A comparison of GDP

In all our discussions and reporting, we always highlight our country’s high rank in the Global GDP (& PPP) list. Yes, the attached table gives the statistics – we are in the twelfth position in the globe.

The other half of the table gives another perspective – how we manage our resources in comparison with USA and other emerging countries. The scene is not as pleasant as we normally tend to believe –
- For the size of our nation, our GDP is better than Brazil and Russia, almost equal to China BUT way below USA
- For the size of our population, we have the lowest GDP – another indication of our low productivity levels. The nearest contender China is 2.5 times of ours and USA is nearly 50 times!
- As far as the environmental impact goes, we do better than China. It will be interesting to look at Brazil’s figure – they are probably the best in the world

I leave the inference to the readers…

Farming on City Roads!!

Every time I see a tractor on our city roads, I wonder – what this is doing here? How stupid I am, answer is very simple – it is carrying / pulling something. Yes, it carries all sorts of living and non-living things in the trailer it tugs.

But is it fit to be driven on city roads? It is a specially designed machine for a specific application. Any tractor would have limited acceleration, speed, breaking and agility. With the trailer, it becomes much more unpredictable on city roads. It is another reason for traffic congestion. The worst thing is none of the trailers has the Tail Lamps!

What does our City Traffic Department say about this?

‘Who Dare Wins’

“Future belongs to those who dare” - these were the words written on a poster framed in my Divisional Head’s office wall. I observed it in one of the early visits, more than a decade ago. I was attracted to the poster because of two reasons –

> The sketch of two galloping horses was very dynamic
> The caption caught my eyes

I am sure; many of my colleagues would have seen that poster and some of them should be able recollect even today.

After reading the caption, I kept on thinking about the relevance of the caption. The question in my mind was “dare to do what?” May be to think or act differently – I was answering myself. But the bigger question was whether our society and corporate world accepts any “daring” move.

Since my childhood, I have always been preached to not to take paths less traveled. In middle class families of that time, “How dare you?” was very common. It was very true in organizations also. Even thinking (forget about Acting) ‘out of the box’ was not encouraged. At times it used to be misinterpreted to be disrespect to the prevailing norms (to be read as ‘people’).

Today, after many years, I keep thinking - have we changed? From Indian perspective, the whole thing is moving in circles. As a nation, we are confused – whether to stick to the tried and tested, old philosophy or to embrace some of the newer ideas. As we are deciding, time is passing by. We need to break free – earlier the better.