A state that changes my core identity from the child of my parents to the slave of society is inherently evil.

Excerpts:
“India leads the market in offshored back-office services, but as a manufacturing center it lags behind China, Thailand, and the rest of Asia (Exhibit 1). The reasons are well documented: multinational companies operating in India must overcome erratic electricity supplies, poor roads, and gridlocked seaports and airports while contending with government policies that discourage hiring and hold back domestic demand for goods in many sectors.”

“Automakers in developed markets must contend with twin pressures: to innovate and, at the same time, to reduce costs. On the one hand, they must not only develop expensive new features to please consumers but also ratchet up their environmental and safety standards; on the other, the base price of a car is expected to remain flat over the next decade. This combination of factors is pushing companies to source more components from places where costs are lower. McKinsey analysis suggests that, as a result, outsourcing in this sector could be worth $375 billion by 2015, up from $65 billion in 2002.

We think that India could capture up to $25 billion of this amount, to become (along with China, Mexico, and Thailand) one of the developing world’s top sourcing bases. Already, out of a sample of more than 400 Indian suppliers, 80 percent have ISO 9000 certification—the international standard for quality management.”

May be for the parents. But how about the children and their joys? I read a news item during the Mumbai floods about a poor construction worker stranded with FOUR small kids. What’s she thinking? Why is she having four kids? If it’s China, there will be THREE less kids living a miserable life.

There was another news about a woman in Orissa selling one of her kid because she can’t afford to raise him. If she had stopped with just one kid, there was no need for her to sell kids.

There is nothing wrong in forcing a one child norm because it prevents millions to be born into a miserable and hopeless existence.

So when China decides that some aspects of the way things are done are really putting them at a disadvantage. they might clamp down hard. Hell, which other country on the planet is building a new thermal power plant every 5th day? In comparision, India has been dithering about one 2500 MW plant for the last 9 years.

Thanks to this delay, Urban Maharashtra today faces 3 hours of daily loadshedding while rural Maharashtra faces upto 12. And this is a state that boasts of being the most industralised in the country. Calculate the costs to the economy here. And while there has been talk of so many more plants, MoUs were signed (most in 2005) only when the gaping disparity between supply and demand has achieved damaging proportions threatening to stunt economic growth of the state.

The point is, despite its gargantuan proportions, China tends to be fleetfooted. And at the same time, India is much more like the elephant that western stereotypes associate it with. Though I’d stick with democracy anyday, we seriously need to tighten up the bureaucracy and loosen up the license raj further if we want to gain a distinct advantage over China.

Despite all the benefits that the Chinese system gives them, I’d really worry when they become a democracy. And the change might not be far away either.

China has an excellent population control policy– the most humanitarian act by the chinese government. Imagine if China did not have the one child norm: ….It’s really unfortunatethat India cannot force a one child norm.

A recent WSJ had a front page article on how humanitarian the forced abortion of fetus can be. Per capita is not the only thing in life…couple of children can bring joy to life too.