The state of the Indian union!

There is relative calm in the country, the political process was successfully completed early this year and the Indian economy is certainly turning around. The state of the ‘Indian Union’ is good. Not too many countries in the world can say that with enough confidence. Notwithstanding the cancer next door, India has managed to stay focused on issues that matter to the people of this country. This week’s passage of the ‘Right to Education’ bill in both houses of parliament is a case in point. The muscular and open debate in the Lok Sabha and a live coverage of the proceedings by the electronic media is a sign of a developing democracy. Can you imagine a similar process in a country like China? How else do you develop the civic institutions of democracy?

China might be ahead of India in terms of primary education but their education system does not inform the students. The whole society in China is indoctrinated by the ruling ideology and the children get a twisted view of the world at large. This is dangerous for any society in the long term. Indian education system is hardly a model system but would evolve over a period of time. Now that we have Kapil Sibal as our Minister of Human Resource Development, instead of the dead-beat Arjun Singh, we should see dramatic reforms in our entire educational system. Sibal has already indicated his intentions of liberalizing the higher education system in India. Standardization of primary and secondary education across India is even more important. A uniform education system is key to national integration!

INDIA’S EDUCATION AGENDA – Kapil Sibal

Kapil Sibal could harvest the demographic dividend

Twenty years back when we left India, Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi used to consider India’s exploding population as a major national liability. Their successors, P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh converted this liability into a global human capital. How could this happen and that too virtually overnight? The reason was simple, the Gandhi’s were modestly educated, unlike the three scholars who followed them as Prime Ministers of India. Gandhi’s of India, excluding Mahatma Gandhi, were political animals with a short-sighted vision of India. It was Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao who completely changed the destiny of India. Even today the sycophants of Nehru-Gandhi cabal would hate to admit the fact, but then who cares? The fact of the matter is that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi got a unique mandate in 1985 but squandered it on petty politics. India is lucky to have a window of relief from this political dynasty and grow to its full God given potential.

Kapil Sibal, a Master’s of Law from Harvard Law School, has been appointed the Minister for Human Resource Development by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, replacing a dogmatic and infirmed, Arjun Singh. Sibal has already indicated his willingness to open India’s educational sector to foreign universities and thereby provide vastly expanded higher-education opportunities to millions of Indians. This has the potential to further enhance India’s growing human capital. India is on its way to become the world’s largest English-speaking liberal democracy. Currently, 30 million Indians are fluent in English language and 60 million more are somewhat functional in an English speaking environment. There seems to be a unanimous opinion around the world that India would have 300 million English-proficient workers by 2020. Besides being fluent in English, these Indian workers are likely to be better educated and trained compared to their Western counterparts and would cost only half to one third of their competition. Just THINK about its global impact!

The best part of India’s story is its demographics. India has the youngest population in the world, unlike China or the ‘Western World’. According to Vijay Srinivasan, “Nearly 31% of the Indian population is less than 14 years old, and approximately 58% of the population is less than 25 year old, which translates to over 600 Million young people. As the Western nations age and even China ageing fast due to its “one-child policy”, the future workers of the world would be coming from India, it seems. The GDP growth of India itself would absorb most of these young workers, if only India manages between 8 and 10% growth annually for the next 25 years. This is entirely possible, and India could well become the only country in the next few years to reach a double-digit economic growth rate. China would experience an inevitable slow down, possibly dropping down to no more than 5 to 6% growth rate.” India is likely to provide low-cost legal and health-care services to the world for decades to come. Indian design and culture has the depth and breadth to fire the imagination of the world. Young people around the world are likely to follow India in this century!