What about inclusive growth in India?

India has made a lot of great achievments in a very short period of time. They are becoming very influent on the world, their economic growth is tremenduous. But what about inclusive growth ? Does, in India at least,  economic growth automatically mean well-being ?

The main problem deals with the reformers, who are stuck to the old British institutional systems, which is totally outdated. India needs to reform its own institutions starting from legal system  to find ways to be more transparent. I think that India can only thrive under a system that give to all Indian citizens a genuine opportunity to prosper. Moreover, India and its growing population will always doing harsh jobs for a great part of the world. How can this situation evolve ? How can economic growth be linked to development ? How to foster it ?

Then, despite of the economic growth, there is still a lot to do about corruption, violent religions,  the poor cities likes Bungalore where the number of people below the poverty line is going to rise. Somebody said one generation has to suffer so that the future generations can enjoy the benefits of change.


To conclude, I would say that, generally speaking, the BRICs are currently facing this issue. In other words, they tend to prefer economic growth at the expense of development. Then, that's a kind of mistake to say that BRICs will be the future (excuse me, the Future). Of course they will be. But some countries need to take into account people's needs. I am quite sure that economic growth is not the most important thing to be in the political spectrum.

Who fears the dragon?

The business magazine The Economist is questioning the rise of China as part of its  "Where do you stand?" advertising campaign. Two posters, totally different of course,  have been created. Here is a summary of what each one is saying.

China Is A Threat To The West

• China spends about $100 billion on defence, almost three times as much as a decade ago, and nearly twice as much as Britain.
• China cracked down on minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang and persecuted campaigners like the Nobel laureate, Liu Xiaobo.
• China’s hunger for raw materials is exhausting the earth and bolstering corrupt regimes in the developing world.

 China Is A Friend To The West

• China makes a fifth of all the world’s goods. It kits out the West’s consumers and finances the West’s borrowers.
• China goes out of its way to emphasise that it wants a “peaceful rise”. No other great power in history has done that.
• China is the world’s biggest investor in green technology.

The two posters  were placed next to each other, displaying both sides of the argument around China, at various media sites in the UK towards the end of June. The ads aim to attract new readers, in order to change people’s stands on the magazine, seen as exclusively reserved to  high-powered business people.

Below you can see the posters on the London underground.

As for me, I have some difficulties to express my opinions on China. That is why i found this campaign rather interesting. Because The Economist have been reflexing upon pros and cons, and has tried to reach as many people as possible by doing an efficient campaign. If you were on London this summer, I guess you couldn't have missed it !

And you, what do you think ? Is China a threat or a friend to the West ?

My name is Google and I can do whatever I want.

Google, who does not know Google ? Google, maybe one of the most popular websites in the world. To sum it up : Google is da place to be. Trendy, agreable, convenient... But why Google is blamed ?

I think that Google is blamed for its licentiousness, its trade-off with the Chinese Government, and for its trespassing into people's lives. On the one hand, the other media blame Google for unfairly thriving them at their expense. On the other hand, it has nettled the whole political spectrum by taking various controversial liberties on several tricky issues. Then, Google has undoubtedly triggered a debate over its trustwhortiness.

Google can be compared to a sort of financial institution thriving on the customers funds. It is entrusted with and thus made morally accountable for them. Both alternatives Google is confronted with are bound to have a negative impact either on users' privacy or on its own profit and efficiency. It is therefore faced with a dilemma concerning the forthecoming management of private data.

I think that Google should openly face the face that it is an efficient profit-making company instead of stubbornly sticking to its politically correct stance. It will not be able to sustain and that is therefore bound to be difficult. Most companies  keep consumer information for themselves to adapt or boost their marketing strategy. So, why not accepting this undeniable fact ?

In Rainbows - Illegal Downloading

Here is my podcast dealing with illegal downloading !

A Google bus in India

Hi ! You can listen to my podcast, dealing with an interesting way to bridge the digital divide here. Sorry for the lame quality of my podcast, but SoundCloud does not work on my computer (I can't go to this website). I hope that's it's quite understandable !

How to overcome the digital divide ?

At least, at the local level, we can act in order to erradicate this recent phenomenon. Look at this video ! In order to counteract this issue, some people advocate social measures -even tiny ones- whereby governements would attribute incentives for instance. Money being a major incentive, and bringing new technology involving heavy expenditure, it seems a quite relevant way to bridge the digital divide. In addition, this policy may well turn out to be beneficial to society at large.

I think we should look at it as an investment ! Today's donators are tomorrow's participants in building a new world ! The money invested in public librairies, in recycling old computers can bring benefits. This is even more true at the local level -and to be convinced, just look at this short but nice video! The strictly financial aspect is not the only one : it is also a matter of choice. Some people cannot afford to buy computers, however much they would like to.

If such people received, indirectly, money from the state, the digital divide would be perhaps erased. "Money can't buy you love". Of course, it does not. But it can level out some social inequalities in order to leave no ones out. Not only more tech-savy families, but also more happy AND tech-savy familes would result for this kind of measures.

Globalisation, I'm writing your name.

It is really difficult trying to talk about the economic gap between the North and the South. Yet, maybe we can try to explain it. Instead of feeling sad. At least.

I think that both the industrial revolution and globalisation have created blatant inequalities. The former entailed deep social changes, the creation of a destitute working class, kept at starvation level by low wages, living in slums in new industrial centres and submitted to the sweating system.

The latter is often accused of increasing the gap between the Western world and developing countries, though some specialists contend that, far from putting poor countries at a disadvantage, globalisation has helped them to grow faster. Others also claim that, were it not for the WTO, the situation might play in the hands of the multinationals at the expense of the losers.

Maybe it's not globalisation in itself that must be questioned, but the way it is implemented. We should then try and check the worst excesses of globalisation so that the global village leaves no ones out.