India growth story ...

India Rising- is an oft quoted statement in media these days. Every faucet of media is show casing the booming industries in India, its self reliance & non-dependence on US economy per se. But how much & what growth has been rising ? Lets try & ponder upon this for a while.

Here are some significant events in recent past which may reveal some startling statistics.
1) India flies high in the aviation space. More & more companies wish to fly overseas. Aviation ministry is promoting licenses for domestic flights.
Stats: Where are these flights going to land ? With the exception of metros all the cities have only 1 runway.
For the last 1 week even IGI Delhi airport is experiencing delay in flights. Who is responsible?
Mumbai International airport does not have a direct internal connectivity to the domestic airport at Vile Parle. All major cities of the world have this simple commonsensical facility.
2) Reality industry is growing by leaps & bounds.
Stats: What is the quality of such construction? Does the govt provide any regulation on the safety norms & quality in this madness to rake in money by builders?
There seems to be a race to fool an ordinary man.
3) Telecom ministry wants to release more spectrum for pvt players.
Stats: Every 1 person in 5 gets a wrong bill from these telecom companies. The billing systems of one telecom company is so smart enough that they change your plan without informing you & start charging you an additional Rs. 25-30 for the new plan. You are easily taken for ride by their billing systems
4) Do not call registry has been implemented by govt just few months back.
Stats: I have registered on most of these directories. In spite of this i get telemarketing calls. Whats the way out?
5) ICICI bank is the largest pvt bank in India
Stats: Recently ICICI bank was slapped with 55L fines for misbehavior & causing inconvenience to its customers. Another case of fine has come up in todays newspaper.
ICICI bank seems to be desperate to break its own record of paying fines.
Thousands of cases are pending in consumer courts against ICICI bank's scrupulous means to recover money.
Yet Mr. K.V.Kamat makes a proud presence in every Business lunch or party or media in general. I think its high time ICICI bank takes some moral responsibility.
6) IT industry always shares an uncanny limelight when India growth story is spoken
Stats: Most of the Indian biggies are no doubt good enough. But their BPO counterparts seem to spoil the party miserably. Recent rape & murder 'well executed' by a BPO cab driver simply underscores the fact that our BPO industry believes in employee exploitation. There is no check whatsoever on the kind of nuisance these BPO cabs are causing on the roads these days. They are simply NO-NO in a civilized world. But in India as they say 'sab chalta hai'

We need to wake up in the REAL sense of the term. Some amount of moral policing should be enough to judge our actions. Its a collective effort from govt, industry & we citizens of this yet to RISE INDIA.

Orkut Updates

Some months back I stumbled upon this new feature in orkut - Orkut Updates coming 'freshly made' from Google labs. It allows you to see a list of updates made by your friends in their profiles.

This feature is particularly popular among indians who get a chance to go abroad. They make it a point to change some thing or the other in their profile so that it catches their friends' attention. Either a photo/video is added OR a jazzy title (in place of name) is mentioned. This is also used as a handy feature to remind your friends about you & that they should think about visiting your profile.

Nevertheless, its a good feature from Google's basket of new tools, easing the lives of many people by doing REALLY sane things.