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...