One legged progress.

There is no doubt that India has progressed a lot. From a backward country on bullock carts we are moving, tentatively, towards cars and planes just when global warming and peak oil are threatening to send the world backwards. Most of the changes have come in the last 10-15 years or so. When we first moved to Vasant Kunj in Delhi in 1990 the car parks were largely empty. Most people had scooters and some were proud owners of an old model Fiat or a the smallest Maruti called the 800. Now the same families own at least 2, if not 3 cars, each and there is hardly any place to park. In 1990 it would take an average of 3 years to get a new telephone connection, today it takes a few hours, the time taken to buy a cell phone and get a new sim card activated. It used to take a few hours to cash a check at any bank as the check traveled from one desk to another while the signature was verified and the balance checked to see if there were sufficient funds. Today it takes a few minutes. I could not have imagined back then that I would be able to access broadband sitting at home with a thingy that looks like a pen drive. But this is very little of what could be achieved. We could have achieved at least double of what we have if were not held back. It is like trying to run fast on one leg, the other being held back by corruption. Criminal politicians and thieving civil servants are shackles round our legs. In today's HT a report says that our Foreign Minister traveled to Malaysia last year with presents which were fakes and hugely over priced. A Nakkishi bowl should be 92.5% silver and cost Rs 14315. Instead the one taken was just 64% silver and cost Rs 40000. A silver bowl was 80% silver instead of 95% and cost Rs 7000 instead of Rs 3000. Instead of sourcing the gifts from official state emporium they were bought from a private supplier, naturally for bribes. Why should other governments trust us when we go around distributing fake gifts? The second, much larger, corruption is using taxpayer money as bribes to win elections. Multitudes of social schemes which are looted resulting in increasing deficit, inflation, devaluation of the rupee and extortionate taxes choking growth. If only we had just a few decent people with the character to say " NO ".