Thursday, May 14, 2009

development vs education

Most politicians in China are engineers.
The profession also precludes their manner of thinking on development.
In China, their infrastructure are engineering feats - highways, buildings, malls, dams, cities, etc

These kind of infrastructural feats require a long term focus.
Infrastructure projects require large investments with a ROI over a long period of time. Given the nature of the scale of investments and time period required to recoup these investments, governments more than private entities look at infrastructural projects.
And a governments ability to do such projects on development are pretty much dependent on the polity of the country.

As these kind of projects take a long time to reap a return the projects are planned
with a long term focus in terms of their use, utility and application.

If you look at most of the roads, railways and bridges in India we should be
thankful to British Engineers.

We in India, have been using these networks even today that the British constructed about 100 years ago. That is what long term thinking yields - projects that can be used over long period of time.

The China we see today is about engineering. Their engineering feats have paved the way to a structured development of towns and cities. So in China, we have on one hand the polity from an engineering background and their social development and planing employing engineering.

The moot point is did this change begin with a polity being educated as engineers or a development that required engineers.
The query is that of development vis a vis education.

In India, the emphasis has been on education rather than on development. Since independence, India has focused primarily on Education. Ironically Education levels seems to have stagnated at some threshold level of 60%-70% across states.

On the other hand, I can't say the emphasis has not been on development, as ironically we still face infrastructural bottlenecks, improper planing and shoddy execution. Development in India, very particularly lacks the kind of feats that China has accomplished. Our Infrastructure seems to lack long term planing, and so our cities are clogged and suffers from an influx of immigrants from town and villages.

The question is, China has been able to use education (engineering) to fuel
their development. While we have not been able to use education to fuel our development as compared to similar development in China.

It could be that our polity lacks Engineers. And so the polity does not have a government that can make serious steps in development. The profession of lawyers comes second to the profession that most politicians in our country seem to have.
The profession that most politicians in our Cabinet have is 'Others'.(So states the Economist). My guess is the profession termed 'Others' is used to make up for the lack of a serious one. I guess since we have our country run by non-professionals, or the ones who have no profession, the results in our infrastructure and development are evident.

Mature economies like UK and USA have politicians who are lawyers. But then they being mature democracies have plateaued on development needs. In addition, these economies have systems that perhaps need to be maintained or continued and lawyers are rightly suited for this role. So in a sense at their scale, lawyers in the polity would still serve their needs.

A young country like ours which is 60 years old needs a polity that can bring about development and we need a polity that is professionally educated to bring about such development. A polity with no profession serves a severe impediment to our country.

Friday, May 1, 2009

the rise of politics as a profession

China favours engineers as political leaders, Egypt likes people from the academia; South Korea - civil servants; Brazil - doctors — and the United States, of course, lawyers; so reports the Economist.

The report is not very descriptive about India.
But of the chart provided in The Economist, 38% of Indian politicians arise from a professional background termed 'Others'.
This profession termed 'Others' excludes professions such as Academia, Business, Civil Service, Diplomacy, Economics, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Military and Teaching. If it does exclude the common known professions it makes one wonder what would this profession 'Others' include.

I am thinking Tailors, Cobblers, Blacksmiths, or even plain crooks and criminals.
One such minister, that I am aware about is a humble Tailor and perhaps the others I am unaware of are or could be crooks and criminals.

Perhaps a bunch of them just can't be classified under any profession simply because they have none.

But if they have no professional qualifications than that what is termed 'Others' what gets these politicians elected, I mean why would anyone vote for any one such imbecile who can't wager a profession or skill that he has gained or learned.

The study implies it is lineage. Familial relations gets the next of kin in line into politics and so starts politics as a career option.
What begins as a career option gets seriously to be a profession.
The lack of a profession outside that of politics keeps these individuals out of all other activities but that of politics.

A career entry into politics in itself calls for development and training into the vagaries of politics. Its the only profession which involves an on-the-job training.

The flip side is that with no professional qualification or external experience but that accruing from experience as a politician, makes one heck of an infirm politicians with an impediment to cultivating social development or meeting aspirational needs of the constituency.

Besides, political lineage being a requirement to foray into politics creates a barrier to people from the industry to join the political stream. Goodwill as an Economist or Businessman alone would not count. It necessitates a political career that one needs to establish from scratch or inherit by being of a political family.
Very unlike Mayor Bloomberg of NYC who is Businessman.

As the kin of a politician ergo does foray into politics; does a political office earn an income or a political career? Emoluments from a political office are meagre and seldom does such a novice gain a political office in his initial years. One can infer that earnings in a political career are in kind and in terms of favours.

It would be interesting to find out whether this percentage of 'Others' is increasing or decreasing.

If this % is increasing then indeed new entrants will find it difficult to enter politics as it would depend all the more on lineage. Political links and connections are either garnered over a period of time or by the fact of political lineage. As political goodwill cannot be garnered on the basis of what was proven outside politics as an Academician, Economist or Business person.

If the % is decreasing then it could mean that we are heading towards a senate that can represents the people and is open to those who can represent the needs and demands of a constituency, unlike at present where the senate is one that represents its own interests by lineage or cliques.

voter apathy

bomb blasts had rocked Mumbai in December 2008 and on April 2009, the city cast its vote to elect a PM for the next 5 year term.

I would have thought that the bombing incident would have somehow led to a big voter turnout to cast their ballots. The bomb incident should have polarised people to voice their concerns about insecurity, infrastructure and general social well being in the city.
As a matter of fact these concerns would have been no different in any other city or state in India.

But what is surprising is the last time around, the voter turnout was greater than it has been this time around. Last election the city had a voter turnout of 47%, this time around the voter turnout has been 43%.

4% lower than the erstwhile term of polls.

Though there has been a decrease in voter turnout, there has been an increase in the number of independents standing this time around for elections in their constituency.

I think the voters including me are apathetic to the present clan of politicians, though one could exercise a vote favouring an alternate political leadership this time around, I think the people (including moi) have smartened up to the fact that a change in political leadership alone will not yield an efficacious and efficient system for the city of Mumbai.

The existing political leadership whether outgoing leadership or the one vying to come to power have no vested interest to clean up their act, the only vested interest that they harbour is to come to power. Besides once in power, these leaders seem to have some inertia to act on the need of the city, as though there is some nexus between the chaos that ensues in the city and inability to eradicate the infirmity of the city.

It is logical and plainly clear to most of us common folk in the city where we need to clean up and what we need, we are a pretty aware and conscious lot of people, albeit though much is desired and known, seldom little or nothing gets transformed from desire to reality.

Given that diktat, little can be expected in terms of change or much less can be expected interms of a makeover for the city.

So we have a lower voter turnout despite the Mumbai bomb blasts in tandem we have a rise in the number of independents trying to do their bit or at least to profess that can achieve something where the politicians have failed.

It would be interesting to note if will can transform this city or is this an endemic and congenital problem with us Indians that gets us running around everywhere (ironically getting nowhere) as though our hair is on fire.
We have a terrible inertia to change.
That seems to be our legacy....one that we was handed over to us 1947.
Since then we have been stuck.