Every district in India must have a billionaire

India has probably 50 or more dollar billionaires concentrated in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore. This leaves more than 600 districts without any major entrepreneur and therefore investment. Not only it is bad for our national security, it is bad for the rate of development. Rajasthan for example has 32 districts and to the best of my knowledge there is not a single billionaire from the state. Is it because of the infrastructure, raw material, labor or what? Just imagine if there were 32 billionaires in Rajasthan, one from every district, the state GDP would have been growing at the rate of 15% a year. Similar situations could be created in states like Uttar Pradesh with 71 districts or Bihar with 38 districts. Then who is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in all of our 610 districts? Corporate India has to accept some blame as well!

The state of Andhra Pradesh has 23 districts and quite a few are being developed in different sectors. I have tried to feature these in my blog, ‘Destination India’ and the prospects are great. Andhra Pradesh is $62 billion economy as per 2005 estimates. I have only visited Hyderabad once a long while ago but not any other district. Hopefully one day we would travel to all 23 districts and photograph them extensively the way we did in Rajasthan. It is an expensive exercise but needs to be done as early as possible! It is my belief that we do not know our own country and our governments do a bad job of enlightening us. Somebody needs to visit all 610 districts of India and create a digital library of pictures and meaningful descriptions of all the visited sites.

There might be 500 dollar billionaires in India by 2020; wouldn’t it be great if they spread their operations in all 610 districts of India? It is the job of the private sector to create employment in any country. The central and state governments can only help create conditions for the entrepreneurs to create businesses and hence grow the economy. Indian corporate sector has shown tremendous vitality in the past 10-15 years. There is no doubt in my mind that if we create a broad vision for Corporate India, it would not disappoint. Look at the Ambanis, DLF, Infosys, Mahindras, Tatas and Wipro; all have grown in leaps and bounds. It is estimated that there are 160,000 multi-millionaires in India. These investors and entrepreneurs should be able to litter the Indian landscape with creative businesses in all 35 States and Union Territories.

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“Saare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamara…”

“…Hum Bulbulen Hain Us Ki Vuh Gulistan Hamara”. This couplet was penned by a young Muhammad Iqbal in 1904. He turned a traitor in 1910 and renounced his earlier sentiment. Muhammad Iqbal was one of the founding fathers of Pakistan. Hundred and four years later, young Muslims are turning traitors and are gunning for their ‘Hindustan’! India or Hindustan is the only country in the world where young Muslims have earned world-wide fame for themselves, their families and their country. No other country on the face of this earth has given so much to Muslims as India has. Despite such opportunities Muslims have turned against their own ‘Mother India’.

Certain sections of the Muslim population on the Indian sub-continent have long believed that they would one day out-number Hindus in their own motherland. The simple question is how? The next question is why? Is this religious fanaticism or civilizational hang-over? Whatever the case might be, the fact of the matter is that for every single Hindu killed in the world, there are 100 Muslims killed around the world. The Muslim fanatics should do their math! In the meantime Hindus and moderate Muslims are getting educated, raising their families and improving their standards of living. How come no other country has produced a Muslim Azim Premji and Wipro?

Note my concern voiced on September 15, 2008