And for a Friday in Mumbai, ever changing, ever improving and G20 delegates/VIPs all over, some thoughts….. some musings…..
Mumbai exudes a level of optimism and confidence. No other city comes anywhere close to it, notwithstanding the traffic snarls due to huge infra projects. The optimistic mood of the economy is captured in the Mumbai stock markets. BSE is back to 60K in spite of the Global upheavals and its consequences, particularly to the developing and poorer economies. India continues to be an outlier considering the way inflation, growth and the post Covid recovery has been handled by Indians. Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, summed up India’s strength whilst inaugurating the first Apple Store in BKC, Mumbai; “India’s creativity is absolutely unbelievable. Off the chart the range is amazing. Soft skills, fashion design, movies and apps for the world”. He took time off to visit my friend Indu Shahani’s Atlas SkillTech University and was amazed at innovative projects by the students. At an average age of 29, India is poised to serve the global demand for human skills.
In the midst of all these opportunities, if we were to identify RCA ( Root Cause Analysis ) for the one most important factor pulling India down from its deserving pace of growth is corruption – greed of some people to get rich by any means. There is nothing wrong in wanting to be rich. It must be the legal, ethical and competitive way. Thanks to Social media, awareness amongst citizenry and many committed and motivated high profile individuals like Justice Hegde, Shailesh Gandhi and many hundreds like them, early green shoots are visible. Imagine a PWD Minister of a state lamenting that in spite of his efforts the “Cash for Transfers” malpractices continues. He is determined to curb it. Or a District and Sessions Judge specifically appointed to fast track corruption cases against MLAs and MPs, himself is raided by the anti-corruption bureau of Haryana. Unified Payments Systems, Jandhan accounts and 659 mn smart phones owning Indians with built in high range cameras and recorders are changing awareness levels not only in the big cities but also in tier-2, tier-3 and even big villages in the country.
As the school year draws to an end, with exams getting over and summer vacations starting, families will be vacationing this year. Let’s all enjoy the family time, the caring way, the enjoyable way, the SEEGOS way.