Have you noticed that entertainment channels are big on reality, whereas the reality channels (news) are big on entertainment? I wonder if this is an inevitable side-effect of globalization, internet revolution, the fusing of different media, and Thomas Friedman's flat world. When I grew up, TV was an escape from reality. In a typical middle-class household, the man back from a day's toil, the woman exhausted after household chores, the kids finished with their homework and studies get together in front of the TV to let go of their everyday woes and immerse themselves into the world of the protagonist of a soap opera. Of course, shows of this genre are still popular. In fact, it is plentifully available, albeit stretched beyond the wildest imagination of a sensible human being. Yet, they can be pardoned for they continue to provide viewers a respite from their daily routines.
But how does one explain reality shows? It is the cheapest form of entertainment and caters to one emotion and one emotion only – schadenfreude. (I admit I looked the word up when writing this post.) It means enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others, which is exactly what we get out of reality shows. One might mistakenly conclude that shows such as Zee Saregama or even Indian Idol are different, for they unearth hidden talent. Have you seen episodes where they play the auditions? If the motive was to find the best, why waste airtime on showing the worst? And even in the main competition, you cheer for someone you like, and pray the other guys lose. You go thru the same feelings when watching a soap opera, you root for the bahu and hate the saas or vice-versa. That's good for an artificial show with artificial characters – you switch off the TV and they disappear. But reality shows have real people in them whom you hardly know but are loving or hating them. And your decisions – such as voting - change their life forever. Do we realize this responsibility? What we get from watching shows such as Sach ka Saamna, Big Boss etc should now be obvious.
Are quiz shows, KBCs and Dus ka Dam different? Only slightly. Lesser of the evils, if you want to call them that. I have watched innumerable BQC episodes where I was filled with glee as teams from Chennai got a drubbing. Why? Just because I didn't care much for that city. I am sure we have similar reasons for rooting for or hating a contestant on KBC or any such show.
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, April 26, 2007
India...10 years from now
These days, nothing written about about India, particularly in India, is complete without a mention of how India will beat China, sooner than later, in the race for global domination. There are some very valid underlying assumptions that lead business pundits to make these conclusions. But, several others are ignored, ones that could compound over the years and negate everything we have achieved so far.Almost everyone agrees the present trend of growth driven by capitalism started with the economic reforms in 1991. Which means, we are new to economic growth, still learning how to sustain it, and not even close to figuring out how to do it right. For now, we are trying our best to emulate the developed nations. In other words, we are playing catch up, and nothing wrong with that. So long as we realize this is lap 2 of a 50 lap race and we should try and sustain the momentum rather than go all out.But, there are so many opportunities for growth, you say? Why not whiz past the competition to the checkered flag? Well, the prosperity experienced by India is a direct and sole consequence of the IT boom. And if you ask me, the IT boom was one of the most fortunate accidents that ever happened to a nation. Think abou this: What have we done to deserve the benefits of the boom? Our English language skills, the main reason why India is such a lucrative offshore destination, are the legacy of the British, yes, the same ones who we so proudly drove out of our country. Sure, we had enterprizing young men who foresaw the opportunity and mobilized millions of middle-class English-speaking graduates from factories and warehouses into air-conditioned offices, but even after being involved in the IT revolution for a decade now, we are yet to invent a single IT product or software. The only area where our creativity has shown results is in our ingenuity to develop new ways of propagating piracy.
Let's do a reality check here. Our infrastructure: deplorable; education system: miserable; political and bureaucratic structure: rotten; social values: outdated; health care: nonexistent; law and order: unreliable. It is pretty clear the current economic growth is despite these ills, and not because of them. And that's the big difference. These factors are the cornerstones of sustainable longterm prosperity, and if you look at the ten most developed or richest countries in the world, you will see each of these factors is actively supports and sustains, barring the political system, of course, which has its own ways. The question, then, is what is India doing to change this situation? The answer is painfully obvious: nothing.
Plans to make Mumbai a Shanghai have been on paper for years now and by the time it gets approved, the plan will already be outdated. The decision to privatize Delhi and Mumbai airports was met with staunch opposition that raised an unbearable stench, but thankfully, sense prevailed. Most of India still uses the railways as the primary mode of travel, and despite the stellar financial figures, the railways is in a terrible condition. Can you imagine the ensuing outburst if the government were to privatize railways? The recent boom in the domestic airline travel might indicate prosperity, but our airports are badly equipped to handle existing flight traffic, let alone future increases. And what about our reliance on oil? Thanks to the auto boom, our consumption of oil keeps rising, but what is our contigency plan if a crisis were to erupt in the middle east? When Ahmedijinad may use the bomb is anyone's guess. Some more signs of an impending disaster:
1. Nandigram. No due diligence was done before identifying a SEZ that underlines the incompetency of our governments, and the over-reaction to the incident shows our outdated thinking.
2. Walmart. The central Government opposes Walmart's entry because the retail giant might put several middlemen and distributors out of work. Certainly, a sizeable percentage of the population, but what about the millions of consumers and farmers who will stand to gain from lowered prices and efficient supply chains? And even worse, why stop Walmart, but not Reliance which has exactly the same plans?
3. Political structure. Murli Manohar Joshi created a ruckus by reducing fees at IIMs to 20,000 and now it's Arjun Singh's turn to make some noise by announcing new quotas. These moves only manage to jeopardize the future of thousands of students, some of whom might be the next Jack Welch or Narayana Murthy.
So where are we headed? I can see these social and political ills closing in on the economic growth we are having. We already have a big divide in the economic power of urban and rural India. Without radical social and political changes, this divide will widen further, and could lead to an economic debacle like the one we witnessed in Indonesia and Argentina. Even worse, such a situation could perpetuate political chaos and unrest, and the clock on our progress will be turned back by 50 years.
Having said that, I recently read a book called Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin Friedman, where the author promotes the view that economic prosperity will lead to social and moral progress. He backs this up with several well-researched and nicely articulated examples. Let's all pray the current economic growth will continue despite the ills, and consequently rid us of these.
Let's do a reality check here. Our infrastructure: deplorable; education system: miserable; political and bureaucratic structure: rotten; social values: outdated; health care: nonexistent; law and order: unreliable. It is pretty clear the current economic growth is despite these ills, and not because of them. And that's the big difference. These factors are the cornerstones of sustainable longterm prosperity, and if you look at the ten most developed or richest countries in the world, you will see each of these factors is actively supports and sustains, barring the political system, of course, which has its own ways. The question, then, is what is India doing to change this situation? The answer is painfully obvious: nothing.
Plans to make Mumbai a Shanghai have been on paper for years now and by the time it gets approved, the plan will already be outdated. The decision to privatize Delhi and Mumbai airports was met with staunch opposition that raised an unbearable stench, but thankfully, sense prevailed. Most of India still uses the railways as the primary mode of travel, and despite the stellar financial figures, the railways is in a terrible condition. Can you imagine the ensuing outburst if the government were to privatize railways? The recent boom in the domestic airline travel might indicate prosperity, but our airports are badly equipped to handle existing flight traffic, let alone future increases. And what about our reliance on oil? Thanks to the auto boom, our consumption of oil keeps rising, but what is our contigency plan if a crisis were to erupt in the middle east? When Ahmedijinad may use the bomb is anyone's guess. Some more signs of an impending disaster:
1. Nandigram. No due diligence was done before identifying a SEZ that underlines the incompetency of our governments, and the over-reaction to the incident shows our outdated thinking.
2. Walmart. The central Government opposes Walmart's entry because the retail giant might put several middlemen and distributors out of work. Certainly, a sizeable percentage of the population, but what about the millions of consumers and farmers who will stand to gain from lowered prices and efficient supply chains? And even worse, why stop Walmart, but not Reliance which has exactly the same plans?
3. Political structure. Murli Manohar Joshi created a ruckus by reducing fees at IIMs to 20,000 and now it's Arjun Singh's turn to make some noise by announcing new quotas. These moves only manage to jeopardize the future of thousands of students, some of whom might be the next Jack Welch or Narayana Murthy.
So where are we headed? I can see these social and political ills closing in on the economic growth we are having. We already have a big divide in the economic power of urban and rural India. Without radical social and political changes, this divide will widen further, and could lead to an economic debacle like the one we witnessed in Indonesia and Argentina. Even worse, such a situation could perpetuate political chaos and unrest, and the clock on our progress will be turned back by 50 years.
Having said that, I recently read a book called Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin Friedman, where the author promotes the view that economic prosperity will lead to social and moral progress. He backs this up with several well-researched and nicely articulated examples. Let's all pray the current economic growth will continue despite the ills, and consequently rid us of these.
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