Asymmetry only at the top, the rest of us are same.

Seventy years after independence India suffers from an "anxiety of asymmetry", wrote V Mahajan in a thoughtful article. There is the asymmetry of aspiration vs attainment. Thus, 95% of children are enrolled in schools but "roughly one out of four children in Standard VIII could not read Std II texts and 57% of Std VIII students could not correctly solve a three-digit by one-digit division problem". That is dire, indeed. But the problem is, even if school education improves so that children actually learn something, then what? There are 33 million students, 18-23 years of age, that is 23.6%, enrolled in 38,000 colleges across India, comprising 767 universities, but most of them are of low standards, wrote N Ramachandran. None of our top universities figure in the top 200 in the world. In an effort to multiply mediocrity politicians have added 18 new IITs to the original five, perhaps in the belief that using the brand will somehow increase standards of our students. At least there is some hope of getting a respectable job with an IIT label, but what about others? The prospect are not very good at all, wrote S Ray. All these people want white collar work and refuse to attend the 8,600 skilling centres in the country. The future apparently lies with a gig economy, such as Uber and Airbnb, wrote C Narayanan, but unfortunately in India gig economy usually means wretched back-breaking labor for very little reward. That is why being a 'mistrie', which means 'artisan', is looked down on in India. Education does not raise economic growth by itself, wrote Prof R Hausmann. Countries with the same level of literacy have widely different GDP per capita. Economic growth depends on policies by politicians and if growth is weak there will not be enough jobs for all our graduates, which will lead to social tensions. The second asymmetry is between rights and responsibilities. "The numeric logic of of universal adult franchise ensures that political leaders feed on the entitlement mentality with pre-election freebies and promises of more, which militate against either fiscal or environmental sustainability. But no political leader dares raise the issue of responsibility, for fear of losing the elections." Exactly. Also, spending vast amounts on handouts means there is not enough for job creation. Redistribution leads to less wealth as at least half of it leaks out, explained Prof N Smith. The government is cracking down on corruption, but that will not decrease poverty, wrote Prof Hausmann. An honest efficient civil service is essential. Civil servants are paid huge salaries without any need to perform. So parents spend on getting their children any sort of degree in the hope of landing a government job. In seventy years India has gone from British Raj to Billionaire Raj. Now, that is asymmetry.