IT Prowess

Information Technology sector is the first sector to put India on the global map.The exports in this sector was about 47 Billion dollars for 2009 and it is expected to grow to 60 billion dollars in the coming year.Almost all the major IT players have a R&D facility in the country which shows the vast talent pool available in the country.The future offers unlimited potential for the India's leading IT players but we still do have a lot of challenges as we try to compete for a larger share of the pie from the market leaders.

One of the main advantages that the Indian companies enjoy is low costs due to cheap labor force. With continuous success this cost advantage is slowly getting eroded as pay scales are increasing on a yearly basis.If we look around a lot of other cheap IT Outsourcing destinations such China,Indonesia and Latin American countries are coming up and competing fiercely with India.China may not be a serious competitor now but in the coming years they pose a serious threat.Relying on the cost factor alone will make us loose our market share in the future.

Indian companies should step up the research spending so that we can move up the value chain quickly to get more high profile projects.Instead of just increasing the head counts companies should look at alternatives to come up with business solutions that would boost their revenues through product offerings.This would transform the Indian companies to gain a strong foot hold in the industry.

Human capital continues to pose a great challenge to the Indian companies.The college curriculum should be reformed to suit the industry's needs so that the students are more ready to fit the needs of the companies. Otherwise IT companies need to spend more money to train the students for their jobs.Even with such vast talent pool we only have a lot of service oriented companies and the product oriented Indian companies have enjoyed little success. In spite of the fact that more than 40% of the startups at silicon valley are by Indians we are yet to see such success in India.This can be attributed to Brian Drain as more number of talented students try to do their PG in American universities.Government must take steps to improve the infrastructure of the schools and colleges.Our nation needs more IIMs and IITs to break the barriers in our path to Growth.

Education System in India

The largest democracy in the world, a beacon of economic recovery after the greatest depression of our lifetime, racing ahead of time to carve a place for itself in the world dominion are some of the attributes that can be attached to the young and Vibrant India. When the western economies are reeling under the effect of economic depression and struggling to be on their feet India has clocked a growth rate of an impressive 6.5%. We can continue to list such great achievements to our nation but we have our fair share of problems that we need to deal with to move on.I believe Education is one such elixir that can solve many of the problems that our country faces now.

In this context the education system in our country assumes a very important role as it defines the future of our country. But I feel that the education system in our country is still very fragile.Education is become one of the most profitable venture in our country.This has made education a luxury which is out of reach for most of the children in our country.Lets leave higher studies out of the picture and look at the initial schooling. In the IT capital of our country parents have to shell out 100,000 for joining their kids in kinder garden.Since people do not have faith in Government run schools they do not have an effective alternative.

Another great problem which plagues our education system is Reservation. I do not oppose the reservation of seats for the backward community but it should be rational.In Tamil Nadu almost 75% of the seats for B.E is allocated for backward community.This greatly increases the mediocrity of the system.People want to remain backward so that it would be easier for them to obtain admission.A lot of people try to obtain a certificate that they belong to backward community through illegal means.If politicians continue to increase the quota of reservation seats then what will be left for the truly deserving students.Wont this type of Reverse Discrimination cause more social unrest?

The Government of India should start allocating more money for the education sector in the budget so that the infrastructure of the Government schools and colleges can be improved. Once people gain trust of the government institutions then the private institutions will automatically rectify their mistakes.Lets pray that our Government takes the right steps to fulfill the aspirations of our future generations.

Do we really need politicians

Its funny to use the word "politician" in India now a days. In the next five years we will have a lot of the so called politicians fighting it out in a different turf. Do not wonder as it would definitely be the Forbes list for the super rich on the face of our planet. Its not that they cannot compete now but in five years time politicians would be more open to accept the wealth as nothing can be done about it.

Recently we were able to see Madhu Koda all over the news channels for embezzling the state funds and mis-used his position to earn roughly 4000 crores and all this done in one of the most impoverished states in our country. If such staggering amounts can be earned during his short period in power then imagine how much of wealth is created in our country. Never mind some politicians in the south would be laughing about it as Koda did not have the right talent to hide away the wealth. Even the politics of Karnataka seems to be driven by wealthy mining lobby.I have a strong belief that the politicians exposed in the media are just the tip of the ice berg.Lets wait and watch if these people are ever brought to justice.

Apart from all these nonsense here we have a nation of 1 billion plus population which is striving forward slowly but with a steady pace. A number industries that flaunt the Indian brand name are Information Technology, Pharmaceutical Industry,Automobiles and the list continues. But among with tremendous growth we have seen a very large disparity at the ground levels. A large number of people still live on an earning less than Rs 20 per day. This disparity cannot be erased over night. I believe that education is one of the greatest ways to alleviate poverty. For a nation that worships education, most of the middle class people have realized this and go out all means to get the education for our children.

We can boast of our small success which has been achieved with very less intervention from Politicians. But we need a real politician( with guts, temperament and the nation's interest in mind) to change the mindset of the nation so that we can move forward to become a prosperous nation. Its high time we started to search for such a hero who need not necessarily be the son or daughter of so and so. People should think beyond caste, religion and creed when they Vote. Only then we can get a Saviour who can lead us to our dream of being a developed nation.