Sunday, March 12, 2023

Mission Ten Percentage [10:90=10]


[The Influence of Social Media On Democracy]


In the modern world, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for communication and information sharing. Social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have millions of users worldwide, and people from different backgrounds and cultures use them to share their thoughts and opinions on various issues. 

In the past decade usage of social media has been extensively increased by Politicians and Political Parties to influence people towards winning their own political objectives over their opponents. Now the majority of the Political Parties have their own managed IT Wings to cope with today's digital age. These IT Wings are often accused of spreading propaganda to manipulate public opinion and gain electoral advantage by creating crafted social media content and spreading them through  WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube tools. 

When political parties spread false news, it can lead to a loss of trust in the media and other institutions that are meant to provide reliable information.  If the media also supports and spreads this fake propaganda it is a really alarming situation for the country's democratic system. 

Spreading fake news can create confusion and undermine people's ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. This can lead to the spread of rumours and conspiracy theories, which can have serious consequences. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, false information about the virus and its treatment was rampant on social media platforms, leading to confusion and harm to public health. Not to forget about the misinformation as cures like using Paracetamol can cure Covid-19, Consuming cow urine or dung can cure COVID-19, and Eating garlic or ginger can prevent COVID-19, Home remedies can cure COVID-19 like drinking warm water, gargling with salt water, and using steam inhalation, Vitamin C can cure COVID-19. They might support but they are disproven that it won't cure Covid-19. Politicians came up with publicity options like Candle Jalao, Thalee Bajao, etc., and influenced people to believe with the support of fake social media posts.

Another recent incident happened in Tamil Nadu State where some political parties did spread articles with fabricated videos/images mentioning Bihar Migrants are attacked in Tamil Nadu State.  Several workers have moved from Bihar to Tamil Nadu in search of employment and better financial opportunities. The messages from senior political leaders in Bihar created a tense situation in the families in Bihar who got worried about their family members working in Tamil Nadu. Thankfully, the government of Tamil Nadu took swift action and cleared the air before the situation goes out of control.  When verified by investigative agencies the images/videos that are circulated by senior leaders came out as Fabricated ones. Any slip of the emotions in this situation could have turned two Indian states and the people in Havoc.[Ref: 2]

This kind of situation can lead to a lack of faith in democratic processes and the rule of law, which is harmful to the functioning of a democratic society. The impact of such false news on the common man can be far-reaching and detrimental, as it can lead to the erosion of trust, the proliferation of misinformation, and the polarisation of society. The polarising effect of false news can also lead to social unrest and even violence. These false narratives can also lead to the widening of the political divide between different groups. This can lead to a breakdown in dialogue and compromise, which is necessary for a functioning democracy. 

There is an Army of people behind many political parties who are employed to create biased propaganda which is lenient on their Political Organisation. These IT Wings are becoming a necessary entity for all the political parties and they realised that people's thoughts can be easily influenced by playing the message in the perceptional rhythm.

In developing nations like India, there is a significant gap between the rich and the poor, and only a small percentage of people are wealthy and also computer-literate. We can consider this between 10 to 20%.  The majority of the new social media articles will come from this set of people including their opinionated Political perceptions. These messages will be consumed by the other 90% of people. 

If we keenly observe the difference between the winning and losing party's vote difference is below 10% in majority places. So, these IT Cells of political parties target to make at least 10% of people to be fooled by creating an illusion to get into their side by crafting manipulated messages. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that exposing someone to the same untruth multiple times will enhance their likelihood of accepting it as truth.  

Being above was the primary idea in my head that prompted me to call this essay 10:90=10.

Unfortunately, many of these people fall prey to these social media influence messages, and they are forgetting about their own important and basic needs as the majority of these messages are intelligently crafted to tune their emotions.  When emotions run high, intellect will not work efficiently.

The IT Wings of political parties are enormously funded by their leadership. IT Wings uses this fund towards using Data Mining and Data Analytics Tools extensively [Ref: 4]. These tools analyse the targeted group of people's social media posts along with their personal ethnic/race/religion/region/language details. With these inputs, IT Wings crafts propaganda pieces and makes them reach the targeted people. Leaders also understood that this is an easy investment than addressing the people's basic needs to get the people's favour with minimised investment. 

For example, to construct a well-established hospital an establishment needs 50 to 100 crore rupees. The impact of this Hospital after construction will have much influence on the voting outcome to a limited area of 10 to 15 KM to the maximum. Probably the motivation could be, by employing a few people in their media cell and crafting a message and getting publicity for a small road inauguration which is worth 1 Crore to reach all over will breed more browny points than doing a bigger and better job. It is the responsibility of citizens to disprove this apprehension.

The situation is worse in countries where the basic needs of the people are not met, and poverty, unemployment, inflation, and lack of affordable education and healthcare are widespread. In such countries, social media influence posts can be very damaging as they distract people from their real needs and encourage them to focus on divisive issues like religion, race, and region.

The majority of IT Wings have their own BOTs which are like fake users who will spread this misinformation across the social media platforms as real people. This makes the readers believe that the support for this crafted argument is high and in turn, gets influenced. In recent investigations by some of the platforms came out that more than 50% of followers of popular leaders on Twitter and Facebook are fake. For example, for The world's most populous leader Narendra Modi, 60% of followers' accounts are fake based on a study by Twiplomacy [Ref: 3]. This is not limited to one leader, this pattern is with the majority of the leaders.

For example, in some countries, political parties use social media to create a divide between different religions/races and ethnic groups. They spread hate speech and propaganda to fuel tensions between communities and create a sense of fear and mistrust. This not only diverts attention from the real issues facing the people but also leads to violence and unrest. Unfortunately, the people who create these posts are 0.0001% but it will reach as many as 50% to 70% of people to view and get influenced. A recent example is The attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 [Ref: 1]. This is the place where the United State Congress and the Legislative branch of Government reside. This was attacked by more than 2000 people, which was motivated by Social media misinformation posts that made false claims that the Election had been stolen from Trump.

Various nations will employ various strategies to persuade voters. For instance,  Many political parties in India use WhatsApp groups to promote their carefully designed propaganda. 

Let me use the largest political party in India/World as an example, the BJP which is also referred to as a great electioneering party, to illustrate the breadth of social media engineering: Bihar is a state in India with approximately 70 million voters. During Bihar Elections BJP set up in advance with 9,500 IT cell leaders and 72,000 WhatsApp groups [Ref: 7]. In the recent Gujarat State elections, 10,000 volunteers managing 50,000 WhatsApp groups maintained to spread their IT Cell-crafted messages in Gujarat which has 5 Crore voters. [Ref: 8]. This is the great power of Social media influence. BJP is also the highest spender on Facebook spending in the last many years. BJP also alleged that they had influenced top executives on Facebook to ensure flagging is not done for their propaganda according to one of the WallStreet Journal articles [Ref:9]. 


The BJP swept to victory in Parliamentary elections held in the previous ten years. The BJP is renowned for being an excellent electoral winning machine and also the most popular party in India. It is a well-known fact that BJP has outperformed every other party in India when it comes to connecting with voters online using social media engineering. The mechanics and methods used for reaching out played a big part in winning the elections. Given the success of this model, other political parties began adopting it when using social media for elections. Thus, most Indian political parties have their own social media wing and have their own volunteers to create and connect voters by creating thousands of Whatsapp groups. 

Parties are making sure that at least one Whatsapp group is set up with trained volunteers responsible for monitoring and distributing their IT Warfare for every polling booth. Now, this become a Pattern.

I can tell you that false propaganda generated by IT wings of political parties is a well-known phenomenon, and it has been documented by various organisations and individuals.

There have been several instances where political parties have used social media platforms and other online channels to spread false information or propaganda to influence public opinion. This propaganda can take many forms, such as fake news, doctored images or videos, misleading statistics, and biased or inflammatory messages.

One such instance includes the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a political consulting firm was accused of using Facebook data to influence voter behaviour during the 2016 US presidential election, and the recent controversy surrounding the use of Twitter bots by certain political parties to manipulate online discourse.

As there is no automatic Fact Checking implemented in any Social media platforms, social media influence posts can also lead to misinformation and fake news, which can be very harmful. Misinformation can lead to wrong decisions being made by individuals and governments, which can have serious consequences. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation about the virus and vaccines spread through social media led to many people refusing to get vaccinated, leading to more infections and deaths, especially in developed nations like the US.

In conclusion, social media is a powerful tool that can be used to influence people but It is also important for individuals and governments to be aware of these risks and take steps to mitigate them. People must focus on their basic needs, and politicians should be held accountable for addressing real issues rather than living their own lives.  

All social media platforms should have an eye to monitor the number of crafted messages that are getting delivered using these Bots/FakeAccounts and Flag them immediately by tagging that with a caution indicator. In general, much of the content used/generated by Bots uses the same template.

Sorry No offence to anyone. It is also very important for all responsible citizens to what were the expectations while voting for a particular party in previous elections and validate when it is forwarded or crafting a message which is not aligned with the earlier poll promises. Before getting into bullying with the influence of social media perceptions, one should not forget the past difficulties and the hope for which people voted for the current leadership and asking questions to the leadership is not demeaning democracy. Rather it glorifies democracy.  

People should increase their contribution by raising flags and also standing against fake messages by alerting them. People should work more to report fake messages than forwarding the messages.  People should also educate others to be cautious against these fabricated messages and their impact on social life. People should be encouraged and empowered to look for Evidence-based information to verify sources.

To counter this problem, it is necessary to promote media literacy and critical thinking skills among the public, regulate social media platforms to prevent the spread of false news, and hold political parties accountable for spreading propaganda. Only then we can ensure that the public has access to accurate information and that democracy can function effectively.

As a closure: Just think about the topics for the last 10 politically oriented messages Forwarded. How many of them are addressing basic needs like Food, Education, Health and Employment in a country where 80 Crore people received free rations in India during the Covid-19 time [Ref:5] and around 10 Crore people living in poverty [Ref: 6]

References:
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Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Sunday, October 16, 2022

ఉక్రెయిన్ యుద్ధం - దాని ప్రభావాలు - క్లుప్తంగా .. నా ఆలోచన


మనలో చాలా మంది ఉక్రెయిన్  యుద్ధం ఎక్కడో కొన్ని వేల కిలోమీటర్ల  దూరంలో ఉంది కాబట్టి , ఆ యుద్ధం యొక్క ప్రభావం మన మీద ఉండదు అనే అభిప్రాయం లో ఉన్నారు.. 

టీవీల వ్యాఖ్యాతలు యుద్దాన్ని ఒక నాటకీయంగా, థ్రిల్లర్  సినిమాలో లాగా  చూపించడంతో మనకు ఎక్కువ వినోదభరితమే కనపడుతోంది  ఈ యుద్ధం  వల్ల మనందరి జీవితం మీద ఎటువంటి ప్రభావాన్ని తెలిపేటందుకు  తక్కువ సమయం కేటాయిస్తున్నాయి.   ఈ యుద్ధ ప్రభావం ప్రపంచ పఠాన్ని, ప్రపంచ గమనాన్ని,  దేశాల ఆలోచనా  విధానాల్ని మార్చబోతోంది అనేది నా అభిప్రాయం.

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Saturday, March 13, 2021

Shri.P.V.N.R - The New India's Vasco da Gama

 

New India's Karma Yogi


Karma/ˈkɑːmə,ˈkəːmə/ , this is a noun according to English Dictionary. This word is taken from the Sanskrit language but here we are talking about the usage of another extended Sanskrit word “Karma Yogi”.  The best example of a  Karma Yogi is the role of a Mother. The mother works selflessly for the betterment of the family without expecting anything in return. Mother is Karma Yogi for the family.


The word  “Karma Yogi” also represents humbleness and surrender. Chogyam Trungpa a great Buddhist Philosopher says “We fall down and down until we touch the ground until we relate with the basic sanity of the earth. We become the lowest of the low, the smallest of the small, a grain of sand, perfectly simple, no expectations…” The people whom we can consider as Karma Yogis in the modern era are Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, etc., 


Like it is the duty of family members to recognise the selfless efforts of Mother when it comes to home, it is the responsibility of the country-men to recognise the efforts of leaders who changed the pace and face of our country. Their strategies, decisions, ideas, and policies brought smiles on countless countrymen over the decades.


India was in a deep economic crisis back in 1991, IMF agreed to bail out India with an interim loan of $3.9 billion (a huge sum for India then). IMF asked the government of India to pledge its gold reserves and India ended up pledging 67 tonnes of Gold.  This represents the state of our country’s economy back then. On top of the Economic Crisis India also got other challenges like Unemployment, Terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir, Poverty, License Raj, Gold Smuggling,  etc.,


Post Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination,  Congress found deeply spiritual and ailing  Southern Scholarly Septuagenarian, Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao to lead India and its grand old political party and then PV Occupied PM’s office on 21 June 1991 – 16 May 1996.


Few extraordinary beings are born to change Karma's millions, they come at different timelines. We can call P.V.Narasimha Rao as one of the gifted beings born to change the lives of millions. 


Shri P.V.Narasimha Rao can be referred  "Karma Yogi", 'Father of Indian Economic Reforms', “Modern day’s Chanakya” and also an “Education Reformer”.


It is so encouraging to see that India’s top political leaders across political parties and ideologies were humble enough to appreciate PV Narasimha Rao’s contribution to our country's growth. The leaders include our current Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi, Telangana CM Shri.KCR, AP top leaders Shri.Jaganmohan Reddy and Shri.Chandrababu Naidu, BJP MP Shri. Subramanya Swamy, etc., Ex-president and Missile man of India Shri.APJ Abdul Kalam portrayed Rao as a "patriotic statesman who believed that the nation is bigger than the political system". 


There are multiple articles that articulate PV's Midas touch on India's Economy in the short span of 5 years. Here I would like to present another dimension of him, as an Education Reformer. And also his thoughts to bring quality education to the poorer section of the country.


Many may not be knowing that PV was the first Chief Minister who started Residential Schools run by the State Government to provide quality education to meritorious rural kids which acted as a catalyst to unleash the innate potential of rural India in the coming decades in the year 1971. This led him to start “Andhra Pradesh Residential School” Sarvail in then Andhra Pradesh state and later it was expanded to all the districts of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Currently, Sarvali is part of Telangana State.   The success of the Residential schools made him think of enhancing this concept to the whole country and gave the idea of Navodaya Vidyalayas. First established in 1986, under the stewardship of Shri  P. V. Narasimha Rao. Since then Navodaya Schools have proven to be a silver lining in the arena of school education, Nava + Udaya which literally translates to a new dawn in English and these schools lived up to the name that was given to them by visionaries.

In 1986, Rao, as Human Resources Development Minister, personally formulated the National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 on his newly-acquired word processor in just six months. However, he was unable to push for the required funds to implement the ambitious policy, which included the Navodaya schools.

Historically, quality education had been a luxury and entitlement for urban and wealthy families. The rural households remained underprivileged and struggled even to access good school education.  After four decades of an Independent India, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi aspired to set up a network of schools in every district of India to provide not only quality education but also to ensure the holistic development of the students. These schools were named: Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs). JNVs were established in 1986 The motto of JNV is ‘Pragyan Brahma’ a Sanskrit phrase which in English means ‘Pure Knowledge is God’.  P V Narasimha Rao, a distinguished scholar himself conceptualised its design as the then Human Resource Development Minister.  

The first two schools were started in 1985-86 on an experimental basis and then got established across the country.  From the official website (https://navodaya.gov.in/) a total of 661 JNVs are sanctioned across all the states and regions between 1985- 2019. Of 636 functional JNVs (As of 30th September 2019) in the country, about 2,65,574 students enrolled and out of which 2,06,728 (~78%) are from rural areas. Performance-wise, in 2019, JNVs were the top-ranked C.B.S.E. schools by having a pass percentage of 98.57% and 96.62% in 10th and 12th grades respectively.

JNV has the concept of  ‘student migration policy’. Students of Grade Nine would go to a JNV of a different state and get exposure to a different society and culture. These schools were so successful that most of the then students are serving country as bureaucrats, athletes, civil servants, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc.,  you name a field, there is a Shining Navodayan.


Shri P V Narasimha Rao the man who shaped India in the post cold war era after the collapse of the soviet union, partially dismantled socialism because he understood very well that socialism breeds populism but not prosperity. Many leaders realised this but the success of PVNR lies not only in realising it but also successfully implementing it and changed the fate of India for good. By the time he demitted office, India had healthy forex reserves and was growing at 7.5 percent. 

Most of us visualise P.V Narsimha Rao as a frail old man, but he was a firebrand activist in his youth engaging in guerrilla type insurgency to topple the Nizam of Hyderabad. According to one source, while the rest of India was celebrating Independence from British Rule on 15th August 1947, PV was hiding in a forest to escape the Nizam’s soldiers. The angry young man subsequently rose to become Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy

PV is a polyglot, aside from his mother tongue, Telugu, he had excellent command over several other languages – nine Indian languages (Marathi, Hindi, Oriya, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu) and six foreign (English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German and Persian). PV.’s political career was shaped by his involvement in India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule.


Rao had been selected as PM for his unquestioning loyalty to the Nehru - Gandhi Family. But after he took an oath, the so-called man of inaction became a man of destiny. As PM, he introduced revolutionary reforms but didn't consult with Smt. Sonia Gandhi or keep her informed as a result in later years the entire credit for economic reforms was given to Shri. Manmohan Singh, who became PM in 2004. His contribution, in terms of pulling the country back from the brink and shaping its rise during the critical period of India, was forgotten. Sadly, even Manmohan Singh failed to acknowledge it.  He did everything for the betterment of the nation silently without much buzz but his Silence is so freaking loud and clear which broke so many old barriers for industrialisation like the abolition of License Raj. The Licence Raj was a result of the post-Independence government's decision to have a planned economy where all aspects of the economy are controlled by the state and licenses are given to a select few. Up to 91 government agencies had to be satisfied before private companies could produce something and, if granted, the government would regulate production.


Thanks to PV’s close friendship with then Opposition leader Shri.Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and made him represent India in a crucial UN meeting at Geneva during PV’s prime ministership. This great relationship made India conduct the Nuclear Tests successfully when Vajpayee became India’s PM in later years.

His magnanimity of reforms was so huge that it created a new section called  “Upper Middle Class”. Millions of Families were the beneficiaries of the reforms and got added into the “Upper Middle Class” section. All these members turned as the country's new wealth creators as Taxpayers

His few other achievements in Making India  Prosper are as follows:

  • 1995, PV suggested that the Mid Day Meal Scheme be implemented across the country. This led to the birth of the National Programme for Nutrition Support to Primary Education. The program aims to increase school enrolment, attendance, and retention while eradicating malnutrition and empowering women through employment.
  • Energized the National Nuclear security and Ballistic missiles program, which ultimately resulted in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests
  • The rupee was made convertible on a trade account
  • Dismantled import controls, lowered customs duties, and Streamlining procedures for FDI approvals, and in at least 35 industries
  • Dropped tax rates and Broke public sector monopolies
  • Launched the Look East foreign policy, which brought India closer to ASEAN to increase economic interaction with South East Asia in trade, investment, science and technology, tourism, etc.
  • Rao's government introduced the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), India's first anti-terrorism legislation, and directed the Indian Army to eliminate the infiltrators from Pakistan

Surprisingly on top of knowing multiple languages, he also knows computer programming. He is a technological enthusiast. Rao was applauded by many for using modern technology and resources to organise major relief operations to assuage the stricken people, and for schemes of economic reconstruction when thousands of people killed and lakhs of people got displaced because of the earthquake in Latur, Maharashtra in 1993.


PVNR transformed India in those five years, from its economy and government assistance plans to, as we will see, international strategy and national security. All the while he managed a restless party, yearly state elections, a hostile Parliament, and a largely apathetic public. There are few reformers in world history who achieved so much with so little.


I wish and pray that govt of India will recognise this political genius and a reformer in its true sense and honor Shri “Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao” with “BHARAT RATNA” as soon as possible.


VANDE MATARAM


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Sunday, July 5, 2020

India's Readiness to Facilitate Companies from China - Part 3

India -  Strengths, Weakness, Challenges

For the Benefit of Readers: Below are the Titles for previous parts: 
Section 1, 2 are in Part-1 [ClickHere] and Section 3 is in Part-2 [ClickHere] of the blog.
Section-1: Buckets and Bridges in Hierarchical Academic System: Prima Facie
Section-2: Evolution in Engineering Education
Section-3: Volcaneering - Volcanic Eruption of Engineering Seats
Section-4: Focus India -  Strengths, Weakness, Challenges

Now Section-4: Focus India -  Strengths, Weakness, Challenges
 Preface:
In Preface, Let us start understanding the real scenario as a Pinch of Salt to understand the dependency of China in India:
Trade: 
  • Imports from China to India in 2019-2020 worth 62.4 Billion dollars
  • India’s trade deficit with China was $56.8 billion in 2019. To be more detailed in 2019, the total trade between China and India is ~93 billion. India imported from china worth 75 Bn and exported 18 Bn. [4-1]
  • India’s BIGGEST Trading Partner is China with 109.7 Billion and next is the US with 88.7 billion. Not to forget India does huge Defence deals with the US unlike with China. These defense deals take a huge chunk of the total trade with the US.
Investments:
  • China's FDI in India stands at over $2.34 Bn. Different sources say different numbers when adding strategic rerouted ones it may reach near to $6 Bn to 8$ Bn.
  • Paytm has $3.5 Bn,  Ola $3.2 Bn, Oyo $3.2 Bn, Snapdeal: $1.8 Bn, Byjus: 1.47 Bn from China (From Businesstoday). Others like Big Basket,  Delhivery, Dream 11, Flipkart, HDFC, Hike, MakeMyTrip, Paytm Mall, PolicyBazaar, Quikr, Rivigo, Snapdeal, Swiggy, Zomato are some more.  We all know of a recent amendment by Govt.of India after China's central bank buys a 1% stake in HDFC.

Markets:
  • Major Imports from China to India,  which are above $1Bn are Electrical Machinery ($19.103 Bn), Reactors,boilers ( $13.322 Bn),  organic chemicals ($7.970), plastic ($2.714), fertilizers ($1.820).
  • Major exports from India to China are mentioned in dollars in millions: OrganicChemicals:2702, Slag and Ash:2356.9, Minerals, Fuel & Oils:2128, Fishing related:1336, Electric machinery: 862  (in millions of dollars).
  • Chinese smartphone makers have over 75 percent share of the Indian market. 1996-1997: 156 million reached 10 Bn in  2020.  70% of mobile components are from China.
  • In the last 10 years, 22,420 MW of critical power plants have been commissioned and of these 12,540 MW were built on Chinese equipment, including Adani’s Mundra and Tirora units, CLP India’s Jhajjar plant, Reliance Sasan and Vedanta’s Talwandi Sabo project. Imports from China were worth over Rs 21,000 crore in FY19 and in excess of Rs 16,000 crore in April-December FY20 [4-2]
  • 60% of pharmaceutical ingredients are being imported from China.
After Preface, Let us get into the discussion of this section:
Because of Trade Wars and COVID Impact, many MNCs established in China are thinking of adapting China+1/China-1 Strategy to reduce dependency over China.
  • China+1 means having additional units outside of China without coming out of China.
  • China-1 represents shifting production units out of China.
During the trade war between the US and China in 2019, Nomura  [4-3]  analyzed the trade diversions. India stands at 17th position from the Nomura study and Vietnam was able to attract more organizations by standing first.

There are approaches that need to be understood. In the era of globalization, no country can run independently or can exist by banning any other country’s imports. So, countries need to co-exist and grab opportunities by presenting strengths. 

The only action that any country can do is by making the trade deficit as little as possible.
In the era where the whole world is a market, co-existing is the only way in my view. 

Take the scenario: where In 2017, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari announced the world that he intended for India to move to 100% electric cars by 2030 [4-3.1]. To produce batteries Cobalt is required and 60% of cobalt reserves are in China. It is not so easy to achieve this without co-working with China. Once Achieved  India will save billions of dollars as currently, India is spending a huge chunk of the money on purchasing crude oil.

So, It is all about making Trade-Deficit to zero which makes India prosper. In the hurry of making trade deficit zero, India should not limit encouraging the thoughts to go for alternative vendors. India’s leadership should also think about encouraging home-grown organizations on top of going for alternatives. 

When alternatives come to the picture China has the winning edge in the race in terms of cost and delivery because of the ecosystem that the country has. On top India will lose the opportunity to avail the Benefit over this opportunity.  

In the hurry, if the country limits itself to look for alternatives it won't produce a greater benefit to the country's future in the long run. For Example, if a customer is moving from buying a mobile from Vivo to Samsung, it won't make any difference to the country’s economic perspective. Emotionally one may get satisfied, but it won't realize the country’s dream to reach the target of being self-reliant and to be a 5 Trillion Dollar Economy.  But once emotions go down, there are high chances that customers again opt for Chinese products. (I remember a similar situation when the Dokhlam conflict happened in 2017). Let me not drag this topic as it deviates my main objective. I just want to say that India needs to build up homegrown muscle in reducing the trade deficit rather than limiting it to just alternatives.

Here comes the question? What are bottlenecks even when we see so much effort being put by the Government but only 3 in 56 organizations choose their establishments in India whereas Vietnam-26, Taiwan-11, Thailand-8 got! 

I have read so many social media forwards that are boasting ( Most of the posts/debates are crafted by Political system’s social media paid teams to tune voters' minds). My intention is to say, in reality, India is not winning many companies like other countries (at least in 2019). Like I mentioned in my previous articles, in the year 2019, getting only 3 from the total of 56 organizations moved out of China, makes just 6% as a success rate.

So, with my understanding, I would like to focus on the pain-points which are blockers in attracting the organizations and probable suggestions. Because these blockers are present at different levels and not limited to just political policies.

Education Sector:
  • Updating the Curriculum which serves Industry standards.
  • Introducing Ranking and Grading towards Academic Institutions. Having Transparent Ranking of all Academic Institutions at the country/region level. This will make Colleges to learn and improve their methods, improving infrastructures so that they can move up in the ladder. 
  • Investing in creating Government monitored Incubation Centres and associating them with the Colleges Or by creating a cluster (with a set of colleges).
  • Every Medical College should be associated with a Hospital. Similar way, having colleges associated with organizations to tie-up with Institutions. This will help the students to learn which are near to real use-cases
  • Encouraging Innovation by conducting Hackathons to solve the real problems exists in that Geographical area. This gives the opportunity to the students learning about customer interaction, problem analysis, the importance of customer satisfaction, etc., which are major playing factors once they get into any organization.  
  • Having an associated grade in the Mark memo in Academics towards knowledge sharing or for conducting symposiums. 
  • As part of Knowledge sharing, opening up guest lectures from various institutions motivates students and shows the new thought process.
  • Many may think this as funny: I also think that: Having all knowledge base documents in local languages will make students refer even though their Academics and Exams are in English. This will help the students to read and grasp quickly the basic knowledge as the document is already available in Native languages. People may think this is crazy about this thought. :). I see that all the countries who are great in Innovation, their students' academics will be in the Native language. 
  • Strategy to make mid-level labor:
    • As in previous parts of the blog, the academic-bridges got weakened and multiple courses got drained with fewer students. Having a strong hierarchical academic structure with strong career-bridges will make the availability of a workforce with different levels of expertise. Hiring an overqualified member as a mid-level worker will do two damages to the organization and to the employee. Organizations will suffer cost and Employee may lose motivation as he may think that he is overqualified for that job. 
  • There is no debate that COST is a major factor for which Organizations move the units to Developing Nations. Enhancing the facilities and infrastructure in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities will enroll them as a contender. Establishments in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities save significant investments. This saving helps Organizations to accommodate semi-skilled or low skilled people and open to provide any additional training if required.
  • The government should start investing in stabilizing the academic bridges and availability of the workforce across streams.
  • India is the big place for Software as of now. Need to increase significantly in other sectors like Hardware, Semiconductors, Manufacturing, and Pharmacy industry which are imports from China. To give an example of how much India depends on China on Drugs:  analysts say India depends on 70% of raw pharmaceutical materials over China.

Challenges in Tier-2 and Tier-3 Cities:
  • Organizations are ready to establish in Tier-2 and Tier-3 Cities but there are challenges. Like,
    • Local Bureaucracy
    • Petty local Politicians
    • Land Acquisition
  • Many state governments are offering SOPs to companies but these are not enough unless the fundamental problems are addressed.
  • Having similar geographical and cultural proximity with China makes Vietnam a preference over India, and the political system is similar - Vietnam is a single-party Communist state. There is no bureaucratic lethargy and democratic or political red tape as Vietnam leadership is conscious that this can damage their ambition of becoming an Industrial Hub.
  • The State governments should start a transparent system that gives confidence to investors that their investment is safe.
  • The possible solutions would be 
    • The land pool per state needs to be created and this should be governed by the Chief minister.
    • This should give the Investors the confidence that there will not be any future civil issues.
    • Start enabling supply-chain related dependencies. These include Knowledge pool, power, water, transportation. 
    • Enabling Demography based Industrial Ecosystem
Example: 
        •  Agri, Acqua, Shipping, etc. kind of systems to have preferential places in Coastal Areas.,
        • Dry areas can be used for Manufacturing
  • Ensure to have good and cost-effective warehousing, power, water, transportation, and other logistical support.
  • The fixed time-line based protocol to resolve the disputes or challenges.
  • Encouraging local entrepreneurs to start the production units of materials, parts that make a preferable place to investors.
  • Asserting to local politicians from Leader of the State that, organizations should not be seen as cash-cow towards their petty benefits. This is one of the major challenges in the country as Local politicians who loot always assume that the investors/organizations have infinite wealth which is a wrong assumption. This has to be reduced significantly to prefer Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in venturing.
  • The same is applicable for Bureaucracy. The hurdles created by Bureaucracy + Local politicians can become Lethal to investors. 
  • Governments can come with different single-window departments in handling escalations and procedures based on the investment size. 

Political Leadership:
  • A Leader should be Strong, Deterministic, and able to provide a trustworthy environment to say  “No” when others contradict the leadership’s ideas.
  • The current central leadership in India is undoubtedly  Very Strong and Deterministic after Indira Gandhi’s era. But still very far from visionary leadership like P.V.Narasimha Rao. 
  • One of the big differences between Dr.Manmohan Singh and Current prime minister Narendra Modi is, Accepting Criticism.  Manmohan was open to criticism even from outside of Political Arena. On top of his Scholastic mind, these qualities made him flexible and always reachable. 
  • Making personal attacks and pulling the people into political mud is making Businessmen think twice to reach the PM and give open feedback. Few may criticize that not allowing corruption by businessmen is the reason why businessmen are scared to open up with the PM, but it won’t be wise to put every businessman as corrupt. This listening could have helped to think of not going ahead with Demonetisation.
  • Many times it might be happening that, Top Leadership might not be knowing about this cyberbullying happening on the business honchos who criticize the leadership. So, top leadership from all parties should provide dos and don'ts to their Party's Cyber-Cells towards this Cyber-Bullying.
  • This bullying is not only observed in Central Parties, and it is also observed in many state-level Parties. A culture to welcome suggestions with open-arms is very much required along with open-minded thoughts by not being judgemental need to be encouraged.
  • Leadership to keep open forums just to listen, understand, and address the problems.  The political policy should not contradict with Business Policy.
  • One of the current leaders like Nitin Gadkari is doing great in his allotted ministry in building Highways. Under his leadership, in a record: India constructed highways length 29km per day in 2019 and made him keep himself a target to reach 60 Km per day in the coming years.
  • When I was thinking how could P.V.Narasimha Rao changed the face of India by bringing and executed Economic reforms successfully even he is not an economist by expertise. I looked into the people who managed the portfolios that are very important to support Economic Reforms. This is important because they should be able to dissect and understand the ideas that Bureaucrats are Presenting.  Below are the ministers and their qualifications:
    • P.V.Narasimha Rao - Prime Minister - Held multiple political portfolios in Central and State Government as his administrative experience. (To be precise, he is 4th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Minister of Home Affairs/External Affairs/Defence and then he becomes 9th Prime Minister of India)
    • Dr. Manmohan Singh - Finance Minister - Studies Economics at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
    • Dr.P.Chidambaram - Commerce Minister - Studies Business Administration from Texas University and Law from Cambridge. Parents are the founders of two big banks.
    • Dr.Subramanya Swamy - Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade - PhD in Economics from Harvard University. His thesis adviser was Nobel laureate "Simon Kuznets"
   This gives the importance of placing the right qualified people in the right positions. In a diverse country with 130 Crore population, the impact of the success/failure of any decision will be huge.
  • A significant effort is required from the current government to Industrialists that they are sincere to listen and understand concerns. Industries should be given assurance that their feedback won't be considered as Political (Even if a few of industrialists’ feedback is politically driven). This gives a stern message to Industrialists that the government is practicing a significant distinction between political thoughts vs Business thoughts. 
  • The commitment to bring industries to India is also should be seen as a great opportunity by State's leadership as well. Because States have a significant role in accommodating the Industries. It is mutual responsibility in policymaking and providing confidence to Industrialists.
Infrastructure:: Connectivity, Transport  
  • Infrastructure improvement, India spent only 4% of GDP [4-4]  in 2019 whereas, Over the past twelve years, total infrastructure investment has accounted for more than 10 percent of GDP on average, putting Vietnam ahead of most East Asian economies [4-5]
  • The Government of India is moving aggressively towards increasing infrastructure but a significant increase is required to catch up. 
    • The Government of India is developing a land pool nearly double the size of Luxembourg to lure businesses moving out of China. This land pool size is around 4.5 Lakh Hectares
    • In recent years, the Indian government has spent US$1.85 billion on infrastructure development at major ports in the country.
  • Bangalore is called Silicon Valley of India which has a 1.5 million IT Workforce [4-6]. I saw how much more basic infrastructure development is required. Traffic becomes everyone’s pain. Every 6 months there will be a new road on top of the existing spoiled road. The repeated activity shows the quality of the work that is happening. This throws the challenge that the infrastructure can’t be extended beyond the primary roads and leaves the rural side of cities with pathetic infrastructure with less chance of renovation. 
  • Until unless Tier-1 Cities get stable infrastructure, vision won’t get extended towards Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. 
  • When compared, India is far reachable with China’s current logistic infrastructure. This may be in terms of Roads, Transportation, Bullet trains, etc.,
  • Developing Eco-Systems so that availability of Semi processed goods which helps the bigger organization to venture. Ensuring and Designing the Eco-system which supports Semi-Processed Goods Availability very much impacts the decision.
Tax System
  • The government is doing well here. Recently announced Tax Reforms by Govt.of India for new manufacturing firms planning to come to India where the corporate tax rate was decreased to 15% (17%, including cess and surcharge) from 25%. This is an encouraging move for the organizations.

Innovation Index: 
  • One of the strengths of India is the Protection of Intellectual Properties when compared with China.
  • Another great strength of India towards innovation is Maharatna, Navaratna companies [4-7] on top of ISRO, DRDO kind of technological marvels. These are high in Technology and also with Revenue. These are technological marvels. The government of India should think about a plan where these institutions can spawn startups. These startups can use the technologies that are already used for a purpose and can be enhanced to spawn different products. Hope we all remember ISRO helped the technology for the artificial foot in 2002 to Jaipur based organization [4-8]
  • Below are the comparison Index details between India and Vietnam [4-9]

 

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