Drishti - the vision

For a very long time I used to think that the issue of any country’s development is a matter of time and, like Adam Smith’s invisible hands of supply and demand, is driven by natural forces of societal evolution. An essential feature of this belief was that there is very little that the current generation can influence and all societies must endure their journey through poverty, poor medical facilities and illiteracy until somehow over a long period of time the societal forces would deliver us into a new era. Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to visit and live in different countries. This has exposed me to the ways of working of different societies. These countries essentially encompass the entire spectrum of economic development between them. There will be little argument about the benefits of visiting developed nations. A visit to these nations helps us in setting goals for our development. We can learn a lot about new technologies, social structures etc an

Thanks to the over 8 % GDP growth rate of India, many of us are finding jobs in multinational companies. On many occasions these jobs take us abroad. Assignments in US, Europe, Malaysia, Singapore etc are no longer once in a lifetime phenomenon rather they are very much a routine affair. I am on an assignment in Nigeria these days. Just this morning I met a Nigerian person who has recently come back from an assignment in far east. While talking to this person I could sense a sort of an unusual behavior. It was not rude or impolite but just purely synthetic. And as usual this led me to think of many similar incidents in the past and ultimately to this blog. So this blog is about how some of us might be prone to getting contaminated when we return from our foreign trips. I remember an incident from my college days. Many students in those days were fortunate to find internships abroad (I was not – so this could be inspired by envy)). One such student while making a presentation on his in

The biggest attraction of Saturday for me will be the meeting of two greatest players of Cricket. Murali and Tendulkar. I am just wondering how would they approach each other in this Match. Unlike what the media would like us to believe, I don't think they would face each other like arch rivals. There would be no rivalry. No duel to be fought no point to be proven. It will be a meeting like that of two old friends who set out in life almost together and then now meet under the shade of a tree to reflect on the times gone by. Two individuals who have always seen each other in the background not really very friendly or close to each other but sharing a common link of being from the same era. It is a bit like two people in their 90's who feel deeply connected to each other solely because there are not many of their age alive anymore. Only they can understand each others feelings and emotions.  Murali and Tendulkar were around when cricket was just a game. There stardom came fairly

What do you do when you cannot muster the discipline to align your thoughts and put them down on paper for almost 6 months? A phenomenon which can be described as a writer's block. You probably go looking for all the old stuff that you have ever written on the websites like Orkut and facebook including testimonials or some not so short posts and try to preserve them, hoping against hope that it might inspire you to believe in yourself once again and provide the much needed kick-start and momentum. I did it this morning. Went scurrying on the orkut website to copy and save all testimonials I had written to my friends almost three years ago and hastily made a word document out of it. It was a great feeling. Some of these friends I have not spoken to in a long time. And if I do a geographical analysis, between then I can cover almost all the continents. It feels nice sometimes to revisit the past. And the past now (as against in the past) can be revisited readily by clicking on those