02-04 India

It was a debate during my active years as a member of the International Small Business Congress whether China with its authoritarian top down leadership was more effective in governing compared to India with its democratic institutions. Both societies are so different and so complex.
What was so interesting about India is that it was in such a continuous state of flux. Corruption? Yes. Poverty? Yes. But armies of educated young people. And continuous improvement in dealing with the tough issues of child fatalities, longevity, birth control and illiteracy.
The general view from my colleagues from India was that they were dealing with over population because providing the basics like housing, feeding and clothing the masses was so difficult.
And, if you want evidence check out the armies looking for free transportation by train. The current population of India is 1.38 billion and growing by about 15 million a year.
For many of the impoverished areas of India, the big issue is clean water. And the major job for women is to gather water. And some Muslim men have more than one wife, simply because he needs more water for agriculture.
What so few people realize is that with the low birth rates in all the developed nations the future challenge is going to be a shortage of workers. That is why India is an important partner for the US and Europe. Already supply chains are moving from China to India.
It was interesting for me after being to China and seeing the implications of their one child policy and the shortage of women to discover that India has a similar problem.
Pregnant women want to know if they are carrying a son or a daughter. Sons are favoured because they will look after the parents in their old age. And in India there is a lot of sex-related abortions.
The numbers are fuzzy but it is in the order of about 25-30 million more men than women. What this means is that buying a wife in India is an expensive business. Not sure all the ladies in the photo are single.