Reflections

Reporting from Washington, DC.

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I'm home! (almost)

I just wanted to wrap up my trip with a couple of thoughts.

Travel Agent: If anyone is looking for a great travel agency in India, I can't recommend SITA highly enough. They were great: didn't miss a transfer , were flexible for a group looking for a non-tourist agenda, and set up a great group of travel guides. While I don't think its necessary to have a full service travel agent while in India, it certainly helps.

Denial: In our meetings with Indian government officials, I was frequently impressed with how well they understood the gravity of their situation and the incredible hurdles they are facing to bring India from the "developing" to the "developed" column. In a country with nearly four times the population of the US and less than one-tenth the income, they have challenges beyond compare. That said, there is a large segment of the population that does not recognize that India is not there yet and those are the people that are clamoring at the door of world prestige, but forgetting of all the indigent and helpless people of India that they are cruelly standing on.

I was dismayed to read an op-ed in India Times last week that was complaining about India's portrayal in Slumdog Millionaire. It said that it portrayed India in a negative light, with all the poverty and homelessness. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I understand that this movie really was one of the triumph of human spirit and that the Indian people were featured highly in it. Unfortunately, the sentiments expressed by the author, a prominent Bollywood director, seem to me all too typical of the upper classes. They have found it relatively convenient to forget that India has a population nearly the size of the US that lives on less than $1.25 per day (the World Bank definition of extreme poverty.)

This may be a stinging indictment of India's wealthy and probably unfair to many of them that care deeply for the economic problems of their fellow countrymen, but even after a week it seemed clear to me that this denial was pervasive in the press.

Leakage: One of our first meetings in the country was with 1298 Amulance, whose founder discussed some of the issues that they were having with "leakage", a euphamism for employee theft and government graft. They were solving the problem with technology, increasing monitoring of ambulance movements to prevent moonlighting with company equipment. At first I didn't think too much of this, but by the end of the trip I realized that India has an epidemic of leakage and 1298 has an uphill battle. The corruption ranged from the billion dollar Satyam scandal to fifty rupee taxi ripoffs. While it is clear that these issues have direct negative impacts on the economy they also have further ranging implications: they create intangible barriers to commerce. Whether it's multinationals no longer wishing to do business with large Indian companies or tourists (like us) that tired of getting slowly and constantly ripped off, India is losing business to this culture of corruption and must take more concerted action to solve the problem.

People: I said it a few times, but wanted to reiterate that the Indian people are amazing. Living in a place with such hardships and remaining optimistic is not an insignificant accomplishment. They are generally friendly, even in a place like Mumbai where personal space is at a premium and it would be very easy to become agitated and rude. The tragedy in Mumbai also provides another aspect of the Indian's generosity and kindness of spirit as they all pulled together to get through the past few difficult months. They are the country's greatest resource.