Lol!!! India was supposed to be a
supa dupa poopa in 2020....
To make matters worse, the government has failed to acknowledge the enormity of the crisis.
scroll.in
2020 was the year India was supposed to become a superpower. Instead, it got left behind
To make matters worse, the government has failed to acknowledge the enormity of the crisis.
“Seldom does one, in these troubled times, see such a lucid marshaling of facts and figures to bolster the thesis that India is mere two decades away from super-power status,” wrote
The Times of India.
The book supercharged Kalam’s popularity, already riding high after the 1998 nuclear tests. He was even elected president. Even today, homilies delivered by Kalam – or sometimes falsely attributed to him – float around as motivational Whatsapp forwards.
By a mile
The only problem in this is that Kalam was completely off the mark. India is
not a superpower in 2020. Far from it, in fact. When it comes to the quality of life it provides to its citizens, India still languishes somewhere at the bottom. And, as if to really underline just how inaccurate this prediction was, the year 2020 itself has been a disaster for India.
So, here are the ten reasons why India will not become a superpower:
Extremism, both 1. Leftwing and 2. Rightwing
The political elite, which has transformed India’s political parties into family organizations. Because of this,
3. Public institutions such as universities, the police and the judiciary have deteriorated and
4. Democratic openness is victim to corruption.
5. The increasing gap between rich and poor. Witness Mukesh Ambani's 27-floor house for his five-member family in Mumbai
6. Disastrous damage to the environment. Lack of regulation or corporate responsibility means water supplies are at risk, people are breathing poisonous air. Irretrievable damage to health and resources continues and no one is accountable.
7. The apathy of the media. The media has essentially been co-opted by the government and corporations. Many journalists even re-trained as financial analysts in the 1990s.
8. No long-term policy. The political chaos that accompanies a pluralist system makes it difficult to form stable long-term policy.
Territorial instability in 9. The northeast and 10. The northwest of the country. Three of India’s 28 states are struggling for independence.
In the words of Ramachandra Guha: "There are too many fault lines in our society to be a superpower. As a historian I say: ‘We are not prepared’, as an Indian citizen I say: ‘We should not even attempt to’.”
If it’s any consolation, Guha argues that India shouldn’t even want to be a superpower. Instead of throwing its weight around like other superpowers it should try to put its pluralistic values into action at the international level.
...no one aske dyou not to.
This clearly shows how Iron Biraadar sees Pakistan vis India and the region. Quite different from fanboys who think of the parity between India-Pak militarily.
www.bloomberg.com
