The 'poor' Neighbour

Another thread with Injuns gone wild.

The issue is of branding. Anyone who visits Pakistan will see the obvious: Pakistan is better than India in most thing.

Unfortunately ... there is no branding. Hence no one visits. I say its their loss not ours.

things

On the ground, of course, the reality is different and first-time visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country's visible prosperity.There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than in India, fewer beggars, and much less desperation. In many ways the infrastructure of Pakistan is much more advanced: there are better roads and airports, and more reliable electricity. Middle-class Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their equivalents in India.

Moreover, the Pakistani economy is undergoing a construction and consumer boom similar to India's, with growth rates of 7%, and what is currently the fastest-rising stock market in Asia. You can see the effects everywhere: in new shopping centres and restaurant complexes, in the hoardings for the latest laptops and iPods, in the cranes and building sites, in the endless stores selling mobile phones: in 2003 the country had fewer than three million cellphone users; today there are almost 50 million.

Mohsin Hamid, author of the Booker long-listed novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, wrote about this change after a recent visit: having lived abroad as a banker in New York and London, he returned home to find the country unrecognisable. He was particularly struck by "the incredible new world of media that had sprung up, a world of music videos, fashion programmes, independent news networks, cross-dressing talkshow hosts, religious debates, and stock-market analysis".

I knew, of course, that the government of Pervez Musharraf had opened the media to private operators. But I had not until then realised how profoundly things had changed. Not just television, but private radio stations and newspapers have also flourished in Pakistan over the past few years. The result is an unprecedented openness. Young people are speaking and dressing differently. Views both critical and supportive of the government are voiced with breathtaking frankness in an atmosphere remarkably lacking in censorship. Public space, the common area for culture and expression that had been so circumscribed in my childhood, has now been vastly expanded. The Vagina Monologues was recently performed on stage to standing ovations.

67 Posted by Cobra on August 17, 2007 10:05:20 am
#62, well said,

You should have seen the south Indian cities before and our Konkan area even now. It is much more cleaner that most of the places in North India.
Unfortunately not any more. These folks have flocked down in our cities and villages. Now our cities are over crowded, dirty and filthy.

True,
The cities in Punjab were cleaner a deacade ago, Migrants Bangla Desh, UP, Bihar and Bengal are taking a toll on the cities.
A friend from abroad said they keep the houses so clean, the gardens too, but the country , mainly the smaller towns ,are a one big dustbin for everyone.
In Chandigarh, which is a fairly clean city, backlanes were made for collection of rubbish, the MC does not collect rubbish for days. Citizens now hire private kachrawallas to to pick up rubbish

why all idians are shouting about poverty and slum of delhi and mumbai...

why you all indians dont tell the sarkar tyhat why it spend 68% on Defence,,,,,

why this money is not for poor people of india....


due to your 68% ..pakistan also have to spend a lot of on Defence...

why you all indians are mad ..on accumulating arms....

and for whom....

why you not resist against your Warriors government...

why are they crazy ..in destroying others...


solution is very simple....
stop accumulating arms..and weapons ..in india...
use this money for poor people of india...

i dont know why indians are in mental disorder of spending too much on defence


i mean to say.....india cannot reach the foot level of China

regarding sri Lanka..Bhutan..Nepal..and Bangla Desh etc...they are just small country ..so no comparison with India...

and regarding pakistan..again i say....

Pakistan is a nuclear missile power....

are indians are collecting arms against pakistan....






I mean to say....


you can give a threat as a "super power " to bangla desh bhutan





but do you think that by collecting arms....

you can give a threat to pakistan

This is a good article and would rightfully make most Pakistanis happy and proud of what they are achieving. But on one level, it's also irrelevant. That the good things that are happening in Pakistan are underreported is more of a reflection on the stupid policies that various Pakistani governments have pursued since independence rather than any real bias on the part of the West. Overt and covert support of jihadis and Islamists, actively supporting secessionist movements in neighbouring countries, a blatant disregard for human rights and democratic norms, etc. are only some of these policies.
What the subcontinent needs are two confident nations interacting adult-to-adult, rather than, as it exists today, an insecure sullen Pakistan trying to live down its idiot little brother image and playing a never-ending game of catch-up with the favourite son India. I say more power to Pakistan; the better you guys do economically, the less time you have to wage silly wars and waste time over non-issues like Kashmir and Siachen.

The truth is India has no money to invest in infrastructure and it is begging all over the world for FDI. The estimate of $150 billion is hogwash. Indian infrastructure needs way, way more than that. We are practically looking at building not only the airports but pretty much all sea ports.
India has not built a single port of the size of Gwadar since Independence. They have only invested what is necessary to keep the current seaports from the British era going.

One joker wrote that India has money for the infrastructure and here is the Indian minister saying India has no money.
“How do we find money?”

Address by Shri Kamal Nath, Hon'ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India

http://www.ficci.com/media-room/speeches-presentations/2005/march/march 28-
infrastructure.htm

“The investment requirements of the economy are huge. The Prime Minister himself has indicated that the country needs FDI for infrastructure to the extent of 150 billion dollars over the next five years. It is estimated that an additional capacity of 100,000 MW would be required to be installed in the next 10 years. Notwithstanding the spectacular growth in the telecom sector, tele-density continues to be less than 10, and to reach the tele-density level of 25 by 2007, the sector needs investment 20 billion dollars. Airports Authority of India has set a target of investing 1 billion dollars for modernization of airports. The investment requirements in the maritime sector are estimated at 22 billion dollars.
How do we find finances? Taxing people more and then routing it to projects has its limits. I am sure that in this conference, experts would delve upon these issues. How do we attract big-ticket investments into infrastructure sectors? As a society we need to find answers to these questions. “

And the Indian society still can't find those answers. It may take another five years to just find the answers...

I am also amused at the idea that basically says that Indian companies are not capable of building infrastructure and only “foreign companies” can do this. This is from the people who spent millions of hours shouting from the top of their lungs that India has top class engineering education, plenty of billionaires and some top notch companies too that are taking over the world.

What good is all that when those companies cannot and will not invest in developing some top notch engineering firms in India? What good are those engineers who cannot be trusted to supervise quality construction and finally what good are those billionaires that fail to invest in their own countries?

Recently, three big houses from India invested billions of dollars in buying industry outside of India. The irony is that they used their Indian assets to borrow money in the international market to invest outside of India. They pledged the future of India to buy assets that will not bring a single dollar of profit to India.

Indian industrialist is looking more and more to invest outside of India. Even the technology companies are beginning to take funds out of India. The Top three tech companies are now hiring in the US paying more than thrice of what they were paying to Indian to some nikama (bum) out of work, American coders so that they could have a white face in the US.

face it ,tat country sucked so we left.

#138 Posted by nb on August 17, 2007 7:18:27 pm

"HP, I presume you left Pakistan because it was too good for you?? "

nb,

Why is it always personal with you? first I quoted what Indians wrote at an Indian site, Rediff. Second, I had as good and in some ways, better life in Pakistan. Here I worked for what I have. I might not had this experience in Pakistan. Different strokes for different folks.

The new Chowk is the same old Chowk.
All the Pakistanis are busy telling Indians how their country (and its IT companies) sucks.
All the Indians are gloating at Pakistans internal problems. Why don't we concentrate on our own weaknesses and start to acknowledge (may be emulate or at least learn from) each other's strengths?

One more nonsensical argument presented here is that since India is a democracy everything takes time. That is the most ridiculous thing to say.

The first priority for a democracy is to take care of its voters and develop resources for their benefits, more jobs, more industry and more roads for the movement of commodities. If a democracy fails to do that, then there is some serious flaws in the democracy.

In the 70s, Bhutto was PM and he used to have Khuli Katchery with people all over Pakistan in small villages. In Sindh, he would ask people, "how could he help them?" and invariably a majority of people would say, "Sian Assan ji laiy hitay hikarRy Sarak tahria chadoo" (Please build a road for us.)
He built more road in Sindh in five years than all military governments put together in forty years.

It is the responsibility of the elected government to prioritize what people need. Military governments never do that.

Recently, in Karachi there was a power shortage. People of Karachi came out and spoke their mind on the issue and I am sure they will not have this problem next year. But look at the Indian society. How many Indians come out when power shortages hit their cities and towns?

People living in a democracy need to have some civic sense. Some understanding of what their rights are...But Indians only talk....

face it ,tat country sucked so we left.

As I said, HP, you left too because your country sucked.

#155 Posted by HP

[One more nonsensical argument presented here is that since India is a democracy everything takes time. That is the most ridiculous thing to say.]

Let me think about this....Ummmmmmm..hmmmmm ummmmmm.....

By God! You are right!

Thanks... Er, do you eat a lot of fish?

#126 tahmed32

Point well taken. I guess I got carried away with IITs, IIMs etc. :)

Regards.

Re:amansandhu
"In Chandigarh, which is a fairly clean city, backlanes were made for collection of rubbish, the MC does not collect rubbish for days"

Aman, there is a fundamental problem among Indians regarding collective cleanliness, hygiene, sanitation and being careless about infrastructure investment. Its a really low priority for us and most of us do not care until someone compares us to Pakistan. For some reason, we tend to relate such attributes as being "flashy" and have a weird guilt complex about it. While most Indians give very high priority to education, employment, financial success etc., they just dont care about living properly.

Its not about money but about attitudes and priorities. Just look at the "Indian towns" in the west like Devon Street in Chicago or Jackson Heights in New York. Even there we see the same symptoms emerge. The Patel brothers grocery store owner is probably some very wealthy dude. Yet his desi grocery store would have a 30 year old look, shabby presentation, weird smells of masalas, dirty floors, dirty walls etc. His goods would be of high quality and desis will come and shop there. But the customers dont care that the establishment looks like a dump as compared to the regular American grocery supermaket with its swanky interiors, bright lighting, everything clean and nicely organized. When the owner and the customer both do not care, we end up with a Patel borthers type grocery store. Any westerner visiting it will think that Indians are poor people, when the reality is that both the owner and the customers are significantly wealthy by American standards. The same substandard look and feel is visible in pretty much most stores and businesses in "Indian towns", so anyone visiting these neighborhoods will walk away thinking that Indians are poor people. Just take that and multiply it by a million times all over back home and you can see why India looks like the way it does.

The sad part is that it doesnt have to be that way. We are not a poor people any more but our mindset is still stuck from the days when we were dirt poor. Its all about needless frugality that makes us look shabby for no reason. We got to celebrate our success and spend more to earn even more. It will take many generations for Indians to develop that level of confidence.

Re:HP
"It is the responsibility of the elected government to prioritize what people need"

That is exactly right and that is what the Indian government does as well. People in India give a high priority to education, jobs, business investment etc and the government delivers fairly well on that. People just do not care about infrastructure, sanitation, hygiene etc to that extent. That attitude reflects in the government's lackadaisical attitude towards it as well.

People do not relate the investment in infrastructure to the increased prosperity that it will bring. Wider roads, seaports, 24 hour electricity/water are still viewed as a luxury rather than basic rights. Even highly educated people will say that we need populist programs to give free rice to people or give a free meal to kids, rather than demand top notch infrastructure. The Communists like the CPM party view infrastructure demands as a criminal act of the rich asking for luxury items. For example, they are hell bent against modernising Indian airports, when the domestic airport in Delhi looks virtually like a third class railway station platform. This inherent resistance to investment in these sectors gets manifested in all kinds of dirty politics against such moves, which is why the government fails to deliver on it as well.