I know you can guess what P C stands for. Well, I recently watched the Finance Minister of India on American Public Television. His initials are P C for P Chidambaram. And yes the whole interview with Charlie Rose was an awesome display on Political Correctness. He is visiting the States this Spring of 2012 to garner foreign investments for his country.
While steeped in money matters from a historic (grandparents founded banks and father was a successful businessman) context he went on to study law and was a corporate lawyer representing the likes of Enron in India. Not sure of his true alignment with the Indian politic but clearly he is a man that comes across as very shrewd and highly intelligent to navigate the world stage.
I have been away from India for the most part (at least during my thinking years) so have no direct context on how if any of his policies have helped or hurt the growth in India but if some of the media were to be believed it is apparent that he has had an influence on seeing the obvious and steering the country from a socialist plutocracy to a pseudo capitalist economy.
That said what strikes as odd is whether he and the likes of him ever get interviewed back in India where the masses perhaps need to hear him in a candid conversation about the state of the union and his views on how to address the huge challenges that face a oversized population such as India.
He steered clear of touchy issues like Iran and China even saluting the latter in the context of how they have reduced abject poverty in their like sized country whereas the politics of the day in India is preventing it from happening at home.
While it is refreshing to see such obvious smarts in central government I am not sure I saw a purposeful agenda in his dialog with Charlie that tackled the questions of high illiteracy and rural malaise which is hurting the Indian economy. He talked about Foreign Direct Investment in terms of infrastructure but at the same time skirted the corruption question by saying it is everywhere you look. Well Mr. Finance Minister although that may be conceptually true it is a whole different matter when a country does not have to defend itself against it where most everyone residing there has access to clean drinking water and a place to releive themselves in privacy.
When basic needs are met for the larger public the questions of inappropriate fiscal management and other heady issues take on a different flavor to the point they really do not matter to the common man - its like saying certain things are best left to people in the right pay grade. India cannot afford to do that. It has to take on the corruption and lethargic attitudes head on and needs power lobbies to acknowledge and align. Of course its far easier said than done.
Whereas India has severe systemic and deep rooted cultural issues that impact large chunks of day to day civilian life mere shoulder rubbing in Davos and IMF conferences is not going to cut it become a power that other countries strive to be on the world stage.
All in all not washing the dirty laundry in public is good management which he probably learned in - guess - Harvard - he also needs to use all that glamorous education to win public opinion and channel consensus to bring about serious change in how we manage India Inc.
Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
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