The real translation of the word NRI should be "National Reserve of India” as we look at the growth of Indian diaspora across the world, said Dr Shashi Tharoor. "I am seeing the way in which they helped the growth of the country where they are living in as well as their home country in terms of sharing of their assets and values", Dr Tharror said.
Dr Shashi Tharoor was in Kuwait to attend the 7th annual event of Indian Business and Professional Council (IBPC) at Radisson Blu. “IBPC is creating an opportunity to thank the people of Kuwait by awarding successful Kuwaiti businessman”, he said.
India is unique in many ways, perhaps the only country with so much of ethnicity, language, culture all together with its uniqueness as one state. India is a country where they have 300 ways of cooking potatoes across the country, he said pointing to the different culture of our country. Until we implemented GST, India was a 1 state with 29 markets.
Today India is in a state of transition. Once 90% of the population was below the poverty line where as now 26 % below is in the poverty line, still the number is terrible. Literacy rate is growing from 16% to 79%. Average life expectancy has grown from 24% to 70%. All these suggest the extraordinary journey India has made, he said.
IMF was not unreasonably optimistic in proclaiming in 2015 that we will be going to the fasted growing major economy in the world. They could not predict the disastrous consequences of some of the demonetization in the following year, which of course set the economy back nearly by half a percent. But the fundamentals I believe is that Indians are capable of replicating the spirit of the entrepreneurship and success that you all are practicing here in Kuwait at your home country also, Dr Tharoor said.
India is unique. India is a place where bullock carts are an indispensable mode of transport for millions and yet become the first country to launch an orbit around Mars successfully on its first attempt. India holds the records in number of mobile phones sold in a month whereas India also holds records in the number of suicide cases of farmers due to financial debt. India is only spending 1.2% of GDP on public health whereas country like China spend 3% or much larger for public health. The challenges are many.
As of 2017 India had 100+ billionaires with a combined worth of 479 billion dollars, greater than the GDP of the majority of the member states in the United Nations. While applauding for that, we also need to know that we have a 360 million people living below the poverty line. These are all real challenges our country is facing.
Currently the unemployment rate is the worst. There are Maoist insurgency due to unemployment, which is the biggest danger for a society. We have many majors’ advances and extraordinary progress in growth and success, but our challenges remain. The transition must go beyond those billionaires and must reach the billions at the bottom. In India the transition takes time. The Airports are improved dramatically but we still have only 13,000 kms of express way. In a country like China, they can make an expressways in a spark where as in India even to widen a main road, we face lot of agitations by the villagers, dharnas by politicians etc. We have to overcome these challenges.
Sad thing for us India today is that some in power or close to those in power are raising the challenges for India’s successful future. Few politicians are dividing the country specifically in the name of religion and cast. These can hurt India's larger aspiration for growth. Especially in the northern part of India, there are some genuine concern about the distinction between the majority and minority particularly when a certain political party are speaking for the majority Indian, Dr Tharoor said. Those of us who do not subscribe to this divisive ideology has to continue speaking up and encourage to get the right message across about a united India. "I do not want India to become a Hindu Pakistan", Dr Tharoor concluded.