an internationally respected brain trust and distribute the income more evenly. It has helped us to create wealth for a large number of populations.

 

India has seen the emergence of a large number of whiz kids, who have combined creativity with enterprise and wisdom with risk taking appetite to make wealth for themselves and others. They are like the baby boomers of the yester years in the US. Then came the flower children, who were lulled by the cozy comforts and to some extent pleasure loving and risk taking was an anathema to them. After the groundswell of entrepreneurship that we have experienced since 90s, let there not be a set of generation who are pleasure seekers and pampered, for it will kill initiative. West could afford a generation of easygoing youngsters since they have achieved a critical mass of development that could sustain growth even now. But we do not have advantage. While our success stories are widely heard across the world, we have unsavory legacies. Widespread farmers’ suicides, alienation of people from the mainstream development, unemployment or the fear of it, lack of faith in the governance, corruption, nepotism, crony capitalism etc are the not the desirable development parameters but an extension of the gory feudal structure we are trying to snap bond.

 

Manifestations of these ills have thrown up societal reactions, sometimes simmering and other times more vocal and reactive like the sporadic Naxal attacks and killings. Our effort is not only to create more millionaires but also to uplift all from destitution and to give them a new hope of life. For that our IT head start should jell with demographic advantage to pave the way for an egalitarian society. That would ensure a continuous supply of right skilled, hardworking and confident talents for industry and other avenues to give the leadership to the next generation. Otherwise, we may also have to put up with a generation like the flower children, who would look to the opposite direction when risk taking and hard work should form the basic ethos of the societal balance. That is a risky proposition. Let us together avoid that situation.is in US, broadcasting bill etc were the topic of a large number of write-ups and features. My subject of discussion