Sunday, August 13, 2006

Only those who seek, shall find!

Yesterday, I read the following: "The National Electricity Policy Apart from privatisation and competition, the electricity policy includes a number of ambitious plans. It promises electricity to every household in India by 2012; this includes both rural and urban households......" Check the details here:http://www.infochangeindia.org/analysis80.jsp I could not stop giggling thinking about having electricity in every house hold. I thought there was a catch line somewhere in the policy.... it might be-> * Conditions apply: Every Household will get electricity only for one hour and each should ensure to make judicious use of it. There are regions facing load-shedding, so that YOU can get electricity. Be a responsible citizen.
Sitting here in a city, people are still facing problems of load shedding. I cant imagine what could be state of people living in remote areas of Orissa or for that matter the North Eastern States.

We are a TO-BE superpower, but can we be that without POWER? We are yet to solve our basic needs such as ROTEE-KAPDAA-MAKAAN-BIJLEE-PANEE. We dare to become a super power. ??.

Now some of you will say, but we are leaders in Software Industry. Correct me if I am wrong. Which n where are biggest Software product Corporations? Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Yahoo, SAP, Oracle ... These companies rule every type of computer running on this planet. We provide services to maintain the products made by them. Now, next question. What’s wrong in that? Good one. As Shakespeare said: Nothing is good or bad... Only thinking makes it so. But in this case, you are dependent on the product for which you provide service. Basically you are playing safe. You don’t want the risks of a product based software company. No risk-No gain is a simple rule that applies. So we settle down as software service providers. We maintain. That’s it. We don’t innovate. We settle on the rupee-dollar conversion ratios to earn our bread. When rupee falls and dollar rises we start rejoicing. Let this go on man... i m making great bucks! hah!

So where were we? Yes. ROTEE-KAPDAA-MAKAAN-BIJLEE-PAANEE. I missed out one important one. EDUCATION. How can u leave this? We are still not literate. How are we gonna become a super power? With a mass population which cant read? So what do u think is a good solution? We have 23 official languages, but close to 800 different spoken languages and close to 2000 dialects. Any pointers on how we are going to achieve 100% literacy? Please let me know too.

What about clean clear drinking water? (forget about food for a moment) I had been to trekking in the sahyadris. Just 3 hours from Pune, near Lonavala. Small kids, ladies carrying water utensils on their head. This was in midst of the rainy season. Hey, what about the summers? I should visit once then.

I forgot two others: INFRASTRUCTURE & COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE! Do we have any? Every time it rains, the roads in Pune become small tar-dunes.
I have become a skilled dirt-bike expert this monsoon. Only ~2% of the population in the country pays taxes, and they get highly maintainable roads. Good enough !
Hey we creating employment opportunities each monsoon. What more could you ask for? You get fresh new roads every year. Why do you worry about the money?

What about drainage lines, water supply, telephone cables etc...? Recently i heard that Pune is going Wi-Fi. PMC and Cantonment Board had joined hands with Intel to make this possible. Suddenly I thought, can Wireless-Electricity be possible? BOOM! The transformer behind my society blew off, cutting the elec-supply till night. It seems it did not want competition. Not much different than most of us, aint it?

COMMUNICATIONS: Ever thought of how much money NOKIA has made out of selling cell phones only in India. They could have easily got 4 countries revenue here. Again product based companies. Where are we? Don’t tell me TATA-Birla-Reliance-Bajaj-Bharat Forge-Kirloskar. Give me some new names.

We dream too much.... it’s good. But it lacks foundation! We are building palaces in AIR. They are bound to collapse. Every indian does not have a coherent dream to work for. The americans had it... The AMERICAN Dream... that what they call it. What do we have?

Can i talk about it to anyone I meet in a local train or bus?

Coherent dreams ! And of course .. Action plans . They will take us where we want to go.

Who is going to take us there? Can we do it without a leader? Do we need another Swami Vivekananda to show us the right path? Keep asking... Coz Only those who seek, shall find !