My Dream Team to lead India(Utopian thoughts)

Prime Minister: Narendra Modi

Home Minister: Kiran Bedi

Finance Minister: Manmohan Singh

Rural Affairs: Palagummi Sainath

Telecom: Shyam Pitroda

IT : Narayan Murthy

Foreign Affairs: Shashi Tharoor

Defence: Pranab Mukarjee

HRD,Science and Tech: Nilekani

Railways: Sreedharan(delhi Metro)

Women Welfare: Sushma Swaraj

Agriculture:Dr.Swaminathan

Parliamentary Affairs: Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan

Industries: Rahul Bajaj

Sports: Kapil Dev

Nice article abt Productivity levels in India

The possible alibis for Indian poverty make a long list: Corruption, weather, infrastructure, subsidies, goofy politicians, greedy private sector, sleepy bureaucrats, myopic entrepreneurs, Mughals, British and much else. But an interesting usual omission is agriculture.

I submit that the biggest source of our poverty is 58 percent of our population working on farms that produce 15 percent of our GDP. Our agricultural productivity is dismal—75 million Indians produced 110 million tonnes of milk while 100,000 Americans produced 70 million tonnes of milk—and condemns people to poverty. India will not put poverty in the museum it belongs to till we get farm employment down to 15 percent of our labour force.

Over the next 20 years, effectiveness in four labour market transitions—rural to urban, unorganised to organised, subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment and farm to non-farm— could save 163 million Indians from poverty. But instead of accelerating these four transitions, policymaking in the last few years has been focussing on ‘rights’—education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This ‘Diet Coke’ approach to poverty reduction—the sweetness without the calories—was always dangerous because of unknown side effects.

But now our fiscal deficit, food inflation and rupee devaluation remind us that policy entrepreneurship, like all entrepreneurship, is not exempt from the rule that big ideas without execution are ineffective, inefficient and sometimes dangerous.

Outlays don’t lead to outcomes because poetry is useless without plumbing. Getting people off farms means fixing our weak 3E regime: Employment, education and employability.

India’s failing farm to non-farm transition is the child of a fragmented human capital regulatory regime (state vs. Centre, 19 ministries vs. 2 human capital ministries), the dead-end view of vocational training (the lack of vertical mobility between certificates, diplomas and degrees), a broken apprenticeship regime (we only have 2.5 lakh apprentices relative to 6 million and 10 million in Germany and Japan), lack of higher education footprint (60 percent of our districts have lower enrolment than the national average), no model of effective PPPs (public private partnerships) in human capital (using government money for private delivery in education and skills), dysfunctional employment exchanges (1,200 of them gave 3 lakh jobs to the 4 crore people registered last year) and labour laws that encourage the sub-scale enterprises and the substitution of labour by capital.

Reforming the employment regime is the most obvious, but most controversial. Few disagree about the shame in four employment statistics being exactly where they were in 1991: 92 percent informal employment, 12 percent manufacturing employment, 50 percent self-employment and 58 percent agricultural employment. Economists don’t fully understand how jobs are created or why they cluster where they do. But the broad contours of fertile soil for job creation are obvious: A flexible labour market, skilled employees, robust infrastructure and predictable legislation.

A flexible labour market is important: Most economists agree that our labour law regime is poisonous— particularly for manufacturing. Labour-intensive industries probably account for only 13 percent of gross value add in organised manufacturing. Ninety percent of Indian textile employment is in firms with less than 10 employees while 90 percent of Chinese textile employers have more than 50 employees. India’s labour laws—our employment contracts are marriage without divorce—need a radical rethink if we want more formal, more competitive, more productive and larger employers.

The employability and education reform agenda is facing an idea surplus, but execution deficit. Employment Exchanges need to become public private partnership career centres that offer counselling, assessment, training, apprenticeships and job matching. The Apprenticeship Act of 1961 must be amended to view an apprenticeship as a classroom rather than a job and shift the regulatory world from push (employers under the threat of jail) to pull (make them volunteers).

The National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework must be agreed by the states and the ministries of Labour and HRD as the unifying open architecture tool for recognition of prior learning and vertical mobility between school leavers, certificates, diplomas and degrees.

Delivery systems are in the hands of states and every state must create a skill mission or vocational training corporation tasked with building capacity and quality. States should also create asset banks to make existing government real estate available for skill delivery. All schools must teach English because English is like Windows; an operating system that creates geographic mobility and improves employment outcomes by 300 percent. Finally, we must create skill vouchers that will allow financially disadvantaged students to get trained wherever they want at government expense. Such vouchers would shift the system to funding students. Institutions should be funded by money carved out of the MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) budget. The regulatory cholesterol around national distance education (mail order, e-learning and satellite) must be reviewed to offer flexible options for workers already in the workforce and the geographically disadvantaged.

We must create a national network of community colleges offering two-year associate degrees. These community colleges are what rural India needs because they are part ITI, part college, part employment exchange. Our current education regulators have tried to control quality by controlling quantity and we have ended up with neither. The biggest challenge in replacing institutions like the Medical Council of India, the All India Council for Technical Education and the University Grants Commission is not in renaming them, but architecting the new regulator so it does not become the old regulator.

In 1900, 41 percent of Americans worked on farms. Today there are less than 2 percent. China has moved 400 million people into non-farm jobs since Mao died and his madness died with him. India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment; there are 300 million Indians who will never read the newspaper that they deliver, sit in the car they clean or send their child to the school they help build. Democracy is a fake alibi for India’s poverty and our labour markets’ ‘missing middle’. Getting people off farms gets India to 5 percent poverty 20 years faster than the status quo. All we need to do is fix our 3Es.

India must make a new appointment for her tryst with destiny because she missed her last appointment

SAM PITRODA...the visionary

How do you compare social innovation in India with that in developed nations?

The problem is the best brains globally are busy solving the problems of the rich who really don't have problems. And problems of the poor don't really get the attention they deserve. Most modern innovations that have taken place over the last 50 to 60 years have come only out of the US. Now, all US innovations focus on the top of the pyramid and they are primarily from areas such as biotech, genetics or laser technology.

Inherently they are expensive. A few days back, I was told that 60 million people in India have liver ailments. The number is higher than those battling AIDS. But AIDS gets more money and attention because it is a rich man's disease. Look at all the global institutions in the world - the United Nations, the World Bank or the IMF. All these institutions were set up by America for America after the Second World War. We need institutions for tomorrow. That's where innovation comes in.

What's been the most important change since the telecom revolution?

A very important thing has happened over the last 20 years. It is the invention of the Internet. I would say nothing like this has happened in last 15,000 years, It is as big as the invention of languages.

Do you support the idea of controlling the internet? Are we going the China way?

Nobody can control the Internet. It is impossible. We cannot go the China way. Even China is not going the 'China way'. It is finding it difficult controlling the Net. The problem crops up because the older generation wants to impose its values on the younger generation. I always tell the youth not to listen to the stifling values of the old. If someone wants to want some content, who are we to control him or her. Instead, India should have its own locally relevant social networks.

Can the unique identity project be the basis of all financial inclusion programmes?

I was born in 1942 in a small little village, Titlagarh in Odisha. There were no doctors, no pharmacies, no running water, no electricity. Who is going to give you a birth certificate there? When I went to the school, I was told I was too young and I had to submit an affidavit. People are always quick to criticise.

If you have 1.2 billion people and want to build a 21st Century infrastructure, you need to build robust information systems. When you begin to organise databases of people, you realise the importance of Aadhaar.

Last year, about 7,50,000 people were released from Indian prisons. Many of them were undertrials without any identity. Aadhaar will give them an identity and allow them to say you better recognise me

True...Lies

Life have never promised u anything nor have god.,But people did,.
Some said they will never leave u : lie..
Some said they will luv u till death :lie..
Some said u are the most precious thing in their lyf :lie..
Life is made of such sweet lies..!
In the end all that matters is how u faced the time when u finally realized those were just lies ..V may ask.."wouldnt lyf be much better if these lies were never told?"
But the fact ,is that the times u lived on those big lies were the best times of ur life..!!

Random thoughts...

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You'll have your heart broken and you'll break others' hearts. You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you'll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you've never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. you just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone's hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don't be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back............ :) :0 keeppp smiling...

Being 23-28

23-28 is not a nice age. Our ex-gfs/ bfs are getting married, our career has just started, Elders treat us as unproven theorems, college guys feel that we are too old to have in their group. We can no longer eat whatever we wish without putting on weight. Every Aunty we meet asks “When are you getting married!!” whils......t uncles ask “What are you doing with your career?” When the reality is that ...we are just riding the wave and going with the flow. We are stranger to people whom we consider family, we have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show. We already have the first hand experience of the life, we know that whatever we have been taught about the world in school has been a sheer waste of time. We now know, love is not that blind and that friendship has its terms and conditions, we know there is nothing for granted and free lunches are not free. Our overconfidence is now making way for a humble conscience. We now know it is not exactly what we thought it would be...!! BUT STILL LIFE ROCKS!!! CHEERS TO LIFE...!! :-) Never Postpone Joy.....!!

Really funny description of Ramayana......(just a gag)...

A young second generation Indian-origin boy in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of "Diwali" to his younger brother, this is how he went about it...

" So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something.... Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so..... he decided to get his wife and his bro along... you know...so that they could all chill out together. But Dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man.....they had monkeys and devils and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine.

But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... all the gods were with him... So anyways, you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys... Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok....

So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood.... Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest..... and anyways... it gets kinda boring, you know... no TV or malls or shit like that. So,they decided to hitch a ride back home.... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home...they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days... so they couldn't take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also....so it was pretty cooool.... you know with all those fireworks.... Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks... and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding..., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks... you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started."

The mother fainted..