A lot is being made of how great a deal has been made on the so called Bullet train project by getting a huge loan at a negligible rate of interest. As if the loan doesn't need to be repaid at all. And the loan has been availed without any strings attached for the development of India with the most altruistic reasons by the Japanese. If the loan is so cheap that you don't have to pay almost no interest at all , then why not spend it on medical and educational infrastructure throughout the country instead of a high speed train system that will benefit only a particular region . Belies logic.
How many medical colleges , hospitals and research institutions could be built with this money , can you guess ? And they would all pay a huge dividend in terms of health, education , job creation and small scale industries instead of helping brokers from Gujarat to visit Mumbai and have their tipple. The whole thing is a total bullshit in terms of cost effectiveness and long range planning.
It is surprising how the simple fundamentals of the development narrative is being construed as a route to embark on grandiose schemes without bothering to address the priorities. The nearest analogy that comes to mind is that of a poor or middle class person splurging on the funeral of his father by inviting the whole village for a grand meal to show off his social commitments when the roof of his house is leaking and his children not even having school uniforms to wear.
By neglecting or abdicating the responsibilities the governments , central or state are pushing the country into a dark hole . By 2020 onwards India will be the country with the largest population. Consequently we will also become the country with the largest population of aged , infirm , malnourished and illiterate. This will continue for years if the basics are not altered. Can you hear the time bomb ticking . And with due respect to the great votaries of free market , the situation can never be reversed , even arrested by outsourcing the administration of the social sectors to the private investors. The democratically elected government is by the people and it has to work for the people. There can be no ifs and buts, justifications , comparisons or semantics. As of now there is no roadmap or efforts to address this fact of life that stares at us.
Along with that as a nation we will be constrained to live with a weak human genetic pool both physically and intellectually. Further , the absence of research in medicine , science and technology will make us perpetually dependent on the developed nations for our needs. We will remain forever a hostage to the multinational corporations for medicines and technology. Do we even understand the import of the neglect. Indians were used as indentured labour to grow sugarcane in Caribbeans, lay railroad in Africa, coolies in Southeast Asia , fight wars in Afghanistan and Mesopotamia and presently write software codes in the Silicon valley. The service industry we boast of is just an exploitative system that thrives on our inadequacies . If we are happy with that then we can live in our fool's paradise as long as the fires of hell don't roast us.
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