Viswanathan K's Thoughts

There’s been lots of coverage on the Greek financial crisis for different reasons. Some fear that Greece is the tip of the iceberg and that other countries in Europe would go down next and prolong the recession. They are derogatorily referred to as the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). Is that an appropriate acronym or what? Others fear that this would be the beginning of the end of the Euro currency. After all, Greece’s irresponsible loan taking spree ended up forcing a stronger economy (Germany) to bail it out to save the common currency (Euro). Wouldn’t that make the stronger countries like France and Germany long for the days of the Mark and the Franc? After all, in the pre-Euro days, their currency could not be dragged through the mud by the actions of other countries. Nor would they be forced to save other irresponsible countries. And finally, the British and Americans were gloating. Britain could adopt the I-told-you-so attitude and preen as to how smart they were to h...

With the spurt in parts of India that want to become separate states or even breakaway from the country altogether, many feel gloomy. Telengana wants to become a separate state; and when the Center indicated that it might allow that, then people wondered whether that would be the beginning of the end, the unraveling of India. Some fear that India is splitting up. Pakistan and China’s dream come true scenario. Let’s forget the parts that want to secede from India altogether. I find it very hard to evaluate the merits of the cases where parts of a state want to become a new, separate state. Is it just politicians whipping up feelings? Is it only because politicians want more states because that would mean more CM posts? Or are some states too big to be governed effectively? Are some states so mismanaged that parts of them feel they’d do better if they were separate? I don’t know. Some in India complain that we seem to want to split and de-unify while the Europeans are moving to...

To paraphrase that old saying, “Give a man charity , and you feed him for a day. Give him a job and you feed him for a life time.” And yet, many talk as if the person doing charity is better than the one creating jobs! Of course, there are times when charity is necessary (like after the tsunami in 2004, or in Haiti now) but most of the time, people want jobs. Sunil Mittal, founder of Airtel, has put a phone in the hands of 100 million Indians. Why resent it, if in the process, he has become one of the world’s richest men? Before telecom got privatized, how many years did you have to wait for a phone connection? But hey, let’s just curse Mittal for being rich. Reliance employs a huge number of people. They include uneducated ones, the 12th pass and the ones with degrees (engineers, MBA’s). Shouldn’t we be glad that jobs are there for such a vast set of people? Why hate the Ambanis just because they are rich? People resent the rich. Or maybe they just envy the rich. I always find it wei...