Tue 28 Feb 2006
Incredible no? Mallika Sherawat, with Jackie Chan
[Got a minute? take part in our poll on India]
India is in, India is cool, India is the new China - investors are literally scrambling over each other to get there.
And it’s not just investors. From Bush to Will Smith, everyone’s visiting India.
So how did India get to achieve what we, Sri Lanka, can only dream of?
- By actively and agressively courting foreign tourism, and investment via the Incredible India campaign
- By having a sense of national pride: - it isn’t just a campaign. Indians genuinely are proud of their nation. They believe in Jai Hind - Sure, we get patriotic too - about booze. Even then, only if its imported. In our defenise, its hard to have national pride when you live in a country famous for having the largest number of drunkards and suicides (Ed: before you label me unpatriotic, please refer the original article and see who made that particular quote)
- By having a booming economy, an educated workforce, and an infrastructure (oh, sure, we have those…)
- By becoming the talk of Davos.
“There is no better case that illustrates what currently pre-occupies Sri Lanka and our big neighbour India than the way the two countries approached the five-day 2005 World Economic Form that was concluded Sunday January 29 in Davos Switzerland. India used the summit to showcase its economic and development achievements and to advertise its status as a rapidly emerging global economic power. In contrast Sri Lanka paid hardly any attention to the event. The Sri Lankan media almost ignored Davos. The country, as usual, was preoccupied with war and politics. ” From Kandy News
“As you got off the plane in Zurich, there were large billboards extolling INCREDIBLE INDIA. Davos itself was plastered with signs. WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY! proclaimed the town’s buses. When you got to your room, you found an iPod Shuffle loaded with Bollywood songs, and a pashmina shawl, gifts from the Indian delegation. When you entered the meeting rooms, you were likely to hear an Indian voice, one of the dozens of CEOs of world-class Indian companies. And then there were the government officials, India’s “Dream Team,” all intelligent and articulate, and all selling their country” - newsweek magazine
So, hats off to India, for achieving what we, here in Sri Lanka, can only dream of.
Why, the way things are going, pretty soon our local TV channels will be full of Bollywood Music. Oh wait. They already are.
While we spend all our time arguing about politics, and trying to solve our so called economic ethnic crisis, our neighbors are busy overtaking us.
Related: My two lives: a fascinating article on what it is like to Indian, in America.
[Ed: it’s quite possible I’m entirely wrong about this article: see this excellent comment by sittingnut]
[Ed: India is, also someones pet (memo to w: what were you thinking?)]
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February 28th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
i disagree.
india sucks.
our average gdp per capita is higher than india’s and will continue to be higher than them. and our mean gdp per capita is higher than them too. their inequality is higher. our average growth rate is higher than their’s since independence in spite of war. mainly bc our economy is more liberalized than theirs.
of course they have an advantage they are big, which means their government collects more tax in absolute terms and so can spend on idiotic things like nuclear bombs etc, their market is big (their middle class is very much smaller than ours in proportion to the population but is still huge, numbering hundreds of millions) so their companies should make lots of money.(bc of the big mkt their entertainment industry too can maintain higher production values, if not the quality of the art)
on the other hand their poor are much worse off than ours and are bigger than any other country.
they have a highly educated workforce, an infrastructure
as for indian education. don’t be fooled by banglaore etc. most ppl are illiterate there.
is that a joke? even our shambling infrastructure is way better than theirs. after all new delhi metro is celebrated bc it is the only one that works.
some ppl in india will soon live like ppl in the developed world, yes, but (since we are talking about the country as a whole) vast majority of ppl there will still consider sri lankan farmers better off than them for a very long time to come, if not forever.
as for davos and pr if governments and summit hype can make a country prosperous old communists would have won the cold war. they(the soviets) sure did make inspiring billboards etc.
it is individuals acting freely who make a country prosperous, i have more confidence in sri lankans.
btw we can overcome our disadvantage by gaining access to their market through free trade as is already happening in spite of our ‘patriotic’ anti globalist morons. just take a look at how our exports to india went up after the agreement.
(http://llibertarian.blogspot.com/)that is one of the main reasons i think sri lanka is the best place to be if you want to prosper.
sorry for the length
btw why are you getting serious? i for one voted for Cool content, Humor.. and hot pics of girls
February 28th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Thank’s for the remarkably insightful comment!
I’m just frustrated that we are so far behind when it comes to investment.
Seem’s everyones first choice is India.
(http://)February 28th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Just to shamelessly add on to what sittingnut has said, Sri Lanka has the highest literacy rates in all of South Asia.
Sadly I don’t think that you’ll ever see as much foreign investment in Sri Lanka as India. As in everything it seems like size does really matter, and if their population is going to surpass China’s it’s inevitable. As sittingnut said, the best thing to probably do is ride on the back of them Indians and hope for the best.
(http://pardonmysinhala.blogspot.com)March 1st, 2006 at 12:28 am
Well we don’t really need to compete with India, as sittingnut mentioned piggybacking on the Indians would be the best way for Sri Lanka to prosper. The upsurge in boutique hotels for one in Sri Lanka could be an ideal way to discard the less savoury aspects of the kind of mass tourism we encourage now. As the number of rich in India increase we are in an ideal position to attract them to these boutique hotel and in the process completely change our image of a tourist destination from one of an ‘economical’ destination to a high end one like the Maldives.
The bloody problem is no body has a vision of where we have to be as a country in 20 years. The politicians pretend to work in 5 year increments when they actually work in much shorter time spans. Business leaders in this country also seem to work in short timespans, 6 months to a year.
The only way we are going to succeed as a country is if a visionary leader(s) can state explicitly where we need to do be in 20 years, what we need to do to get there and actually have the balls to follow through with it no matter how hairy (no pun intended) it gets.
(http://childoftwentyfive.blogsome.com/)March 1st, 2006 at 8:41 am
http://www.risefromtsunami.com/roshi/?p=23
(http://www.roshi.tk)March 7th, 2006 at 4:03 am
Hi,
I am an Indian and a first timer to this blog. Found your comments interesting. The fact that we got it right in Davos this year surprised us just as it did you!
Found the responses to your comments even more interesting. Thought I will add my two paise worth, so here it goes - I agree with most of the views. But cheer up guys, it’s not all that bad for SL.
#1 If you guys had the war with LTTE we had the (proxy) war with Pakistan for about the same period and more. And it did just as much damage, if not more, to Indian economy as yours did to the SL economy.
#2 Remember, the point to note is that India is succeeding INSPITE of the govt, in large measure thanks to the private sector. So don’t worry too much about lack of govt involvement. Gurcharan Das, ex-head of P & G India said something to the effect of - India grows while the govt sleeps at night !
#3 What sectors can SL get into? Tourism is already there. It can do more if it can offer excellent security at it’s primary tourist centers (Maybe it’s already good). Most importantly, launch a massive PR exercise in India for SL tourism. Here we see major campaigns by Malaysia & Singapore. But nothing by SL. Mostly what we get to see or hear about is the civil war and the odd tsunami.
It was suggested that SL ride piggyback on India’s progress. Yes, that would be a good way of doing it. I think the models for SL should be Singapore & Hong Kong. Small, yet heavy weights. Both are efficient at what they do - services, ports etc.
Services - with excellent literacy levels, SL is a good destination for outsourcing in IT, ITES, BPO/KPO sectors etc.
The key is for the SL private sector to get into a partnership mode with the Indian private sector and get into win-win deals for both, if it does not have the wherewithal to compete against the Indian cos. I think it’s already happening.
Ports - I think this is where SL and Colombo can really score over India. The best example is Singapore. It’s still the number one port in that part of Asia. And where do the goods go - to Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India etc. I don’t know how good the Colombo port is but if it can get it’s act together and ensure that it can turnaround ships in less than half the time that Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Mumbai take, now and for another 25 years, it can become the number one port in South Asia.
#4 Where are the non-resident Sri Lankans? I mean do they invest back in SL? This is one area that should be looked into. In India, this started only of late. Unless the environment is right, it won’t be much.
#5 Last, but the most important - education. SL has excellent literacy levels but where are the centers of excellence in Mngmt, Medicine, Science, etc. You have to create world class universities and other centers of learning. Make the best minds in S.Asia come to you. Where are the IIT’s, IIM’s and REC’s in SL. (Pardon me, if there are centers of comparable quality in SL. I must be ill-informed.) Again Singapore is an excellent example. I think this is where SL could have scored over India and it’s still not too late. Quality education is getting serious demand here and demand is already outstripping supply. If SL universities can offer quality comparable to the IIT’s & IIMS at affordable prices….(I have heard of people going to even, of all places, Cyprus but never heard of anybody going to SL !)
I personally think there’s a lot going for SL.
Rgds.
()Bhanu
March 7th, 2006 at 6:36 am
[…] Lastly, Bhanu has an interesting comment here. Is this your first visit to Sumna? Please do consider bookmarking this site. Please also visit my linkblog at Daily Sumna for a collection of the latest fun stuff from the web… Do also check out these recent/popular posts! Polls (210)Incredible India! (204)Blank Noise Project: Eve Teasing (200)Some observations on Sri Lankan Girls.. (2) (119)Feb FAQ (Part I) (107)Loosing focus… (97)Cult of the Fox (83)About Me (63)¿Se Habla Moo? On cows in Sri Lanka.. (57)Fun with the poll device (53) […]
(http://www.sumna.com/2006/03/07/sripostorg-a-beautiful-experiment/)March 8th, 2006 at 9:42 am
“Suno ghor se duniyaa waalo….buri nazar naa ham pe daalo….chaahe jitnaa zor lagaalo….sabse aage honge Hindustani !!!!!!!”
Yes…India is everywhere and is here to stay. It was destined to happen. Until the British looted our nation, it was by far the richest country in the world. As for education, who gave the deicmal system to the world??????who invented asto-physics….who gave the mother of all languages..Sanskrit? Doesn’t come as a surprise then that we are again becoming the most powerful nation on Earth as well as the IT-superpowers!!
As Thomas Friedman said in his book, ‘The World is Flat’, “India is like this bottle of champagne whose cork has been opened…so don’t come in their way or you’ll be wiped out in the Indian blast!!”
()