PM Modi's US visit

[prasad1]

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is returning home on Tuesday after week-long trip abroad, boasting of having attended "a wide spread of programmes, each of which generated many positive outcomes that will benefit India," even as critics pilloried him for yet another wasteful foreign sortie amid immense domestic problems.

"My USA visit demonstrates the extraordinary depth and diversity of our relationship. A lot of ground has been covered in these few days. I shared my thoughts on key global issues at the @UN & also met many world leaders to strengthen India's ties with the global community," the Prime Minister tweeted as he boarded Air India One after meeting the heads of the United States, France, and United Kingdom on his final day in New York.

Much of it was in the social media space. The anti-Modi troll patrol was up and about leaping on everything from US President Obama's minor faux pas of referring to the Indian leader as 'President Modi', to the Prime Minister's choice of clothes and the fact that he changed four times on one day.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...iumphant-trip-abroad/articleshow/49156798.cms

 

[prasad1]

 

[prasad1]

All this heady talk of digital India makes me think we are aspiring to sprint before learning to walk. The Silicon Valley honchos Narendra Modi met recently egged him on to make breathtaking promises using fashionable IT jargon he probably doesn’t himself fully comprehend. But seeing he is a man of the people, the Prime Minister should realise that men like Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are making their fortunes in the US because they are more committed to their own careers than to India.

The announcement of public WiFi spots at 500 railway stations and an aggressive expansion of the National Optical Fibre Network to take broadband to 600,000 villages sound even more delusional when one remembers what grubby dumps Indian railway stations have been reduced to and what a rarity even electricity is in rural India. It would serve a more useful purpose if trains ran on time with fewer accidents, railway catering improved, and if stations had comfortable waiting rooms, clean lavatories, and pleasant eating places. Companies like Kellner, Spencer and Sorabji lie outside Mr Modi’s experience but his office can do some research and advise him on the excellent but affordable restaurants and dining cars they used to run. Today’s Indian Railway Tourism Corporation is a disgrace.

I am not sure Mr Modi really wants the new-fangled technology he appears to hanker after. It could well be the dazzle of novelty. I suspect his officers and aides are too sycophantic to tell him that IT would be as useless in satisfying the people’s basic needs as membership of the United Nations Security Council. The pernicious effects of social imbalance are evident in many small things around us.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150929/commentary-columnists/article/walk-you-sprint

Sarangji will immediate brand it as communist, secularist propaganda. LOL

 

[prasad1]

 

[yesmohan]

All this heady talk of digital India makes me think we are aspiring to sprint before learning to walk. The Silicon Valley honchos Narendra Modi met recently egged him on to make breathtaking promises using fashionable IT jargon he probably doesn’t himself fully comprehend.

Tom, Tick or Harry whoever sit in the seat of PM, surrounded by techno savy people, that Tom, Tick or Harry would also appear to be techno savy to the outer world. Only people around could know the bitter truth.

 

[tbs]

hi

we dont have basic things to all ppl....education, health and basic electicity to charge DIGITAL INDIA......roads are bad.....

we need good agriculture facility with 24 hours water for all farmers throughout india.....

 

[sangom]

The whole "Modi syndrome" has been nicely summed up in another article in Deccan Chronicle as under:

"Hopefully, lessons will be learnt and when Prime Minister Modi visits the UK in November, where again the diaspora awaits at the Wembley, the statesman in Modi will trump the "pracharak".

 

[Brahmanyan]

PM Modi's US visit.

hi
we dont have basic things to all ppl....education, health and basic electicity to charge DIGITAL INDIA......roads are bad.....
we need good agriculture facility with 24 hours water for all farmers throughout india.....

Dear Sri "tbs".

I am in agreement with your views. Today's "Deccan Herald" Bangalore edition carries excellent writeup by Prof. S N Chary, echoing the same view under the caption "'Digital India' is okay but provide basic needs please", which is available in the following weblink:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/503588/digital-india-okay-provide-basic.html
No doubt Prime Minister Modi is sincere in his efforts to Develop the Country as a Digital giant and an Industrial hub. How ever he should now turn his efforts towards strengthening rural India, where the basic needs yet to reach.

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[sangom]

In this one and a half years' time, almost all foreign governments must have "measured" Modi, although, as courtesy demands they will only say goody goody things publicly. It will be a difficult task for Modi to get even some FDI or other help.

 

[Iyyarooraan]

Modiji is the NRI Prime Minister of India - full form of NRI is "nahin rehtehein hai idar". Meanwhile a friend of mine informs me that Modiji will visit India till November. RBI RR announces repo cut. Inflation under control; not prices of onion or tomato ruling same level. Onion prices do not bring tears because rains have been poor this year. Thank god! Nothing has changed. Only the government and PM changed...

 

[tbs]

Dear Sri "tbs".

I am in agreement with your views. Today's "Deccan Herald" Bangalore edition carries excellent writeup by Prof. S N Chary, echoing the same view under the caption "'Digital India' is okay but provide basic needs please", which is available in the following weblink:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/503588/digital-india-okay-provide-basic.html
No doubt Prime Minister Modi is sincere in his efforts to Develop the Country as a Digital giant and an Industrial hub. How ever he should now turn his efforts towards strengthening rural India, where the basic needs yet to reach.

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

hi sir,

thanks for the article from deccanherald.....i quote from deccanherald...

‘Basic’ struggles
India’s problems still are at the very basic level: food, health, hygiene and primary education. “Roti” is the most basic problem. “Kapda (clothes) and Makaan (house)” are quite far. Health and hygiene are problems that have not been resolved even in the biggest and IT-savvy metros.

i feel the same.....i feel.....india is still poor country....many farmers are still dying without water.....river issue/

water issue has to be solved...village/farmers are backbone of india...if we want industrial hubs...we have to loose

agricultural land.....i heard many delta tamil nadu farmers are going to commit suicide due to lack of water....

DIGITAL INDIA NEED 24 HOURS ELECTRICITY.....SWACCH BHARAT ABHIYAN NEEDS 24 HOURS WATER SUPPLY TO

CLEAN THE TOILET......INDUSTIRIAL HUBS NEED WELL CONNECTED ROADS.....EVEN MANY VILLAGES DOES NOT

HAVE ROADS/ELECRICITY....

 

[yesmohan]

hi sir,

thanks for the article from deccanherald.....i quote from deccanherald...

‘B“Roti” is the most

i feel the same.....i feel.....india is still poor country....many farmers are still dying without water.....river issue/

water issue has to be solved...village/farmers are backbone of india...if we want industrial hubs...we have to loose agricultural land.....i heard many delta tamil nadu farmers are going to commit suicide due to lack of water....

DIGITAL INDIA NEED 24 HOURS ELECTRICITY.....SWACCH BHARAT ABHIYAN NEEDS 24 HOURS WATER SUPPLY T
CLEAN THE TOILET......

Modi have no time to think about about Tamilnadu and its problems.

 

[tks]

Dear Sri "tbs".

I am in agreement with your views. Today's "Deccan Herald" Bangalore edition carries excellent writeup by Prof. S N Chary, echoing the same view under the caption "'Digital India' is okay but provide basic needs please", which is available in the following weblink:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/503588/digital-india-okay-provide-basic.html
No doubt Prime Minister Modi is sincere in his efforts to Develop the Country as a Digital giant and an Industrial hub. How ever he should now turn his efforts towards strengthening rural India, where the basic needs yet to reach.

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

All,

I think many journalist do not get it in my view.

There is no way a single person or even a new government can change the reality of poverty simply by policy changes and government actions. There are deep rooted corruption that permeates across the structured society like cancer.

Ultimately change of attitude of people will only bring about lasting change and in that sense any leader can only play the role of being a change-agent.
PM Modi has to inspire people into action in addition to his own control of Government bureaucracy. In the short run he needs to create new jobs and find ways to bring new investments from outsiders.

The people used to *only* linear thinking such as many of his critics cannot understand this. For example, India was able to leap frog in many sectors with the advent of wireless technology. Gone are the days when getting a phone used to take 5 to 10 years and special contacts in the government.

There are many businesses worldwide stuck in old ways. Meanwhile we have several billion dollar enterprises simply by leveraging simple ideas. Amazon is a giant retailer without a single store. Yes, they have a warehouse but that is just to move the products.

Uber has created billion dollar enterprise worldwide without owning a single car.

Airbnb is in hoteling business of billion dollar valuation without owning a single building.

If India has to leap frog, it has to leverage its natural strengths and use the emerging technologies as one of its solution.

PM Modi articulated his vision and shows he truly understands what motivates a business. He was not appealing to the NRI crowd or was cheap to think Nadella of the world will just 'help' India because of their Indian roots. That is silly. The appeal is so strong that they all want to invest in India for own gain.

Where else in the world can one find a marketplace of 1.25 billion people (who will all come up in prosperity level sooner or later )? The big companies looking to make their next billion dollars do look at India carefully. They know its issues but they want a leader they can trust.

PM Modi emphasized the strengths and called it the three D's.

1. Democracy (in the sense India is a better investment place than China to move manufacturing)
2. Demographics (extremely young population which is the only sustainable thing for employment and production over the next few decades). Workers in other countries will be dying away
3. De-regulation - at least the promise of it by him.

The investors were able to resonate with this though everyone knew it is going to be hard to fix the third part (and also the unsaid corruption aspects).

PM Modi has people to delegate. It is not that his visiting some people means the focus of his attention is gone from domestic area. Anyone that has run a medium sized organization at a minimum knows that smart delegation is key to making progress and that progress comes about not by fixated linear thinking.

While I may represent a minority view i this forum I am more optimistic about PM Modi and his approach.

No, I am not part of any Hindutva team

 

[prasad1]

[h=1]Any Real Gains?: What has Modi's Silicon Valley trip taught us?[/h]

While the trip was high on photo-ops and a rather gawdy speech to a audience that seemed so thrilled to be in the PM's presence that they felt the need to applaud every line that he spoke, NRI sentiment alone is a unsteady bastion to measure the fate of India.

It is curious that the PM chose to ask them a 'report card' on his performance - people who do not actually experience the governance he offers, but merely hear about it second-hand.

NRIs are not interested in accountability, transparency, accessibility and participation if their investment yields high returns. They couldn’t have been bothered that I was stranded to Baroda last week, unable to call a taxi online after the city police commissioner announced vengefully that the notification has been issued to ban mobile Internet and 2G and 3G services indefinitely.

India doesn’t need M-governance or e-governance. It needs governance. India doesn’t need smart cities. Just cities that Europe and America would recognise as such."

"The Modi government's own relationship to the Internet captures the latter's double-edged nature. The same week Modi began his tour of the US, his government shut down the Internet for three days in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, while Indian bureaucrats presented a draft policy paper suggesting that citizens should keep unencrypted records of every electronic communication for 90 days and present them to law - enforcement officers on demand. (The much-mocked proposal was hastily withdrawn.) A few months earlier, the government argued vigorously — if unsuccessfully — in the Supreme Court to retain a draconian law that Indian police had used to arrest people posting opinions on Facebook and Twitter."


The world expects big changes and not merely a congregation of incremental actions. Implementing initiatives which have commenced and synergising them with some of these ideas can make a qualitative difference. We can ill afford the Modi euphoria to become a false dawn.

http://www.samachar.com/khayal/

 

[sangom]

Modi's chest thumping promises made during his pre-election speeches and his delivery on most of those promises have serious mismatches. For example after 16 months' of his world tours and lot of tax payers' money having been wasted on an unnecessary SIT and its big staff, Modi has unearthed only about 4000 crores (out of the 18 lakh crores, he hollered about). The GOI can get only 60% of this 4000 crores, not full! Similar is the fate of many other "tall" promises he made — Swacch Bharat, Clean Ganga, Superfast trains, etc., etc. — are all similar 'writing on water'.

Modi has been undermining the Parliament because he could not bring it under his complete subservience. Thus he has all the indications of a budding autocrat. His subservience to RSS is another indication. All in all, if Modi rules for 5 years we don't know where India will go. But one thing is for sure, the poor and hapless people will be left under the mercy of the "trickle down" theory and not the "trickle up" theory.

Modi probably goes abroad continually because he feels more at home abroad! and also feels elated when they cheer him. His foreign visits will not achieve anything substantial for the ordinary Indians.