India: two weeks after the trip

St. Patrick's Day, 2014

More thoughts on India

Modi, "Slumdog Millionaire", and India's Rural Sector

Modi

Narendra Modi is likely to soon to become India's next Prime Minister. Foreign investment and domestic economic activity are on a rise due to this news. There seems to be hope that Modi will help rid India of its patronage systems whereby at every level of government there's an official who requires a payoff in order to allow a deal or project to go forward. Just how Modi plans on changing this is my big question. I hoe that he does.

But there are several India experts who have serious doubt about this guy.

This piece, "Banned in Bangalore" talks about how he is a Hindu Nationalist that rejects the erotic aspect of Hinduism's true nature and more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/opinion/banned-in-bangalore.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26contentCollection%3DOpinion%26region%3DTopBar%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26pgtype%3DBlogs%23%2Fmodi%2Fsince1851%2Fallresults%2F1%2Fallauthors%2Frelevance%2Fopinion%2F

This is piece in "The Guardian"that I haven't read yet:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/narendra-modi-india-bjp-leader-elections

Here's the NYTimes collection of articles about him:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/narendra_modi/?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26contentCollection%3DOpinion%26region%3DTopBar%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26pgtype%3Darticle%23%2Fmodi

Slumdog

Just watched for the second time "Slumdog". It's brutal! Wish I had seen it again before going to India (I think? Maybe it would have negatively colored my whole experience there; or opened my eyes more...) The poverty is devastating.

Final thought for this post: India's Rural Sector

India is about 80% rural. Seems to me that India needs to direct a lot aid and interest to the small rural farmers in order to prevent a complete flooding of people into its already heavily over-crowded cities. Preventing predatory lending practices may be one important step.

Here's a good piece on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/world/asia/after-farmers-commit-suicide-debts-fall-on-families-in-india.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%23%2Findia%2Bfarmers%2F