Who’s the Decider?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT
Driving to the covered bazaar in the exotic western Indian town of Jodhpur last week, our Indian guide stopped to point out a modern landmark. “Do you see that stoplight?” he asked, pointing to a standard green-yellow-red stoplight in the busy intersection. “It’s the only stoplight in Jodhpur. There are 1.2 million people living here.”
The more you travel around India, the more you notice just how lightly the hand of government rests on this country. Somehow, it all sort of works. The traffic does move, but, for the first time in all my years visiting India, I’ve started to wonder whether India’s “good enough” approach to government will really be good enough much longer. Huge corruption scandals have stripped the government of billions of dollars of needed resources, and, as much as I’m impressed by the innovative prowess of India’s young technologists, without a government to enable them with the roads, ports, bandwidth, electricity, airports and smart regulations they need to thrive, they will never realize their full potential.
This isn’t just a theoretical matter. The air in India’s biggest cities is unhealthy. You rarely see a body of water here — a river, lake or pond — that is not polluted. The sheer crush of people — India will soon have more than China — on an unprotected environment really seems to be taking its toll. Without better governance, how will India avoid becoming an ecological disaster area in 10 years? Eventually the law of large numbers — 1.2 billion people — just starts to devour every minimalist step forward that India makes. India doesn’t need to become China, and isn’t going to. But it still needs to prove that its democracy can make and implement big decisions with the same focus, authority and stick-to-itiveness as China’s autocracy.
Azim Premji, the chairman of Wipro, one of India’s premier technology companies, did not mince words about the future when he announced his company’s earnings two weeks ago: “There is a complete absence of decision-making among leaders in the government. If prompt action is not taken, the country will face a setback. You must appreciate how serious it is.”
(More here.)
NYT
Driving to the covered bazaar in the exotic western Indian town of Jodhpur last week, our Indian guide stopped to point out a modern landmark. “Do you see that stoplight?” he asked, pointing to a standard green-yellow-red stoplight in the busy intersection. “It’s the only stoplight in Jodhpur. There are 1.2 million people living here.”
The more you travel around India, the more you notice just how lightly the hand of government rests on this country. Somehow, it all sort of works. The traffic does move, but, for the first time in all my years visiting India, I’ve started to wonder whether India’s “good enough” approach to government will really be good enough much longer. Huge corruption scandals have stripped the government of billions of dollars of needed resources, and, as much as I’m impressed by the innovative prowess of India’s young technologists, without a government to enable them with the roads, ports, bandwidth, electricity, airports and smart regulations they need to thrive, they will never realize their full potential.
This isn’t just a theoretical matter. The air in India’s biggest cities is unhealthy. You rarely see a body of water here — a river, lake or pond — that is not polluted. The sheer crush of people — India will soon have more than China — on an unprotected environment really seems to be taking its toll. Without better governance, how will India avoid becoming an ecological disaster area in 10 years? Eventually the law of large numbers — 1.2 billion people — just starts to devour every minimalist step forward that India makes. India doesn’t need to become China, and isn’t going to. But it still needs to prove that its democracy can make and implement big decisions with the same focus, authority and stick-to-itiveness as China’s autocracy.
Azim Premji, the chairman of Wipro, one of India’s premier technology companies, did not mince words about the future when he announced his company’s earnings two weeks ago: “There is a complete absence of decision-making among leaders in the government. If prompt action is not taken, the country will face a setback. You must appreciate how serious it is.”
(More here.)
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