India Open for Business Welcome Team With American Education

Having been under colonial rule from 1958 to 1947 and the British influence and control through the East India Company from 1600 to 1857, India justifiably was suspicious of the West following Independence in 1947. East India Company officers who became advisers to the Mogul Emperors in India  of course took over the administration which eventually led o the annexation of India to Britain  and installing Queen Victoria as the Empress of India. 
Prime Minister 'Chacha'  Jawaharla Nehru made India non-aligned  and at the same time made defense pact with the Soviet Union  which became the key supplier of military hardware  to India until its fall in 1989. Chacha Nehru's government also asked the British corporations  and personnel to leave India in 1956. Following his death, Coca Cola and IBM also left in the 1970s instead of sharing their formulas and software with India.
Fast forward to 2000 and President Bill Clinton's visit to India which has brought India and the United states close at an accelerated  speed. There are strategic partnerships and initiatives between the two countries under President George W. Bush and President Obama on the American side and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in the areas of energy, environment, defense, education, technology, trade, etc.
Another indicator of American and Indian closeness is the degree of American intellectual influence on Indian policy under UPA II in the government headed by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. There are thirteen ministers and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission in the Union government in July 2013 of which 5 are British educated and 9 American educated: Economic, budget and tax policy (Dr. Manmohan Singh (UK), Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (UK) and Shri P. Chidambaram (USA)), foreign policy (Shri Salman Khurshid (UK)), education Dr. M.M. Pallam Raju (USA)assisted by Dr. Shashi Tharoor (USA)), law ( Shri Kapil Sibal (USA), civil aviation (Shri Ajit Singh (USA), urban housing and poverty alleviation (Dr. Girija Vyas (USA), rural development (Shri Jairam Ramesh (USA), development of north eastern region (Shri Paban Singh Ghatowar (UK)), power (Shri Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (USA)), corporate affairs (Shri Sachin Pilot (USA), shipping, communications & information technology (Shri Milind Murli Deora (USA)), and health and family welfare (Shri Abu Hasem Khan Choudhary UK and Canada).
This is perhaps the first time since 1947 when so much American thinking is guiding India. Of course Mahatma Gandhi, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and many other Indian independence movement leaders were educated in the U.K.
Future blogs will look into the implications of close and strategic relationship that has grown between the United States and India since 2000 and disproportionate American intellectual influence on India compared with any other country in 2013.

The Fall of the Indian Rupee in 2012- 2013

Hare are ten possible reasons behind the fall of the Indian Rupee by almost 20 percent from July 2012 to  July 2013 against major global currencies::

1.  Slowing GDP growth from near 10  to 5 percent.
2.  Increasing trade and current account  deficit.
3.  Underlying inflation.
4.  Indian human capital going to greener pastures. Confidence in the economy is less than before.
5.  Indian financial capital going abroad. Foreign capital going back home or elsewhere.
6.  Political complexity and indeterminate state of indistinguishable leadership across political parties.
7.  India becoming dependent on handouts and distributive justice towards more equality.
8.  Group identities based on caste, social status, region, and religion are driving the political economy.
9.  Corruption, indifference, disrespect, disregard for honest day's work,  and low quality and creativity.
10. India's globalization creates opportunities and competition which at present favor other economies.

India in Search of Its Future Path: Parliamentary Elections 2014

L.K. Advani, a creative strategist, has helped clear the field for a direct, vigorous and a most competitive campaign fight between Congress represented and led by its Vice President Rahul Gandhi and BJP campaign committee led by Narendra Modi. 
Both parties will try to win a clear majority of the Indian electorate. In case neither one does, coalitions will be attempted to form the next government. It will be a clean fight in a long while. 
Whichever party wins majority or leads a coalition government, if needed, economic, political, military, and foreign policy making will be easier and clearer for the following decade. Clarity of authority, direction  and views by the electorate to their representatives in Parliament will be good for India.
Congress Party leadership reorganization on June 16 and expansion of Congress-led UPA governing Cabinet  on June 17 confirms the above analysis. 
It will be interesting to observe developments in policy and electioneering from now on to the state elections in November 2013 and national Parliamentary elections expected in May 2014. There is a possibility that the Parliamentary elections could be moved forward to November 2013 if the UPA government considers it beneficial to its re-election. In any case, it will be a very interesting period in Indian politics in the next few months.

Culture and Values of India: Balance between the Physical, Mental and Spiritual Lives

(x)       Balance between the Physical, Mental and Spiritual Lives

           

             India has the image and a good bit of substance in being a representation of balance between the physical, mental and spiritual. The continuous search for balance will act as breakers in the pursuit of higher economic growth rates. 

             The dominant Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh traditions in India will continue to seek material progress within their spiritual traditions instead of somehow abandoning them to become material-centric humans. 

            

            The Islamic tradition in India today is so unlike the aggressive invaders from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries that the spiritual and life-style values of Muslims are no different than the other spiritual traditions. 

             It is difficult to visualize ‘animal spirits’ to propel Indians of any persuasion to be economically, and parenthetically militarily, aggressive. After all even Western societies are trying to be less aggressive than in the past.

Culture and Values of India: Geater Importance on Knowledge-based Enterprizes

(ix)      Greater Importance on Knowledge-based Enterprises

           

            Knowledge-based enlightenment relating to all aspects of life - mind, body and soul - has been of general importance from the beginning of the recorded history.  Great universities make it possible to develop biological, chemical, communications, mathematical, and metallurgical sciences and technologies spawned by them for production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. 

            

            So it is not a surprise to see the success of industrialized countries today in an international open exchange environment of business and democratic systems. Innovation, risk-taking, political and scientific institutions and entrepreneurship grow out of the growing knowledge base. 

            The group of OECD countries today can be called knowledge-based societies and therefore the societies with the highest material progress.

             India had a strong record of knowledge-based civilization and it has resumed its old trend  in science and technology in the post-independence period since 1947. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru created a new base of scientific institutions that have produced excellent engineers, doctors, researchers, albeit in limited numbers due to importance of investments also going to immediate necessities like food, water, etc. 

            Even with a large migration of talented people out of India who have excelled in all endeavors wherever they have found a new home,  India has made significant progress at home with a mere 3 percent of  all Indians with higher education in 2013. (About 5 percent of  all Indians are estimated to have achieved college level education of which 2 percent or so have gone abroad. More than 60 percent of  30 million Indians abroad i.e. 18 million have college education where as about 5 percent of 1200 million i.e. 60 million have college education. In other words the effective college level trained labor force in India is about  40 million. 

           Government and the private sector have begun the necessary expansion of higher education including technical education to realize the potential demographic dividend of faster economic growth otherwise the young population will remain a burden and a problem as it was thought of in the 1950s and 1960s. The concept and desire of a population/demographic dividend is crucially dependent on creating human capital in all areas of study. The process has begun and India should have 10 percent of its population with higher education, 50 percent with higher secondary and and one hundred percent  by 2050 or sooner.  At that level India will be able to compete effectively with the rest of the world with high degree of higher education. 

          India is on its way to be a knowledge-based society.

Culture and Values of India: Reciprocity and Exchange-based Specialization

(vi)       Reciprocity and Exchange-based Specialization

           

             The homegrown and imports are equally appreciated and lead to export of culture, faith, values, natural materials as well as home grown and homemade materials, goods and services.  At a base level it shows respect for the other side of exchange that offers a value in exchange. 

             Historically, India, the Middle East and Europe are good examples of trading cultures. The whole of Southeast Asia is the best example since World War II. It is the trade which really connected India to all parts of the world.

Post-independence India is rediscovering the importance of international trade as a source of its economic growth and richness. Ideas, people, materials, goods, services, monies are all beginning to flow both ways again based on specialization and comparative cost advantage. 

India has consolidated its base of confidence in itself first fifty years or so that it is open for business in the twenty-first century without fear of colonization revisiting India. The growth of international trade and investments from 1993 to 2013 presents a clear evidence of India engaging with the rest of the world and continuing growth of this engagement in the future.

Culture and Values of India: Acceptance of Controlled Aggression

(viii)    Acceptance of Controlled Aggression 

            Aggression is part of human nature and the evolutionary history of civilization. In the hands of feudal lords from ancient times to the present we see aggression as part of material progress. 

            Generally more aggressive, acquisitive, enterprising and hardworking societies and cultures suh as European societies  are perhaps the best example of forceful exploitation of resources, peoples and continents. 

            From a long perspective India has its Mahabharata and smaller regional wars.  India, however, does not have a history of extra-territorial aggression unlike the Europeans, Persians, Turks, Afghans, Mongols, Mughals, and others. 

            This trait of non-aggressive collective culture and  behavior with respect to the rest of the world may continue to apply to slower economic growth within India than in other countries which are relatively more aggressive in matters of the economy, military, and global power.