Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue "soft" power | Video on TED.com

Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue "soft" power Video on TED.com

Indian Traffic Mess – our policy makers must act …

Driving in India is a nightmare, it’s frustrating and annoying. Yes,this sentence is true to a great extent. Some say that building new wide roads is only solution to congestion. Some say that the pace of infrastructure growth in India is not matching the growth in vehicle ownership, so traffic conditions are bound to get worse in future.

According to the World Health Organisation report more people die of road accidents in India than any other place in the world every day. People love to talk about the growing traffic concerns; it’s a hot topic to be discussed at every social occasion. What many of us don’t realize is that Traffic rules are never followed here, the rules here are meant to be broken at every level. Indian traffic rules, regulations or signs are not known to common Indian road users, Indian License is given to anyone who can provide an identity, residential proof and to any one who can balance and ride a motorbike or drive a car. There is no formal training or assessment done here. Now this is one of the main factors of this undisciplined growing traffic concerns.

Some countries like Australia, UK or USA have one of the toughest driving tests however it can be taken even by school dropouts or illiterates, the main point is that by the time one passes the test, the correct road etiquette is ingrained in to the drivers. This aspect is totally missing in India.

Never were any of us trained to stop at a Zebra Crossing or give way to Pedestrians, more sadly there are no footpaths for pedestrians to walk, And where they exist they are encroached not by hawkers, slums, toilet blocks or badly designed bus stops, poorly placed electricity boxes and last but not least garbage skips.

Most Indian drivers son’t understand how to use the vehicles headlights. Many drivers don't use any lights even when it is dark, on other hand, some use the high beam even in built up urban areas. Our motor driving schools don’t have trainers with real knowledge of traffic rules or driving ettiquettes. Often wrong information and habits are passed on to the new learner drivers. The commonest mis-information shared is with regards ''flashing of lights''. As per traffic rules in India or anywhere in the world, flashing lights is illegal. In India drivers flash lights to demand right of his way. In contrast, in many western countries flashing of lights means “you first” or “giving way”.

The other mis-information is around dealing with acute bends on a road. Again, driving institutes in India are culprits in teaching two wrong things - honk and flash lights as you approach a bend. The recommended and correct thing to do is to approach the bend as slowly as possible, this is the only way to ensure road safety around bends. When its twilight or night time, keep your low beam 'on' throughout without flashing it. In addition to all this we have the cows, goats and dogs on our streets and our authorities don't do anything about them.

Our leaders always talk about improving the standard of life and basic amenities, they are all aware of the problems mentioned above. They talk about constructing roads and highways or wide express ring roads, but never they bother about the implementing any of the of road safety or norms.

The Indian government talks about buying technology, products and weapons from western countries. We see the development of buildings in Hyderabad, Bangalore or Gurgoan and think this is development. Our leaders also show us these and say we have developed, our people belive that India has developed.

I think now its time for the policy makers in India including our leaders and Bureaucracy to get some training lessons from abroad on the road safety issues and they must learn to make our roads safer and emphasis must be given to make our roads more safer rather than wider.

Coming back home to India

Coming back home to India

“Home is where the heart is” took over me and after living for nearly 12 years abroad in Melbourne and Auckland finally I decided to come back to India in November 2001.

The main thing that attracted me to live back in India was of course the family ties added to this was the sudden boom in the Indian economy. At that point I saw the sudden rise of the Indian stock market, real estate and booming economy, clearly for me India was a hot destination. My strong belief that I can make more money here than abroad was one other major factor.

Now it’s almost 10 years that I have come back, set up my own education consulting and English testing business and I must admit it is doing very well. What I did not realize was that if I want to be successful and survive in India, the I will have to trade of my dignity and my self respect. I slowly became a hostage to the corruption in India. Today I feel insecure about the future of my kids.

At every stage to get any work done, right from the clerk to the highest level. When I buy a car and to get it registered I need to bribe, when I need a permission for building a house or when I want to register the land I just purchased, wherever and whenever I could not do it without bribing people. Corrupt politicians, corrupt judges, corrupt police officers, corrupt bureaucrats, corrupt contractors, etc I found that corruption has become acceptable norm among people in India and is also welcomed with open arms.

Never did I actually realize that India is not anymore a civilized society. India is rules by money, power and greed. We call ourselves tolerant citizens, but again when we see injustice happening around us, we turn away or walk away. I must admit I did this several times till now. In India today we accept violation of human rights and mis governance. Corruption has become an acceptable norm among people in India and corruption is welcomed with open arms.

People only talk about corruption and many movies are made every year where they project on eradicating corruption in India, people love to watch these films but in actual life no one does any thing.In fact it’s the same people ( all of us) encouraging this practice.

The corruption in India is toying this lovely country. I belong to India and will be here for the rest of my life making this a part and parcel of my daily life

Proud to be Indian - Lets prove it

India is getting richer and Indian economy is one of the most developing economy’s in the world. It is the third largest economy in the world, in terms of purchasing power, is going to touch new heights in coming years. Speaking about Indian history we have many great things to say.

There are
3.22 Million Indians in America.
38% of Doctors in America are Indians.
12% of Scientists in America are Indians.
36% of NASA employees are Indians.
34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL employees are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians

In spite of having all these great qualities and positive attributes the behaviour of Indian students abroad is a major concern today. Unruly and abusive behaviour of some newly arrived overseas Indian students, mostly from Punjab, is causing much concern among the Australian-Indian community and this was published in all the leading newspapers all over the world recently. Indians students have been accused of creating an unpleasant environment by shouting, arrogant behaviour, abusing each other, playing loud music on mobile phones, putting their feet up on seats in local trains and public places; and driving recklessly. The Australian department of Immigration has identified shams and fraud with Indian student’s applications. Recently UK has announced a ban on Indian students from North India, the main issue was that they identified was fraud, doggy institutes and fraud misleading financial papers from majority of the applicants from India. Strict additional checks have being done on all student applications. Fake loan certificates and financial documents prepared by agents and doggy institutes in UK also plays a major role in this ban. Indians in Australia kill another fellow Indian and we call it Racism. To claim insurance amount one Indian tries to burn his car and in return burns himself and we call it Racism.


As an education agent in India I think I fully endorse this and my role is guiding students with the right course, look into their welfare, career counselling and also bridging the gap between the foreign Institute and the students in India. In the recent years there has been a growing trend of Indian students going abroad for education. Whether it is America, the United Kingdom or Australia, the number of Indian students going to study overseas has risen tremendously, so much so that in 2008-2009, maximum students going to the United States for further studies were Indians. I strongly believe that foreign universities help to transform young talented students from India to world class skilled professionals. In addition to this students have several other benefits. There is an emphasis on practical learning, as opposed to theoretical learning, thus conceptual clarity is the key in any course abroad.


But it very sad that today this student recruitment industry has turned into an industry of shams and scams. Education agents are involved with thriving black market in sham marriages, forged English language exams, bogus courses and preparation of fake bank certificates. In fact the foreign education counselling industry is full of these sorts of people.

We need to tell our youth and people to wake up. We all need to fight against the fraud system, the loopholes in our own law and also educate our young youth not to fall a prey to doggy agents or doggy institutes. We must educate our education agents not to use the excellent student visa system to transport people and human trackffing. We must get rid of these shameful things we do to go abroad and protect our image in front of the whole world. We must all be truly proud of India and being an Indian not engaging in any of the above shameful acts.

The government of India also definitely has a role to play in all this, overseas education industry needs to be regulated. But more important is that all citizens of India have a major role to play much bigger than the government. Education agents must act more cautiously and ethically and not involve themselves in any unethical trade. They should guide students in the right pathway and must warn them not to use any fraud documents in their visa applications.

Indian / Aussie Govt Warning and Ignorance

Indian government issues warning to students not to choose Australia as their study destination as it is not safe.

A nine-year-old Russian girl was allegedly raped on Tuesday evening in Goa’s Arambol beach, a popular hub for foreign and domestic tourists. According to the complaint filed by the victim's mother, the girl was raped while playing in the waters. The mother said that as one Indian tourist struck up a conversation with her, another ventured in the waters and raped her child. None of the politicians or elders of the society have condemned this enough

On December 1, 2008, a Goan politician, John Fernandes, raped a 25-year-old Russian near Colva beach. Four (4) Australians have been killed in Mumbai terror attack in Nov 2008. In the past Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt alive in their car by Hindu extremists in Orissa and in 2004 Australian tourist Dawn Griggs was robbed, raped and murdered by two taxi drivers after arriving late at night at Delhi airport.

Many incidents like this have become quite common for us. Our politicians don’t bother to look into these nor issue any warnings to our own people. Foreigners in India are exposed to many bad experiences like cheating, begging, unhygienic conditions, lack of safety, robberies, racism etc.

But the few Australian attacks on Indians attracted more attention that any of the above, film stars, community leaders, politicians have all raised their voices on this. But again no one has raised any concerns on the rape of a 9 year old Russian girl in Goa which happened

Indians have been going to Australia from the past many years, never did we hear about incidents like this. But again today things have taken an ugly turn. For me it looks like Australian & Indian media are using these attacks for trashing each other.

The Australian attacks on Indian taxi drivers are examples of urban crime. Yes I agree that Indians are over-represented in robbery statistics and there is definitely a racist element to some attacks, but we must know the real reason for this. The behavior of a few Indian students has definitely a role to play in this all. It’s a common problem all over India and also abroad.

Indian students are allowed to drive cabs; many students especially from Punjab are into this. They are strangers to Melbourne and don’t know the routes very well, they also lack English fluency and they purely depend on the GPS system to know the routes. Some times the GPS only guides the cab thru the main routes and avoids shortcuts. These cabbies are exposed to drunk teenagers and gangs at nights, sometimes they take the long route and end up in fights / arguments with the passengers, some how even these are being reported as racist attacks.

Indian government and Australian government fail to understand these issues. The Australian government policies have too many loop holes and they are unable to come up with the correct measure to control such incidents. The attacks were stray incidents and small street brawls which have been given great importance. The Australian Immigration policy has also to be blamed in this, student visas were issued without proper checks and protocols. The result was that the quality of students that Australia absorbed from the past few years was really bad and hopeless. Its time they have a look into this and adopt a policy where good genuine Indian students wanting to study in universities and good institutes are encouraged and change their policies.

Searching for a Meaning: We forget the meaning of "RACISM"

Searching for a Meaning: We forget the meaning of "RACISM"

OZ RACISM ATTACKS - Reasons & Solutions

The recent attacks in Australia on a few Indians have attracted worldwide attention and worldwide condemnation. These attacks caused outrage in Indian Media. While the Indian media have labeled attacks as racist, but Australian police and the government have said the attacks are purely criminal.

I myself lived in Melbourne for almost 6 years, initially as a student and after a couple of years I was employed full time. While I personally did not face any issues of racism and found that Australia is a good country, with decent friendly people.

Indians are among the largest community of skilled migrants in Australia from the past many years. Indian professionals in Australia have contributed to the growth of its economy from the past many years. In addition to this Australia has thousands of Indian students studying in various institutes and universities.

My opinions on Reasons for the attack:

Many of these students in Australia generally prefer to hang around and stick to their own fellow mates (mates from the same part of India). This is a natural and accepted, very common among students who are far away from their country. But now it looks like this being taken by some Australians as being unwilling to accept Australian culture and customs. In addition to this many students who have gone to Australia to study may not be very fluent in English and may not be able to communicate in the Aussie slang. The cultural shock can further add to this.


Another major factor for these hate crimes can be the sudden rise of the number of Indian people in all levels of society. There have been discussions and arguments that few Australians are worried about losing their jobs to young educated immigrants from India. The global recession is also to be blamed in this.

The effect of Media on this issue:

Media backlash in India and the publication of the Victoria policeman as a member of hate group Ku Klux Klan further damaged the relationship between the communities. Adding to this was the Indian governments travel warning to Indian students going to study in Australia. The comparison of crime statics of both the countries by the Prime Minister of Australia Mr Kevin Rudd further made the situation worse.

The publication of this cartoon made Australians quite angry and they started to write about India and how safe India was compared to Australia. In one of the leading news papers of Australia it quoted that “In 2007, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau, 32,318 people were murdered in India. Another 3644 were victims of ''culpable homicide'', roughly equating to manslaughter. In a category of its own, 8093 brides or their relatives were killed in ''dowry deaths'' - murdered by greedy grooms and in-laws angry over the amount of dowry paid by the bride's family. And there were a further 27,401 attempted murders.
The Indian media did not react 10 years ago when Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt alive in their car by Hindu extremists in Orissa? Or in 2004 when Australian tourist Dawn Griggs was robbed, raped and murdered by two taxi drivers after arriving late at night at Delhi airport?

By contrast, in 2007, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports, 255 people were murdered in Australia. Another 28 were victims of manslaughter, and 246 survived attempted murders. No dowry deaths were recorded.

The Australia-Indian community leaders and their religious or social welfare organizations have not issued any strong statements against these racist attacks. While a couple of student organizations or associations made a hue and cry over the attacks. There was a difference of opinion within Australia among Indians for these attacks. I am still surprised that no Indian organization or well settled local Indians take any individual or community action to prevent these ugly attacks? If Yes then what ?

I also saw an interview on BBC last week with Mr Anoop Chopra who is an Indian teacher working in Perth. He said "Australia is a great place to live. I have seen racism among very few Australians but have never experienced it directly. Indians are a relatively new migrant community in Australia and the local population is still ignorant of our culture, religion and values. In spite of that they make a genuine effort to welcome us in their homes and make us feel comfortable in their country.When an Australian is bashed, we call it a crime. When an Indian is bashed, we call it a racist crime"


Lately local Australians also complain on Indians:

Many Australians have complained that Indian students are usually fond of loitering in front of their apartment complexes with loud music blaring the latest out of Bollywood songs. In trains and also in trams Indian students speak loudly in their own language disturbing others. Many Indian students have also violated their visa status and are loitering for jobs. Some of them in search of local Australian females for marriage for residency. Many Aussies also accuse the Indian students of forcing their Indian culture in university campuses by celebrating their hundreds of festivals and cooking their foods. It is also noted that Sydney beaches are full of the drunk impolite Indian students ogling and harassing the women.

My Opinion :

As a education consultant recruiting students to Study in Australia and having lived and worked there every day I am asked questions such as “ Why Australians attack Indians? Are Australians Racist? What’s happening in Australia?”.

Most of said attacks on Indians have been in bigger cities like Melbourne or Sydney. Yes it can be linked urban crime where some elements are attacking innocent victims for robbery and it can be termed also as an opportunistic attacks.. Many Indian students don’t mix with Australian people and the only Australians they know are drunk teenagers often on drugs or homeless teenagers in the streets or on the trains. Most of these crimes are petty robberies that happen late at night. Because many Indian students have part-time jobs that finish late in the evening, they often become victims of these petty crimes. Indian students also have this habit of living in poorer suburbs as the rents are much cheaper which is infested with drug addicts/ anti-socials. The western suburbs of Melbourne are good examples of this. Many young Australian street kids know that they can easily get away from the crime due to the relaxed laws on minors.


Need to take precautions and steps urgently :

The Australian government needs to take steps and work closely with the Indian communities in Victoria. The Victorian police has to put its act together and nab the culprits involved in the crimes as soon as possible. Australia further needs to explain their citizens that their country is a home for many nationalities and their economy is doing well with the support of immigrants.

Indian government must also come out with a pre-departure training for all the students who will be going to Australia soon. The Indian communities in Australia also need to do this. The Australian police further needs to be specially trained in sensitivity issues of racial crime.

Universities / Institutes must also join hands with local agents in India and work towards more cross cultural exchange and training. The Immigration Department of Australia should also get in changes to its policy and encourage good students from India who are going to study in Universities and post graduate courses like USA or UK. It should work closely with universities, ethical agents and create a holistic marketing plan jointly to get good top students from India instead of getting students to study English or other silly courses like hairdressing or cookery. The past policies and assessment levels of university going students needs to be looked into and changes should be done immediately.

The Immigration policy of Australia can be blamed as the main cause for the poor standards of Indian students in Australia. Their hard and strict policies have led to scams and shams in this industry. Its about time they look into it and also make changes to the policy by understanding Indian standards and Indian students. By doing this Australia will prove that Indian students are welcome as quoted by their deputy prime minister

Racism Debate

Racism is a serious global issue spread all over the world. Australia is no stranger to this. Discrimination and acts of racism occurs against nearly all minority groups everywhere in the world not just on Indian students in Australia. Racism and hate can also be a reason for attacks in Australia but again the racism issue has been overplayed by the Media. The media made it look like every Indian is being attacked and targeted on the streets of Melbourne. I am confident that the attacks were a very unhappy and sad coincidence. Tag of ‘racism’ will only complicate things and sow the seed of hatred. It is better to look deeper into reasons of crime.

The voice of Indian students in Australia has been heard by the highest authorities in Australia government today. The governments of both the countries also have been in a dialogue over this issue. The government of Australia has assured strict action on the accused. In addition to this it is taking steps to safeguard the student community and we must give them some time.

Conclusion

The demands on the media, whether in Australia or India, are similar. They need to create sensation and attract largest number of viewers. Some sections of the media often ignore the facts, are irresponsible and can cause a lot of damage.

There will always be some bad people (in both Australia and India) but they should not be allowed to spoil the relationship.