Just Me - India

It is indeed surprising that we throw huge amount of money at different things in India, but invest so little in healthcare. USA has a private insurance driven healthcare system, while UK has government driven one. Both models have their advantages.

Indian model is somewhere in between. Government has attempted the UK model, but it is a complete failure, like most other things driven by govt. The state of govt. hospitals can at best be described as 'bad'. This is comparitively easy problem to fix, provided the will is there. The blame lies directly with the bureaucrats who manage it, along with the politicians who give directions.

This is clearly an area that can be improved quickly, and the gains are tremendous and very visible. People would be grateful to the govt. even now, if it gets its act together.

Given the state of things, many private health care business enterprises have sprung up - hospital chains and medical insurance schemes etc. These are mostly for those who can afford them. At least, this is welcome compared to not having anything at all.

Top 5 things that should be done immediately:

• Make the bureaucracy accountable. Start at the top.
• Invest money, and weed out corruption. Remove the inefficient and corrupt. Reward the best.
• Make people pay for services, even if it is a very nominal and a token amount. Introduce people to the concept of paying for services. Free stuff does not last long.
• Pay doctors well. Don't force anyone to work in rural areas. Instead make it attractive enough for them to work there. This is the long term solution.
• Invest in Healthcare infrastructure, spruce up hospitals, make the employees polite (and not rude!) to the visitors/patients.

Ok... so this is all the obvious stuff. Just start performing, and keep improving. It should be a top priority of the government.

Its a shame that we cannot achieve this after so many years (decades) of existence of dedicated govt. ministry and departments to handle this.

The will is clearly lacking.

If nothing else! Let the private healthcare enterprises do their job. Something is better than nothing.. right ?

What are key areas in which rapid progress will happen in the future?

• Biotechnology
• Information Technology - Software/Hardware
• Space
• Telecom/Communication-Audio/Video
• Medicine/Healthcare
• Fuel
• Transport - Air/Water/Road
• Food/Agriculture

Looks like i have stated the obvious here. These are the areas that i think will get tremendously impacted by new knowledge and research.

Not surprisingly, there are tremendous business opportunities directly/indirectly associated with the above.

What are the top few things that should be done to make India a modern happy country:

1. Improve the infrastructure. Make Roads, Rails - the whole transport system better. This will spur business, and confidence of people.

2. Provide Electricity wherever necessary. This spurs business.

3. Provide Efficient HealthCare system everywhere. Government Hospitals should become responsible and modern. Make it affordable.

4. Remove all roadblocks to doing legitimate business. Convey the message: This is the land of opportunity. Red Tape should be thrown out of the window. Indian BPOs have generated several times more jobs than govts. Rozgar Yojnas could ever hope to create.

5. Provide lean, efficient, helpful government machinery everywhere. Convey the message, we exist to help you - the citizen. Remove corruption, encourage efficiency.

6. Encourage Tourists and Business people to visit India. Treat them as guests. Never cheat them. Follow the old adage: Athithi Devo Bhava! And see the tourism industry flourish. Convey the message: We are honest, and care for you.

7. Immediately improve the justice system. Make it efficient. Having millions of court cases pending is representative of a failed justice system. Change that perception.

8. Make the Police force a modern, educated and benevolent force. Thats their real role.

9. Education System - Make it easy to afford and find. Let the rural and poor folks get good education. This is the probably one of the most important investments that can be made for the future.

10. Science/Technology - Research and Development - Invest in them. Knowledge is good. Its a stimulus for growth.

Inspite of the fact that some sections of society are making rapid progress in the area of Science/Business etc. There continues to remain very large sections of people that continue to be poor, and have not benefited from the progress that the country seems to be making or is poised to make.

Why should it be so? Who is stopping them.

The answer wouldn't be straight forward, but there are key pointers to what could be wrong. The huge government machinery has failed them completely. If you see, almost all areas in which progress has been made is - those that are lead by private sector. The only government controlled enterprises that have done well are the those that are in niche area - with no competition for eg: oil and gas.

The benefits of schemes setup by the govt. does not trickle down. Why? Because the implementors are corrupt, inefficient, lazy. The malaise perhaps starts somewhere very near the top if not right at the top. Any group or team is mostly as good as its leaders, very rarely better.

There is no reason poverty to this extent should continue to exist in India. Especially given the fact that monsoon is generally ok, economy is not too bad, fairly large number of educated people who could lead are present, and most importantly we are self sufficient in food!

Some, rural areas are really really poor. Even so in cities. There is probably nothing worse than the curse poverty. Its almost as if, there is a concerted attempt to keep people poor, uneducated.

Not very different from state of movies. Indian Music Scene can be described as: 'CopyCat'. And no, music composers dont just copy others, they keep copying themselves (ok repeating).

The last real solid Music Director in Indian Music Scene was: R.D.Burman. I haven't heard of anyone compose anything better than him.

Same is true of singers: Kishore Kumar was the last real good singer.

And lets not even talk of Music Videos and the so-called chart-busters. Very very mediocre. If you have some money, you can scream something into a recorder, and gyrate in front of a camera. There you are!  An Artist. Its a joke.

Why do people put up with this mediocre trash? I say, they dont have any option! They want to listen to something !! Its like if you dont get the best food to eat, you must eat whatever is available:).