Can India ever overtake china? can India ever feel all of its billion population? can India make nalanda university an MIT?
Before answering any of these I would like to highlight some of the factors i have considered for comparison!!
Infrastructure!!
Some of the buildings/railway networks that china has built over the years made the world stand up and notice. For example let us take the Tibet-china superfast express ( Qinghai Tibet Train aka the Lhasa Express), In certain parts in this networ, the tracks have been laid over ICE. ya I mean actual ICE!!! It works fine in winter, but summer?? chinese government, keep the ICE in the full length of the railway network frozon! This is the first of its kind, hundreds of kms of ICE kept frozon for almost 4-5 months every year!! Another example I am giving here is the the new buses chinese are planning to introduce by the end of 2011. The buses will be running like trams, 20-22ft above the ground, the two legs of the train being in the two ends of the road!!ya!! and cars can will run underneath this!! this sounds like some scene in James bond movie to me!! But chinese will do this as early as 2011.
Where India stands in comparison? roads that are literally washed away by the first monsoon, power shortage even in major cities like mumbai, bangalore, kolkotta, chennai, hydrabad etc (I am purposely not including Delhi here!! CWG effect :( ), In most of these cities metros are being built right now, there will be atleast a 1000 cases in the court for staying the construction of the metro!! 90% of the railway network in India were laid by the Britishers in 1920s!! post independence, all the expansion work of the rail network was stopped!! Can we boast of any engineering marvel in India?? and for heavens sake please dont tell Taj mahal or any other monument!!
Corruption!!
the punishment that china gives to corrupt officials is death!! India, years in court!! most of the politicians in India would be having accounts in Swiss bank!! They have cini-houses, tv channels etc!!most of the police fellows in India are corrupt!! I need not give any more information on this, we have living examples like the bhopal gas tragedy, boffors scam etc which have stood the test of time, and has not punished a single officer!!
Politics
This has been the only setback in India, most of you may argue that chinese setup may not stand the test of time, but Indian democratic setup will outperform all our competitors on a long run!! my only question is 'really??'
Despite all these, and all our politicians, Myself, being a patriotic citizen of India, believe that there is a way forward, India has the likes of tatas, birlas ambanis and agarwals(vedeanta). I beg the indian government not to bring in politics in between to make these people consider other countries as thier possible future destinations. With three major avoidable incidents in the last decade(Singur and the most recent one of Orissa and Cairn Energy). We have got the best private workforce in the world. These workforce will take India to the next level, perhaps India can be a better country if it becomes a capitalist economy.
India may never overtake china, but India can always try to follow the chinese model. Many of its policies can be studied and implemented in our system. Instead of spending crores in research, India can start adopting some of these strategies and apply in our economy.
The rest can be left to the Indians!! they will take better care :)
