I came across this article by Tavleen Singh (read it in The Afternoon, May 19), and it struck a chord:
Our most serious problem is the inability to build basic 21st century infrastructure without which there is little doubt that our great Bharat Mata will by the middle of this century resemble one, gigantic slum. More than 700 million Indians are expected to be living in urban centres by 2050 and to accommodate them experts calculate that we will need to build 500 more towns and cities. We have not started to build the first of these yet…It is our misfortune that the voice of poor Indians is only heard at election time. If it was stronger and louder all the time India would change more rapidly. It is our misfortune that the loudest voices in India are of educated, middle class Indians who are easily fooled into supporting some red herring like the Lokpal bill when there are much more serious issues to protest about. So in the near future India will continue to look like a broken down, decaying country despite impressive economic growth while little countries like Thailand go from strength to strength.
Where is the vision and will when we need it most to transform India?
