Mountains!
6 years ago
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Whom does 21st century belong to?
Many of us have been talking about growth of India for past few years. In this post, I will talk about Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector enterprise and a Fortune 500 company. I read an article about Mukesh Ambani's views on 21st century and India. He said that 21st century is destined to be India’s century, while addressing a conference on “Taking India to the next millennium” at the International Bar Association (IBA). He also said that responsibility of eradicating poverty lies “with all of us”, adding it is not fair to hold only the government or the industry responsible for it.
He outlined following four advantages that India has today:
(1) Demographics - World is becoming Older and India is becoming younger, which provides tremendous growth opportunities for us.
(2) The ability of Indians to believe in democracy
(3) Technology is going to drive more value creation in the world and India has embraced technology.
(4) Globalization and growth despite of slowdown, led by younger people
You can also see following video to see his views.
After reading this news article, I started thinking about whom does 21st Century belong to and where India stands today. In my view, 21st century belongs to each one of us. It depends on us, what we want to see in tomorrow. We all can bring the change in the society.
India has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years and it is result of talent and effort of each one of us. Now, the onus is on each one of us to take it to next level. India needs true leaders, who can guide others. I am sure, each one of us has lots of innovative ideas to fill this gap. While we, the people in respectable jobs are growing to better living standards, each one of us needs to share this growth with at least few other people. Imagine, if each one of us makes sure to take few more people along on this growth path, it can do wonders. There are various ways like supporting education or vocational training of underprivileged people. If we help in their growth, tomorrow they too will can contribute for growth of the country. Let's use our full potential for continuing growth story of India and be part of the change. Remember, our true potential is much more than what we are doing everyday. So, it is time to realize the power within and make 21st century belong to ourselves.
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7 comments:
All the talk by Mr Ambani is fine, Raj, but why does he focus on wealth accumulation, and not on wealth distribution?
Very valid point, Navinder. While leaders and entrepreneurs in India are creating lot of job opportunities, the tendency of wealth distribution is missing among most of them. Some of them distribute their wealth to help underprivileged section of the society, but to very small extent. This trend needs to be changed among ourselves and the future leaders in India.
I think Mukesh Ambani is right on the money. In fact I had published a paper back in 2001-2002 titled - "India 2025: A Vision". Mukesh's views echo my thoughts documented in this paper. You can access this article at
http://sumesh-george.sulekha.com/blog/post/2002/04/india-2025-a-vision.htm
I published a sequel to this paper late 2008. This paper documents my thoughts from 2001 onwards. I've been wanting to publish it since 2006 but it took me 2 years to overcome my lethargy of putting pen to paper. This paper talks about the US economy and how 5 forces are collaborating and converging to ensure the demise of US economic super-powerdom by 2015-2018.
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/blogs/post/2009/02/usa-a-nation-indentured-is-this-the-beginning-of.htm
I'd appreciate your comments on both articles.
Thanks
Sumesh
sumesh.george@gmail.com
Mukesh Ambani is not right on the money. Its amazing that he can even utter the word "poverty", when he has yet to do one thing for poor people, for society or India. His entire view on life is encapsulated in the 28-storey house he's building for himself.
On the article, as much as we all like to see India developing as a super-power, I'm afraid this cannot happen unless we have a revolution in India that completely uproots the way the way India works. India's history has always been internally-divisive for a 1000 years, and this manifests in our lives each and every day today. Whether its the political establishment, the corruption, the inability to control right-wing groups, our lame duck responses to cross-border terrorism, our woeful infrastructure suffering at the hands of divisive politics, the unbelievable bureaucracy and red tape, the inability of our citizens to restore an educated government in power, our complete disregard for the underprivileged in our society, disruptive elements like RSS, Ram Sena and Shiv Sena causing havoc with impunity, and a million other things that are completely screwed up will ensure that there are more forces dragging us down than lifting us up. India's dream of a superpower will remain only a dream, a potential undenied, but one that will be grossly mismanaged and ultimately unrealized because it is etched in our DNA to screw this up. The India shining movement will lose its shine in about 5 to 7 years when India's problems will ultimately become unbearable, and collapse under its own weight.
As for Sumesh's article on the US which reads with a lot of good facts, albeit with some leaps of faith, I will only say one thing - In its 400-odd years of history, nobody has won a single nickel betting against the United States. Granted the problems facing the US are huge this time around, and it remains to be seen whether Obama can in 4 (or 8 years) turn this spin cycle around. The US still remains the only country in the world today where a person from any part of the world can come, work hard, and be given the opportunity to realize their ultimate potential. This is the greatest quality of the United States. Unfortunately, this time they have been held hostage by the financial oligarchs of Wall Street, and if Obama can ensure that such oligarchy can be stubbed out, the US will be back up again in full force. India, Russia, China all suffer from deep fundamental flaws in their society which are very difficult to change, and can never become global superpowers. The US is only screwed in their finances, a big deal but so what - they can let the dollar inflate their debts away to a large extent. While this may look like default by the US, so what. Once this balance sheet gets solved, money will still pour into the US. The entire world believes in the US more than they believe in themselves or anyone else, as proven by the run to US Treasuries and the strong dollar of the last 6 months, arguably some of the worst 6 months the US has ever faced. Lets face it - none of us can entertain the thought of the US losing its superpower status because what is the alternative ? The Euro zone has proven spineless to be a world leader. One can only imagine what will happen if China or Russia becomes the world leader - I think i'd prefer we all go to hell with global warming before that happens. It is in India's medium and long term interest to not let the US go down, unless it welcomes the thought of world domination by the utterly deplorable Chinese and Russians. The US is the only last hope for this earth, and I think the civilized world powers recognize this, and will not let it fall by the wayside.
Hari
Definitely not to Indians. So called wealth creators and business leaders like Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and Laxmi Mittal have only created wealth for themselves. They have used exploitative methods to make their money, and have not given back even a fraction of their wealth to society. In contrast the likes of Bill Gates are using their wealth to make the world a better place, fund medical research. Whereas Ambani is flaunting his 28-storey mansion, Mittal's overwhelming contribution to society is his shameless flaunting of his riches during his daughter's wedding!
All rosy talk by MR.Mukesh Ambani is fine to hear, but what are his own efforts for overty of India?Do you find any good charitable work for education or helathcare done by him apart form his own worsted rofit growing business?If you see Tatas,Birlas,Karsanbhai Of Nirma ltd. you can find their contribution to society.
So to talk something and to do something is different for Mr.mukesh ambani.Mr.anil ambani already oened hospital for low income eole to serve them most economically.
so as you said, India shall be at best in coming years, but that is by the efoorts of eole of India itself only.
sunil shah
Thanks to all for your comments.
@Sumesh: Thanks for sharing your articles. I have shared my views on your posts.
@Hari: Yes, I agree that Mr Ambani needs to do lot more for benefit of poor people in India. Regarding inability of Government in India, I feel that each one of us needs to bring the change in the system. Though slowly, but people like us have already started entering politics in India. If we do not make the change happen, who will? We can keep talking about no improvement in India, but change will happen only when we do our bit for by making a difference in some way.
@Adite and Sunil: Thanks for your comments. Even if Mr Ambani is not helping poor people in India, let's make sure that each one of us contributes in some way for poorest section of society. You, me and everyone needs to make this happen.
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