Apropos Beyond Vindhya Major (May 7), I would suggest that before Indian bureaucrats, who seem to have a lot of time on their hands, start comparing us with China, they had better read what eminent Chinese economists have to say about India-China comparisons.

Pankaj Vaishnavi, London

Neither Chinese economists nor Narendra Modi take India these India-China comparisons seriously. He’s in a hurry to transform his state and works for nothing else but the welfare of his people.

D. Anjaneyulu, Chennai

The fact is, millions of Indians have a prosperity they didn’t have before. It is a more difficult task to lift a country out of poverty through democracy than it is with pragmatic authoritarianism.

Varun Shekhar, Toronto

There’s no story here that isn’t cooked up: neither is the north resurgent, nor the south arrogant. And, the two were never in competition with each other.

S. Raghunatha Prabhu, Alappuzha, Kerala

Srivatsaji, The most important part of the whole south vs north is the way governments are enabled to operate without fear or favor. While Southern states have tried to present a new face for 21st century(Still not up to the mark) , northern states are still steeped into 20th century. This is the perception. However the enablers of progress/peace in respective states are IAS/IPS recruited by GOI on a set of 20th century rule book. In my opinion it is this aspect/bureaucracy which has put a break on both south and north. In fact enablers of development IAS/IPS play a major role in states for development of a particular state. In the absence of honest, sincere attitude for enabling 21st century development matrix with the right mix of IQ ...all states are likely to slow down unless some major initiative is taken by the new party which will come to power in 2014. No point of talking north vs south!

It seems that when faced with facts some of Modi's fanboys get their dirty little knickers in a twist.

As far as the lackeys of the (non-existent) British Empire go, I only wish that their opinions were irrelevant in Modi's Shining India and the opinions of the real hard-working Indians, who are battered daily by corruption and poverty and lack of justice but still find hope in their motherland, were paid heed to.

Modi and his ilk have scant care for the well-being of their largely destitute countrymen. This very Modi, on every Pravasi Gujarati divas, shamelessly begs in front of the very same "flunkeys of the British Empire" for their money and investment - so that he can tout inflated growth figures, and the flunkeys make more money (and the babus pocket some bribes) while the unfortunate Indians, who have the real claim on the land and resources, just live to see their poverty perpetuated.

Those who have trouble comprehending/appreciating the views of Chinese economists can look at this World Bank study on hunger and poverty in India.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Hunger_Poverty-Conclusion.pdf

Neither economists of China nor Narendra Modi takes India-China comparisons seriously. Modi has been to China, Australia and Israel, and is well regarded as a popular, capable and clean administrator, to the extent that diplomats from these nations as well as Atlantic region have been in consultations with him. That's all that matters for the growth and prosperity of Gujarat. The caravan can keep rolling till the barkers cry themselves hoarse. Modi also knows how much we have lost and how many opportunities we have frittered away running after charlatans and mountebanks and their babble - be they rosened or dimpled! He's in a hurry to transform his state and works for nothing else but the welfare of his people.

The opinion of a flunky of the British Empire is irrelevant.

Varun Shekhar:

My surname is Vaishnav[i], with an "i" in the end.

I am not trying to undermine India's self-esteem or achievements. I am merely being realistic and the reality in India is far worse that what many economically well-off urban Indians like to think. Pretty much every population centre in the whole of India, from north to south and east to west, suffers from extreme corruption, gut-wrenching poverty, mass illiteracy, technological backwardness, is riven by narrow caste and communal hierarchies and faces near-total collapse of civic, health and criminal justice systems. This calamitious state of affairs is reflected in India's abysmal human development record, which has grown worse in the last two decades.

I don't care about what Left/Right/Christians/Pagans think. I responded to this pedestrian article based on what is happening in India, which is there for all to see.

Whatever Srivatsa Krishna writes here is the truth, no matter how many North Indians think otherwise. Better to accept reality and get on with life.

Hey Pankaj Vaishnav, nice job trying to undermine Indian self -esteem and Indian achievements. The Left and Christian organisations in the West, including the UK, love people like you, because then they can hide their racist, supremacist mugs behind the curtain of your comments and say "See, Indians themselves are putting India down".(so why can't we).

Let the south first catch up with Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal in per capita income. Not only the real north is richer it has much prettier girls too.

First, let the non-South Indians (spanning the entire arc Rajasthan-Maharashtra-UP-MP-Bihar-West Bengal-Orissa) get their English and civic sense right. Then we can think of comparing. Even newsreaders of national TV channels cannot get their pronunciation right.

"is competing with China in any field it is in mass repression of certain communities. And funnily enough, even under repression those communities are actually better educated and economically better off in China than their unfortunate counterparts in Gujarat.

I would suggest that before the Indian Aaltu-Phaltu Service officers, who seems to have a lot of time on their hands to day dream and not much proper work to do, start comparing themselves to China, they better hear what pre-eminent Chinese economists have to say about India-China comparisons:"

  It is a more difficult, arduous task to lift an undeveloped, poor country out of poverty, through democracy, freedom, pluralism and openness, than it is with ruthless, relentless, cold blooded pragmatism and authoritarianism of the Chinese kind. It is also the more mature and civilised way.

 The fact is, millions of Indians have a kind of prosperity that they didn't have before.

What a slopy and lazy article! He could have just refused to write instead of this typcal one hour MBA bullshit.

Why are Indians (especially these civil servants with big egos) so obsessed with economic rate-of-growth numbers, when India has fallen in nearly every indicator of human development in the last two decades? 

I find the comparison of Gujarat with China utterly laughable. If Gujarat, under that despicable Nar-rakshas Modi, is competing with China in any field it is in mass repression of certain communities. And funnily enough, even under repression those communities are actually better educated and economically better off in China than their unfortunate counterparts in Gujarat.

I would suggest that before the Indian Aaltu-Phaltu Service officers, who seems to have a lot of time on their hands to day dream and not much proper work to do, start comparing themselves to China, they better hear what pre-eminent Chinese economists have to say about India-China comparisons:

http://www.ted.com/talks/yasheng_huang.html

 The old saying ' divide and rule', never get old. All intruders followed it and ruled us and now their agents are doing the same. This issue of OLI is full of such stories.

 FYI Rajnikant (Shivaji Rao Gaekwad) is a native of a village in Krishnagiri district of TN, where his family was involved in farming (the reason why his character in Shivaji hails from a farmer's family in Dharmapuri District, Krishnagiri district was recently split from Dharmapuri). His father went in search of work to nearby Bengaluru (25 km away) & settled down there. Rajni  split his childhood between his  village & Bengaluru. Marathi & Tamil were his ntive languages (spoken @ home) & he also spoke Kannada (the language of his then adopted home, Bengaluru). H has nothing to do wth Maharashtra other than the fact that he is of Marathi origin. He is a Southerner, period .....

sorry ashok he is from karnataka

Rajnikanth, one would like to believe, is a Maharashtrian.

Rajnikanth, one would like to believe, is a Maharashtrian.

sorry ashok he is from karnataka

 FYI Rajnikant (Shivaji Rao Gaekwad) is a native of a village in Krishnagiri district of TN, where his family was involved in farming (the reason why his character in Shivaji hails from a farmer's family in Dharmapuri District, Krishnagiri district was recently split from Dharmapuri). His father went in search of work to nearby Bengaluru (25 km away) & settled down there. Rajni  split his childhood between his  village & Bengaluru. Marathi & Tamil were his ntive languages (spoken @ home) & he also spoke Kannada (the language of his then adopted home, Bengaluru). H has nothing to do wth Maharashtra other than the fact that he is of Marathi origin. He is a Southerner, period .....

 The old saying ' divide and rule', never get old. All intruders followed it and ruled us and now their agents are doing the same. This issue of OLI is full of such stories.

Why are Indians (especially these civil servants with big egos) so obsessed with economic rate-of-growth numbers, when India has fallen in nearly every indicator of human development in the last two decades? 

I find the comparison of Gujarat with China utterly laughable. If Gujarat, under that despicable Nar-rakshas Modi, is competing with China in any field it is in mass repression of certain communities. And funnily enough, even under repression those communities are actually better educated and economically better off in China than their unfortunate counterparts in Gujarat.

I would suggest that before the Indian Aaltu-Phaltu Service officers, who seems to have a lot of time on their hands to day dream and not much proper work to do, start comparing themselves to China, they better hear what pre-eminent Chinese economists have to say about India-China comparisons:

http://www.ted.com/talks/yasheng_huang.html

What a slopy and lazy article! He could have just refused to write instead of this typcal one hour MBA bullshit.

"is competing with China in any field it is in mass repression of certain communities. And funnily enough, even under repression those communities are actually better educated and economically better off in China than their unfortunate counterparts in Gujarat.

I would suggest that before the Indian Aaltu-Phaltu Service officers, who seems to have a lot of time on their hands to day dream and not much proper work to do, start comparing themselves to China, they better hear what pre-eminent Chinese economists have to say about India-China comparisons:"

  It is a more difficult, arduous task to lift an undeveloped, poor country out of poverty, through democracy, freedom, pluralism and openness, than it is with ruthless, relentless, cold blooded pragmatism and authoritarianism of the Chinese kind. It is also the more mature and civilised way.

 The fact is, millions of Indians have a kind of prosperity that they didn't have before.

First, let the non-South Indians (spanning the entire arc Rajasthan-Maharashtra-UP-MP-Bihar-West Bengal-Orissa) get their English and civic sense right. Then we can think of comparing. Even newsreaders of national TV channels cannot get their pronunciation right.

Let the south first catch up with Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal in per capita income. Not only the real north is richer it has much prettier girls too.

Hey Pankaj Vaishnav, nice job trying to undermine Indian self -esteem and Indian achievements. The Left and Christian organisations in the West, including the UK, love people like you, because then they can hide their racist, supremacist mugs behind the curtain of your comments and say "See, Indians themselves are putting India down".(so why can't we).

Whatever Srivatsa Krishna writes here is the truth, no matter how many North Indians think otherwise. Better to accept reality and get on with life.

Varun Shekhar:

My surname is Vaishnav[i], with an "i" in the end.

I am not trying to undermine India's self-esteem or achievements. I am merely being realistic and the reality in India is far worse that what many economically well-off urban Indians like to think. Pretty much every population centre in the whole of India, from north to south and east to west, suffers from extreme corruption, gut-wrenching poverty, mass illiteracy, technological backwardness, is riven by narrow caste and communal hierarchies and faces near-total collapse of civic, health and criminal justice systems. This calamitious state of affairs is reflected in India's abysmal human development record, which has grown worse in the last two decades.

I don't care about what Left/Right/Christians/Pagans think. I responded to this pedestrian article based on what is happening in India, which is there for all to see.

Neither economists of China nor Narendra Modi takes India-China comparisons seriously. Modi has been to China, Australia and Israel, and is well regarded as a popular, capable and clean administrator, to the extent that diplomats from these nations as well as Atlantic region have been in consultations with him. That's all that matters for the growth and prosperity of Gujarat. The caravan can keep rolling till the barkers cry themselves hoarse. Modi also knows how much we have lost and how many opportunities we have frittered away running after charlatans and mountebanks and their babble - be they rosened or dimpled! He's in a hurry to transform his state and works for nothing else but the welfare of his people.

The opinion of a flunky of the British Empire is irrelevant.

It seems that when faced with facts some of Modi's fanboys get their dirty little knickers in a twist.

As far as the lackeys of the (non-existent) British Empire go, I only wish that their opinions were irrelevant in Modi's Shining India and the opinions of the real hard-working Indians, who are battered daily by corruption and poverty and lack of justice but still find hope in their motherland, were paid heed to.

Modi and his ilk have scant care for the well-being of their largely destitute countrymen. This very Modi, on every Pravasi Gujarati divas, shamelessly begs in front of the very same "flunkeys of the British Empire" for their money and investment - so that he can tout inflated growth figures, and the flunkeys make more money (and the babus pocket some bribes) while the unfortunate Indians, who have the real claim on the land and resources, just live to see their poverty perpetuated.

Those who have trouble comprehending/appreciating the views of Chinese economists can look at this World Bank study on hunger and poverty in India.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Hunger_Poverty-Conclusion.pdf

Srivatsaji, The most important part of the whole south vs north is the way governments are enabled to operate without fear or favor. While Southern states have tried to present a new face for 21st century(Still not up to the mark) , northern states are still steeped into 20th century. This is the perception. However the enablers of progress/peace in respective states are IAS/IPS recruited by GOI on a set of 20th century rule book. In my opinion it is this aspect/bureaucracy which has put a break on both south and north. In fact enablers of development IAS/IPS play a major role in states for development of a particular state. In the absence of honest, sincere attitude for enabling 21st century development matrix with the right mix of IQ ...all states are likely to slow down unless some major initiative is taken by the new party which will come to power in 2014. No point of talking north vs south!