An AYM GRAMD from IIT

Dear Friends,


Here is a personal experience, as well as a moment of national pride, which I want to share with you. Hope you find it worth the time you put in reading it :



"In the middle of 1965 India-Pakistan war, US govt - then a close friend of Pakistan - threatened India with stopping food-aid (remember "PL-480"?). For a food deficient India this threat was serious and humiliating. So much so that in the middle of war, Prime Minister (Late) Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Ram Leela Grounds in Delhi and appealed to each Indian to observe one-meal-fast every week to answer the American threat. As a school boy, I joined those millions who responded to Shastri ji's call. I continued the fast even when the war was over and India became self sufficient in food. Hurt deep by the national humiliation suffered at the hands of the US govt, I had vowed
to stop my weekly fast only when India starts giving aid to USA.



It took just 40 years. Last week THE day arrived. When Indian ambassador in Washington DC handed over a cheque of US$ 50 million to the US govt, two plane loads of food, medical aid and other relief materials were waiting to fly to the USA. Time to break the fast? With no bad feeling about the USA, and good wishes for the Katrina victims, this humble Indian feels proud of the distance India has covered in 40 years. Let's celebrate a New India!"



- Vijay Kranti.

Without taking away the credit from India's achievements, I'd like to point out the following:

It is EXTREMELY difficult for a nation of this size and population to not have covered this distance in 40 years. I mean, you should've been extremely talented as a finance minister to have stopped the growth of a nation whose GDP was 40 billion$ in 1947. North Korea and Russia manged to achieve it nevertheless

Outsourcing was not an Indian invention. Had it not been for some smart guy sitting in Palo Alto, we would never have( a cautious never ) figured out outsourcing by oruselves.

Stop the mindless jingoism and ride the new economic wave.