Perhaps a house divided against itself cannot stand?
I don’t know.
They each have their own problems.
India is pretty divided itself, particularly along religious lines.
India does have the advantage of a background in the British legal traditions, which seems good for growing a capitalist economy.
However, China definitely seems to be developing its infrastructure far more quickly: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/business/31cnd-rupee.html?ex=1314676800&en=bd19abca79157e05&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Also, if you think this sort of thing is important, China seems to have more smart people on average - this is an interesting post that looks at that, among other differences:
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
They each have their own problems.
India is pretty divided itself, particularly along religious lines.
India does have the advantage of a background in the British legal traditions, which seems good for growing a capitalist economy.
However, China definitely seems to be developing its infrastructure far more quickly: The Next Industrial Giant Is ... India? - The New York Times
Also, if you think this sort of thing is important, China seems to have more smart people on average - this is an interesting post that looks at that, among other differences:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm
[/quote]
Wow. that second article you posted was pretty sketchy, BB. Full of outdated and degrading racial terminology like “mongoloid”, which is very seldom used in the world of Anthropology today. Asiatic or Eastern Eurasian is a more typic term these days. The author concludes the article with a negative remark on the racial diversification of the USA - not surprising.
where do you dig this shit UP?
[quote]knewsom wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
They each have their own problems.
India is pretty divided itself, particularly along religious lines.
India does have the advantage of a background in the British legal traditions, which seems good for growing a capitalist economy.
However, China definitely seems to be developing its infrastructure far more quickly: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/business/31cnd-rupee.html?ex=1314676800&en=bd19abca79157e05&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Also, if you think this sort of thing is important, China seems to have more smart people on average - this is an interesting post that looks at that, among other differences:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm
Wow. that second article you posted was pretty sketchy, BB. Full of outdated and degrading racial terminology like “mongoloid”, which is very seldom used in the world of Anthropology today. Asiatic or Eastern Eurasian is a more typic term these days. The author concludes the article with a negative remark on the racial diversification of the USA - not surprising.
where do you dig this shit UP?[/quote]
As a sidenote the author seems to think that homogenity is strenght.
Well it is in a closed society, but not in a free one.
I believe that the reason that the US flirted with fascism several times but never became a fascist country is the lack of homogenity and the lack of moral/cultural norms that are accepted as binding by all.
That could also become Indias strenght, not its weakness.
[quote]knewsom wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
They each have their own problems.
India is pretty divided itself, particularly along religious lines.
India does have the advantage of a background in the British legal traditions, which seems good for growing a capitalist economy.
However, China definitely seems to be developing its infrastructure far more quickly: The Next Industrial Giant Is ... India? - The New York Times
Also, if you think this sort of thing is important, China seems to have more smart people on average - this is an interesting post that looks at that, among other differences:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm
Wow. that second article you posted was pretty sketchy, BB. Full of outdated and degrading racial terminology like “mongoloid”, which is very seldom used in the world of Anthropology today. Asiatic or Eastern Eurasian is a more typic term these days. The author concludes the article with a negative remark on the racial diversification of the USA - not surprising.
where do you dig this shit UP?[/quote]
Yeah, I saw that – though I thought in the context of the article it was a negative comment more on cultural diversity - and by that I mean not integrated, in a “salad bowl” fasion rather than a “melting pot” – but it wasn’t the point of the article. Aside from his use of dated terminology, I think that it’s a valid point – the caste system in India and the problems it has because it is essentially a “salad bowl” type society, along with the comparative IQ information, which was also interesting.
That and I was reading some stuff in the Economist the other day about the problems with undereducation and poverty in much of India – whereas China has better average education available.
India has been making progress over recent years but it isn’t going to catch China in my lifetime in all likelyhood. China is already so far ahead with a GDP 2-3 times as large and its growth rates have been and will continue to be superior. China’s changes have been fundamental and fairly universal whereas India’s have been much more limited. I hate to say this, but China’s authoritarean regime has been much more effective in reshaping society than India’s mess of a democracy. It’s an open question how well it will hold up over the long term, but for the time being it is behaving rather responsibly. It’s biggest problems continue to be corruption and mismanagement in its regional and local governments as opposed to policy from the top. This is a whole 'nother topic though.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
[/quote]
Ok Mate, you have just opened up a Pandora’s box… since Iam the only Indian on this board (apart from malagh)I am going to dispell some myths that have been floating around about India.
First of all… that second link of yours is absolute bullshit, as knewsom so rightly pointed out. I cant believe that the ARYAN INVASION THEORY is still floating around today man… its crazy!!
Let me just give you a little background into the MYTH.
The continuing lie - Aryan and Dravidian races
In the early 20th century, when the colonial archeologists interest was beggining to peak about Indian history and culture, and the Indus-Saraswati ruins were being un-earthed, the utter myth known as the ‘Aryan invasion theory’ came into being. It was created as such - when European scholars were studying the Vedas, at a time when the bigoted view of genetic or religious superiority of the white race over all others was still gospel, scholars, not particularly well versed in the culture or language of India, mis-interpreted the word ‘Aryas’ which literally means “noble” or “educated” as an entire ethnic group, rather than a description of a class within society, which is what it meant.
From this mistake, a picture which suited the idea of European superiority began to emerge, where a fair-skinned (perhaps blue eyed and blonde haired? lol) race of people had decended from the plains of central asia, and civilised the native barbarian hunter-gathering people by conquering them, bringing the ‘European’ language of Sanskrit into India, and writing the Vedas. To their credit, it was the very inventors of this theory whom eventually disproved it, however, the bandwagon of bad idea had begun to roll, and those who clang to it began to try to adapt it in the wake of the discovery that there was an ancient civilisation pre-dating the supposed invasion by millennia. The theory now became rather more embarrassing - an ancient civiliation had existed, and was destroyed by white barbarians. All this from a bad European translation of an archaic Sanskrit word for noble.
Almost every scholar over the past 25 years now formally accepts as given fact that the Aryan invasion theory was utter myth, and that the translation of Aryas had been one of the worst mistakes in archeological history, yet some people still cling to this idea when the reality - as given by the Vedas - is that the people of India, are simply the people of India, and race, a mis-informed 19th century concept, does not exist. Furthermore, this undermines something that all desis should be proud of - India is the oldest, and only surviving unbroken civilisation dating back to the dawn of human society that exists in the world today.
Conservative estimates (some believe that India is far older than the others, and they are porbably right) say that Mesepotamia, Egypt and India are the three oldest civilisations on the planet and arose around the late fourth millenium BC, followed by China around the second millenium BC, but wheras only ruins exist of the others, the same civilisation that pioneered philosophy and science for the human race at least 6000 years ago still exists in India today, where the Amrit tanks of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation still carry the same importance in Mandirs and Gurdwaras toay, and hyms composed back then are still sung.
This civilisation wasnt founded through racial war or any such crap, there is no such thing as a Dravidian or an Aryan, everyone is Indian, with skin colour and features variying simply due to geography, as with everywhere on the planet. Dravidian only stands for a family of Indian languages, and Aryas are only Sanskriti nobles.
In closing, it is important to examine the social and political implications of the Aryan invasion idea:
First, it served to divide India into a northern Aryan and southern Dravidian culture which were made hostile to each other. This kept the Hindus divided and is still a source of social tension.
Second, it gave the British an excuse in their conquest of India. They could claim to be doing only what the Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously done millennia ago.
Third, it served to make Vedic culture later than and possibly derived from Middle Eastern cultures. With the proximity and relationship of the latter with the Bible and Christianity, this kept the Hindu religion as a sidelight to the development of religion and civilization to the West.
Fourth, it allowed the sciences of India to be given a Greek basis, as any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the Vedic culture.
This discredited not only the ‘Vedas’ but the genealogies of the ‘Puranas’ and their long list of the kings before the Buddha or Krishna were left without any historical basis.
The ‘Mahabharata’, instead of a civil war in which all the main kings of India participated as it is described, became a local skirmish among petty princes that was later exaggerated by poets. In short, it discredited the most of the Hindu tradition and almost all its ancient literature. It turned its scriptures and sages into fantacies and exaggerations.
This served a social, political and economical purpose of domination, proving the superiority of Western culture and religion. It made the Hindus feel that their culture was not the great thing that their sages and ancestors had said it was.
It made Hindus feel ashamed of their culture that its basis was neither historical nor scientific. It made them feel that the main line of civilization was developed first in the Middle East and then in Europe and that the culture of India was peripheral and secondary to the real development of world culture.
Such a view is not good scholarship or archeology but merely cultural imperialism. The Western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual spehere what the British army did in the political realm discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus.
In short, the compelling reasons for the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary nor archeological but political and religious that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice. Such prejudice may not have been intentional but deep-seated political and religious views easily cloud and blur our thinking.
LINKS
http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vedic-upanisads/aryan-invasion.html
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/solid_evidence_debunking_aryan_invasion.htm
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley.html
HOW HITLER STOLE OUR HINDU SWASTIK SYMBOL
Now, lets just get one thing straight. China is way way way ahead of India.
We must understand however that, India is a very young country, It was India’s wealth and power that attracted the British, and it was responsible for sparking the Industrial revolution in Britain, making it a super power.
India wasnt called the Jewel of the Crown for nothing.
India gained Independence in 1947 after the whole country united under Gandhi’s leadership, however it had been stripped of all its wealth and had to start from scratch, not to mention the newly created state of Pakistan, which has been a constant threat since 1948.
In these 59 years, India has progressed to the best of its ability, despite incessant terrorist attacks and fighting 3 wars with Pakistan and 1 with China.
It is the most Pro America country in Asia and has the one of the largest and richest middle class in the world, there are more english speaking Indians than there are Americans and thats the main reason Indians do well abroad, whereas their Chinese counterparts do not.
The Indian market and its one billion plus population, presents lucrative and diverse opportunities for U.S. exporters with the right products, services, and commitment.
In recent times, the declining value of the dollar, vis-?-vis competitors? currencies, is expanding and accelerating these opportunities.
India?s infrastructure, transportation, energy, environmental, health care, high-tech, and defense sector requirements for equipment and services will exceed tens of billions of dollars in the mid-term as the Indian economy globalizes and expands.
India?s GDP, currently growing at around 8 percent, makes it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Construction of nearly everything from airports to container ports to teleports is setting the stage to remake India.
Getting to the point,
Economically, China has a top-down model that has worked amazingly well to transform the country from the starving level where it was left by Mao Tze Tung to the developing level where it is now.
But this model has relied mostly on cheap exports to the USA, the good old Far-Eastern model. Worse: it has been largely driven by government rather than by enterpreneurs, which means that China has not raised a generation of enterpreneurs that can take that model and extend it to a domestic market.
Exporting to the USA is a relatively easy business model: you simply list all the things that the USA buys, and then make them cheaper. Creating a domestic market is a much more difficult task, because it has to be self-sustaining.
Japan went down the same avenue and, despite being a much more advanced capitalist society than China, is still largely dependent on exports to the USA, a fact that causes pneumonia every time the USA economy catches a flue.
China, with one billion people and far less powerful companies, is even more vulnerable. One wonders what happens when the USA will force China to let its currency fluctuate (Chinese goods are so cheap because the currency is kept artifically low, something that benefits inflation in the USA but that won’t last forever).
One wonders what happens when Chinese companies will have to compete free and fair with American, Japanese and European companies.
On the other hand, that is precisely what India has done. Government has merely enabled the transition to capitalism, that the transition has been carried out by thousands of big and small enterpreneurs, who had to develop skills to compete among themselves and with many other “offsourcing” destinations.
India is one huge version of the Silicon Valley, with venture capital initially being supplied, directly or indirectly, by the USA but increasingly coming from inside India itself. India has also managed to capture skills in high technology that China can only dream of: by now, India has probably become the second software power in the world after the USA.
Long-term, India’s economy is better prepared than China’s to compete worldwide. Its success depends less and less on cheap lavor, more and more on infrastructure, skills and, in general, competitivity.
Politically, it should be even more obvious that India has a great long-term advantage: it had 50 years to experiment with democracy, and it is now the largest democracy in the world, the largest of all times.
Despite all the trouble with its Muslim minority and eastern separatists, India’s democracy has become more and more stable.
Legitimate governments and the rule of law have the advantage that people complain about policy, not about the institutions themselves. On the contrary, China is still one of the most brutal totalitarian regimes in the world.
Its minorities have been appeased by the sudden economic prosperity, but discontent is rampant both in the countryside and in the cities as poor masses have to sacrifice for the army (that still controls most of the business) and the corrupt elite of capitalists.
The likelihood of a Soviet-style collapse is much greater in China than in India. As the capitalist economy creates a middle class (the thing that communists used to despise as bourgeoisie), the middle class demands more power, something that neither the old-fashioned communists nor the new capitalists are contemplating.
Eventually, as Marx taught, this will lead to a class struggle and a revolution.
Socially, the wealth gap is much bigger in China (that has already created billionaires, mostly corrupt government officials) than in India.
Demographically, India’s population is still growing, whereas China is experiencing the biggest slow-down in the entire world: the number of people of working age per every pensioner is projected to fall from 9:1 to 2.6:1 in the next 40 years.
Its rapidly ageing population will soon become a major factor. Today, early retirement is a way for China to avoid unemployment. If China is forced to increase retirement age to 65 or even 70, millions of Chinese will be jobless (they already are, but right now they receive a pension, which basically works like an unemployment benefit).
Western Europe and Japan have the same problem, but they got the problem after they got wealthy enough to solve the problem (at least for a while), whereas China will probably get the problem while it is still a poor country. China is getting older faster than it is getting richer.
China is expanding its sphere of influence, particularly through acquisition of strategic resources such as oil and raw minerals. But this sounds eerily similar to what Japan did in the 1980s, when it created an inflated demand for real estate and then bought real estate at overpriced values.
China’s booming economy is creating inflated prices for oil and raw materials, which then China proceeds to purchase at these inflated prices. Japan learned the effect of buying in a bubble: when a slow-down occurs, the bubble bursts, and you are left with a net loss.
Last but not least, China’s growth relies on a stable Pacific environment and stable routes from the Pacific to its trading partners (Middle East, Africa and Latin America).
Ironically, the peace that China needs is guaranteed by the USA, which China itself sees as a long-term competitor for supremacy…
On both economic and political grounds, India might be a safer bet than China.
[quote]nik19 wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
Ok Mate, you have just opened up a Pandora’s box… since Iam the only Indian on this board (apart from malagh)I am going to dispell some myths that have been floating around about India.
First of all… that second link of yours is absolute bullshit, as knewsom so rightly pointed out. I cant believe that the ARYAN INVASION THEORY is still floating around today man… its crazy!!
Let me just give you a little background into the MYTH.
The continuing lie - Aryan and Dravidian races
In the early 20th century, when the colonial archeologists interest was beggining to peak about Indian history and culture, and the Indus-Saraswati ruins were being un-earthed, the utter myth known as the ‘Aryan invasion theory’ came into being. It was created as such - when European scholars were studying the Vedas, at a time when the bigoted view of genetic or religious superiority of the white race over all others was still gospel, scholars, not perticularity well versed in the culture or language of India, mis-interpreted the word ‘Aryas’ which literally means “noble” or “educated” as an entire ethnic group, rather than a description of a class within society, which is what it meant.
From this mistake, a picture which suited the idea of European superiority began to emerge, where a fair-skinned (perhaps blue eyed and blonde haired? lol) race of people had decended from the plains of central asia, and civilised the native barbarian hunter-gathering people by conquering them, bringing the ‘European’ language of Sanskrit into India, and writing the Vedas. To their credit, it was the very inventors of this theory whom eventually disproved it, however, the bandwagon of bad idea had begun to roll, and those who clang to it began to try to adapt it in the wake of the discovery that there was an ancient civilisation pre-dating the supposed invasion by millennia. The theory now became rather more embarrassing - an ancient civiliation had existed, and was destroyed by white barbarians. All this from a bad European translation of an archaic Sanskrit word for noble.
Almost every scholar over the past 25 years now formally accepts as given fact that the Aryan invasion theory was utter myth, and that the translation of Aryas had been one of the worst mistakes in archeological history, yet some people still cling to this idea when the reality - as given by the Vedas - is that the people of India, are simply the people of India, and race, a mis-informed 19th century concept, does not exist. Furthermore, this undermines something that all desis should be proud of - India is the oldest, and only surviving unbroken civilisation dating back to the dawn of human society that exists in the world today.
Conservative estimates (some believe that India is far older than the others, and they are porbably right) say that Mesepotamia, Egypt and India are the three oldest civilisations on the planet and arose around the late fourth millenium BC, followed by China around the second millenium BC, but wheras only ruins exist of the others, the same civilisation that pioneered philosophy and science for the human race at least 6000 years ago still exists in India today, where the Amrit tanks of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation still carry the same importance in Mandirs and Gurdwaras toay, and hyms composed back then are still sung.
This civilisation wasnt founded through racial war or any such crap, there is no such thing as a Dravidian or an Aryan, everyone is Indian, with skin colour and features variying simply due to geography, as with everywhere on the planet. Dravidian only stands for a family of Indian languages, and Aryas are only Sanskriti nobles.
[/quote]
This is very interesting, I never knew this, took a couple classes on South Asian history in college, but mainly Mughal invasion on up.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I don’t know.
They each have their own problems.
India is pretty divided itself, particularly along religious lines.
India does have the advantage of a background in the British legal traditions, which seems good for growing a capitalist economy.
However, China definitely seems to be developing its infrastructure far more quickly: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/business/31cnd-rupee.html?ex=1314676800&en=bd19abca79157e05&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Also, if you think this sort of thing is important, China seems to have more smart people on average - this is an interesting post that looks at that, among other differences:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm
[/quote]
Nice read, BB. I added this last to my ‘Favorites’.
[quote]nik19 wrote:
Getting to the point,
Economically, China has a top-down model that has worked amazingly well to transform the country from the starving level where it was left by Mao Tze Tung to the developing level where it is now.
But this model has relied mostly on cheap exports to the USA, the good old Far-Eastern model. Worse: it has been largely driven by government rather than by enterpreneurs, which means that China has not raised a generation of enterpreneurs that can take that model and extend it to a domestic market.
Exporting to the USA is a relatively easy business model: you simply list all the things that the USA buys, and then make them cheaper. Creating a domestic market is a much more difficult task, because it has to be self-sustaining.
Japan went down the same avenue and, despite being a much more advanced capitalist society than China, is still largely dependent on exports to the USA, a fact that causes pneumonia every time the USA economy catches a flue.
China, with one billion people and far less powerful companies, is even more vulnerable. One wonders what happens when the USA will force China to let its currency fluctuate (Chinese goods are so cheap because the currency is kept artifically low, something that benefits inflation in the USA but that won’t last forever).
One wonders what happens when Chinese companies will have to compete free and fair with American, Japanese and European companies.
On the other hand, that is precisely what India has done. Government has merely enabled the transition to capitalism, that the transition has been carried out by thousands of big and small enterpreneurs, who had to develop skills to compete among themselves and with many other “offsourcing” destinations.
India is one huge version of the Silicon Valley, with venture capital initially being supplied, directly or indirectly, by the USA but increasingly coming from inside India itself. India has also managed to capture skills in high technology that China can only dream of: by now, India has probably become the second software power in the world after the USA.
Long-term, India’s economy is better prepared than China’s to compete worldwide. Its success depends less and less on cheap lavor, more and more on infrastructure, skills and, in general, competitivity.
Politically, it should be even more obvious that India has a great long-term advantage: it had 50 years to experiment with democracy, and it is now the largest democracy in the world, the largest of all times.
Despite all the trouble with its Muslim minority and eastern separatists, India’s democracy has become more and more stable.
Legitimate governments and the rule of law have the advantage that people complain about policy, not about the institutions themselves. On the contrary, China is still one of the most brutal totalitarian regimes in the world.
Its minorities have been appeased by the sudden economic prosperity, but discontent is rampant both in the countryside and in the cities as poor masses have to sacrifice for the army (that still controls most of the business) and the corrupt elite of capitalists.
The likelihood of a Soviet-style collapse is much greater in China than in India. As the capitalist economy creates a middle class (the thing that communists used to despise as bourgeoisie), the middle class demands more power, something that neither the old-fashioned communists nor the new capitalists are contemplating.
Eventually, as Marx taught, this will lead to a class struggle and a revolution.
Socially, the wealth gap is much bigger in China (that has already created billionaires, mostly corrupt government officials) than in India.
Demographically, India’s population is still growing, whereas China is experiencing the biggest slow-down in the entire world: the number of people of working age per every pensioner is projected to fall from 9:1 to 2.6:1 in the next 40 years.
Its rapidly ageing population will soon become a major factor. Today, early retirement is a way for China to avoid unemployment. If China is forced to increase retirement age to 65 or even 70, millions of Chinese will be jobless (they already are, but right now they receive a pension, which basically works like an unemployment benefit).
Western Europe and Japan have the same problem, but they got the problem after they got wealthy enough to solve the problem (at least for a while), whereas China will probably get the problem while it is still a poor country. China is getting older faster than it is getting richer.
China is expanding its sphere of influence, particularly through acquisition of strategic resources such as oil and raw minerals. But this sounds eerily similar to what Japan did in the 1980s, when it created an inflated demand for real estate and then bought real estate at overpriced values.
China’s booming economy is creating inflated prices for oil and raw materials, which then China proceeds to purchase at these inflated prices. Japan learned the effect of buying in a bubble: when a slow-down occurs, the bubble bursts, and you are left with a net loss.
Last but not least, China’s growth relies on a stable Pacific environment and stable routes from the Pacific to its trading partners (Middle East, Africa and Latin America).
Ironically, the peace that China needs is guaranteed by the USA, which China itself sees as a long-term competitor for supremacy…
On both economic and political grounds, India might be a safer bet than China.
[/quote]
Nik
Very good post and I think a very accurate assesment.
The growth rate China is experiencing is amazing but is simply not sustainable. It also relies on the benevolence of the United States. It’s somewhat of a two way street but the Chinese economy cannot continue this way forever. All bubbles must burst and to expect such growth forever simply is not possible.
Property rights in China are nowhere near where they are in India. This will stifle growth and innovation in China and lead to the bubble bursting.
We should focus on India. I feel they would be a reliable partner and ally.
[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
nik19 wrote:
This is very interesting, I never knew this, took a couple classes on South Asian history in college, but mainly Mughal invasion on up.[/quote]
Its sad that many people dont!.. Its bad enough that a so called German scholar propounded a theory on the people of India… but the fact that he made it up is just infuriating.
Theres much much more to the Indian Civilisation than the Mughal Invasion my friend …
a very very brief outline of the main accomplishments:
India is one of the oldest and richest civilizations in the world. It is home to the world’s first planned cities, where every house had its own bathroom and toilet five thousand years ago. The Ancient Indians have not only given us yoga, meditation and complementary medicines, but they have furthered our knowledge of science, maths - and invented Chaturanga, which became the game of chess.
According to Albert Einstein, they “taught us how to count”, as they invented the numbers 1-9 and ‘zero’, without which there would be no computers or digital age. Unfairly we call this system of counting Arabic numbers - a misplaced credit.
Two thousand years ago the Indians pioneered plastic surgery, reconstructing the noses and ears on the faces of people who had been disfigured through punishment or warfare. They performed eye operations such as cataract removal and invented inoculation to protect their population from Smallpox, saving thousands of lives.
To create images of their gods they invented a technique of casting bronze called ‘Lost Wax’, a five-millennia old process still in use today. India was one of the first civilizations to successfully extract Iron from ore and they quickly learnt how to cast huge structures with it - some of them surviving. Their metallurgists went on to invent steel which they called Wotz. It would take the British until the 19th century to come up with the same substance.
In 1790 the Indians defeated the British Army in the battle of Pollilur with a secret invention - the rocket. The British eventually stole the idea and used it against Napoleon’s fleet.
But perhaps the most important invention the Indians have given us is cotton. 3500 years ago whilst we were lumbering around in animal skins and itchy wool they were cultivating a plant and weaving it into a material that would revolutionise Britain. They also pioneered the printing and dyeing of cotton in a staggering array of colours and invented the spinning wheel - something Europe wouldn’t catch up with until the Middle Ages. The mechanisation of this simple device by Hargreaves and Arkwright led to the industrial revolution and turned Britain into a superpower.
I know we have our problems, The Caste system as someone mentioned before has been abolished and isnt practised by the middle - upper classes at all. It is practised in very very rural villages where most of the people are below the poverty line and those people dont really affect the economy that much anyway. It will be eradicated through education of the rural masses.
Yes Corruption is a problem in India, but its a problem in any country to be honest. We are working on eliminating it but it will take time.
With a population of more than 1 billion , India is a colourful canvas portraying a unique assimilation of ethnic groups displaying varied cultures and religions.
In fact, this uniqueness in the ethnicity of the country is the factor that makes it different from other nations. Moreover, the vastness of India’s nationalism, accounting to a plethora of cultural extravaganza, religions, etc. is the reason that the country is seen more as a seat for a major world civilization than a mere nation-state.
Since ancient times, the spiritual land of India has displayed varied hues of culture, religion,language, and so on. This variety in culture, religion, etc. accounts for the existence of different ethnic groups who, although, live within the sanctums of one single nation, profess different social habits and characteristics.
Regional territories in India play an important role in differentiating these ethnic groups, with their own social and cultural identities. The religions that are prevalent in the country are Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism, (We also have a 5000 strong Jewish population, India bieng one of the only countries were jews werent persecuted)with the freedom for citizens to practice any religion they want to.
With the governance of 35 different states and union territories in the country, there has originated a sense of regionalism amongst the various parts, with different states displaying different cultures, which although eventually fuse through a common bond to showcase a national cultural identity.
The Constitution of India has recognised 22 different languages that are prevalent in the country, out of which, Hindi is the official language and is spoken along with English in most of the urban cities of India. Other than these 22 languages, there are hundreds of dialects that add to the multilingual nature of the country.
Our Democracy isnt a mess, its just complicated… we have to address the various needs and issues of all the different regional public.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Nik
Very good post and I think a very accurate assesment.
The growth rate China is experiencing is amazing but is simply not sustainable. It also relies on the benevolence of the United States. It’s somewhat of a two way street but the Chinese economy cannot continue this way forever. All bubbles must burst and to expect such growth forever simply is not possible.
Property rights in China are nowhere near where they are in India. This will stifle growth and innovation in China and lead to the bubble bursting.
We should focus on India. I feel they would be a reliable partner and ally.
[/quote]
Thank you sir…
Some Interesting Articles/Videos to look at:
ABC News Special on India
A Chart showing the Strengths and Weaknesses - India China
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_34/b3948402.htm?campaign_id=spr_rediff_india
India, second-fastest growing economy: S&P
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, the international rating agency, has said that India is the second-fastest growing economy in the world with an average growth rate of more than 8 per cent over the past three years
A Younger India Is Flexing Its Industrial Brawn
PUNE, India ? India?s economic advancement no longer rests on telephone call centers and computer programmers.
Rise of India positive for the world: George Soros
Billionaire businessman George Soros, one of the most wealthiest people in the world and one of the best shoppers, when it comes to investing globally, spoke to CNBC about emerging markets, fund flows and hedge funds.
Soros is a very influential voice and has been in this whole emerging markets space for decades now. George Soros’ new book ‘The Age of Fallibility’, consequences of the war on terror is out this week.
And the Indians love working nights at 7-11’s.
The thing that sticks out to me is the astoundong levels of poverty that is allowed to flourish in India.
For them to actually take a step forward and be considered a world economic power, their poverty must be addressed.
I know the U.S. has poverty, but not nearly the level of India.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
The thing that sticks out to me is the astoundong levels of poverty that is allowed to flourish in India.
For them to actually take a step forward and be considered a world economic power, their poverty must be addressed.
I know the U.S. has poverty, but not nearly the level of India.
[/quote]
Alrite mate, man I have seen you slaughter people on this forum, but Im gonna respond to your post… go easy on me :).
Firstly, India isnt allowing poverty to flourish, we are definitely addressing this major issue, progress is just a little slow because of our sheer population density. Also a lot of the budget is also spent on defence, because of the constant terrorist attacks and wars that we have fought, although I do agree corruption plays a major role aswell.
Around 26% of India is below the poverty line, the majority being in the rural areas. This is because a large portion of these people are illiterate mostly belonging to the farming community. The govt is making rapid progress however in educating the rural masses, setting up schools and colleges everywhere.
It must also be noted that most of the people below the poverty line in Urban area’s are actually illegal immigrants, they are Bangladeshi immigrants who have no bloody business being there.
As many as 6000 bangladeshi’s infiltrate the porous eastern borders and set up hutments along the rich estates in major cities, begging in India is a far better living than in Bangladesh it seems, there are around 20 million illegals in India, which is a major concern and the govt is doing its best to locate and deport them.
Also 400,000 Hindu Kashmiri Pandit refugees line the streets of Delhi, after they were mercilessly persecuted and thrown out of their land by the Pakistani’s, when they occupied a part of Kashmir.
America is the Richest and the most powerful country in the world, but it wasn’t so in 1835, 59 years after independence (where India is now).
After a brutal foreign rule gaining independence in 1947, India had to go through the horrendous Partition, where 1 million hindus and muslims were slaughtered, then in 1948 we fought a massive war with Pakistan over Kashmir, In 1962 we fought another war this time with China, and Pakistan again In 1965 over Kashmir once again and In 1971 over Bangladesh and once again in 1999 with Pakistan over Kashmir for a third time.
While this was going on we have had over 250 terrorist attacks including a storming of the Parliament by armed militants. Despite all this, India is still making progress and has a poverty% of around 26% whereas America today as around 10%.
The Government of India has taken various steps to reduce poverty in Rural India. The recent steps are as follows:
Small Farmers Development Programme
Draught Area Development Programme
Food For Work Programme
Minimum Needs Programme
Integrated Rural Development Programme
National Rural Employment Programme
Rural Labour Employment Guaranty Programme
Assurance on Employment
Government’s policy initiatives for eradicating the problem of urban poverty (Which are rationalised poverty alleviation schemes) are as follows:
-
National Social Assistance Programme
-
Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY)
SJSRY consists of two special schemes, namely -
The Urban Self-Employment Programme(USEP)
The Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP)
SJSRY seeks to provide gainful employment to the urban poor (living below the urban poverty line) unemployed or under-employed, through setting up of self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment.
Inputs under the scheme would be delivered both through the medium of community structures to be set up on UBSP pattern and Urban Local Bodies.
The scheme is to be funded on a 75:25 basis between the Centre and the states.
Poverty in :
1977-78
51.6%
328.9 million
1999-00
26.1%
260.3 million
Estimated
2007*
19.3%
220.1
So as you can see we are making Progress although its slow.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
And the Indians love working nights at 7-11’s.
[/quote]
I think thats a sweeping generalisation to make pal, Indians dont love working nights at 7-11’s, a small portion of the Indian community in your country do work nights.
In the 60- 70’s Indians immigrated inorder to live a better life, there werent many oppurtunities in India and it was a very poor country back then, these are the Indians who mostly set up corner shops or 7-11’s or whatever they are called and werent too fluent in english.
That all began to change in the 80’s as more and more Professionals began to immigrate and in the 90’s once the Software boom began, the majority of them were software or computer engineers who wanted to make the most of the situation.
Today Indians make up roughly less than 1% of the American Population and they are incredibly successful:
$60,093 - the median income of Indian-American families, nearly double the median income of all American families - $38,885 (source, US Census Bureau)
In the realm of education, the Census Bureau data shows that 87.5 percent of Asian Indians in America have completed high school with 62 percent having some college education.
More than 58 percent hold Bachelor or higher degrees, which is the highest percentage among all Asian-American ethnic groups.
Census data shows that 14 percent of Asian Americans in America are engaged in work related to science, medicine,engineering, and technology.
Significant percentage (19.3 percent) also can be found in managerial, administrative, sales and teaching positions. In fact, more than 5,000 Asian Indians currently are
faculty members at American universities.
Two Indian Americans - Har Gobind Khorana of the M.I.T. and Subramanyam Chandrashekhar of the University of Chicago - have been awarded Nobel prizes, in medicine and physics, respectively.
(These were figures taken in 1994… they have greatly improved since then)
Of the general populace, 33.6% are in management professional, and related positions. Among the Asian Indian population, 59.9 % are in those positions, more than any other Asian group.
Poverty rates for Asians and the total population were similar. Asian Indians had a lower poverty rate than the total population (9.8% vs. 12.4%)
Indian doctors, numbering more than 35,000, constitute over five percent of all physicians in America.
Indians constitute ten percent of all medical students in America.
Some recent figures say that 36% of NASA scientists, 20% of Microsoft Employees, 28% of IBM employees are Indians
The co-founder of Sun Microsystems was an Indian - Vinod Khosla, The Pentium Chip (Vinod Dahm) and hotmail.com (Sabeer Bhatia) were invented by Indians aswell.
Indian students remain number 1 in U.S. university enrollments, totaling 74,603, up from the previous year. This accounts for a good 13% of the 586,323 international students. This means the Indian student population in the U.S. has doubled in the last 7 years. The U.S. authorities also appreciate this sinceit brings in large sums of money for the U.S. economy.
It also allows the Indian talent to contribute to the U.S., as well as brings home to India a work force with cutting edge skills.
With regards to the national spelling bee contest,in recent years, descendants of Indian immigrants have dominated this contest, snatching first place in five of the past seven years.
So obviously they are flourishing in the States, America bieng the Richest and the most Powerful country in the world offers everything to its citizens, which India wasnt able to do until recently
But things are changing, the rich have always lived very comfortable lives in India, however now with the emergence of the middle class, things are getting alot easier for a larger variety of people, these people who probably would have gone abroad to have a better life are now staying in India.
The reverse brain drain is already began to happend with scores of professionals, settling back down in India in places like Mumbai and Banglore.
[quote]nik19 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
And the Indians love working nights at 7-11’s.
[/quote]
It was a joke, buddy. Indian-Americans prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the american dream is still attainable if you are willing to work at it.
Except for maybe those wanting a job in the american film industry - because Indian movies suck. Even you can admit to that, no?
They still need to work on their poverty issues as a nation, though.