Former McKinsey chief Rajat Gupta interviews the man in the perenially blue turban in the McKinsey Quarterly (registration required). 
I bet he pronounces the name right. It’s two free-marketers talking to each other, the benefit of having an economist occupying 7 Race Course Road.
Singh says his top priority isn’t high tech or special export zones, it’s electrifying villages. He’s talking about the basic heavy lifting of a long-delayed national bootstrap:
We have, for the next four to five years, a very ambitious plan to expand… the availability of electricity to all of our villages…When I look at countries like South Korea, all children who are of secondary-school-going age are in school; our children drop out even before they complete primary school… we are making, for the first time, the most determined effort to ensure that all our children… in the next four or five years have the benefit of minimum primary schooling.
Beyond upgrading airports, his administration is also spending on ports and railroads:
We are working with the Japanese government to draw up a program in which the freight corridors between Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Chennai, and Delhi-Kolkata can be modernized. Our estimate is that that will cost about 25 thousand crore of rupees [$5.7 billion], and that’s our high priority as far as the railway system is concerned… We also are now in the process of modernizing our seaports.
The Indian government’s policy naming schemes are an odd hangover cocktail of faceless socialist, stymied bureaucrat and shudh Hindi or Sanskrit:
The Common Minimum Program, which is the benchmark for us to assess where we want to go, talks about the navratnas. These navratnas are companies essentially in the oil sectors, the power sectors, which are doing really well…
Gupta asks him the cultural question, but ‘Gantt charts’ aren’t an entirely satisfying answer:
Whenever people discuss India… in the end, the pace of implementation and actual results often lag behind. There isn’t that kind of action bias that you would like to see in the country.… because we are a federal set-up, there are a lot of things that the central government does, but there are many things, like getting land, getting water, getting electricity–in all these matters the state government comes in, the local authority comes in… we need to… cut down on this rigmarole of many tiers of decision-making processes…
We’ve got the [South] Koreans involved in building a steel plant of 12 million tons’ capacity. Right from the beginning the center and the state governments were working together to ensure that whatever milestones are agreed upon, those milestones were tracked–how they move forward, whether the work proceeds, if there are bottlenecks, to identify those bottlenecks and ensure that those bottlenecks are resolved.
On the plus side, the Indian savings rate is around the same as Japan’s, ~27% vs. the U.S.’ 0%:
… our savings rate has shot up in the last couple of years to about 27 to 28 percent of our GDP.
And that my friend is the ‘above the table’ calculation.
I know because there is a secret bank account stashed with 1,000,000,000,000 dollars and my partner is dead. So if you send you bank details, kind sir, I can make an arrangement in the strictest privacy so that you benefit too. I am willing to offer you 1% of the amount.
Let me know if you are interested.
Best regards, Mr,Bundo Mama.
He looks like a smiling hero in this picture.
My father always mentions that Manomoahan Singh does not wear a fifty – it makes him more humble in my opinion as the fifty is a big fashion statement for the men in our family.
Punjabi Boy,
Ok, I should really know this — because I wear one — but why is it called a ‘Fifty’? Any ideas?
Amardeep
That fifty is the thin bandana you tie around your forehead to fill in the upside down V that forms at the top of the forehead when you put on your pughri – especially stylish you know – Kenyan Singhs do it a lot.
Homeboy’s pugari is usually a bit sharper… bad pug day.
Manmohan Singh seems to be able to impress regardless of the circumstances.
As for what he said, is it me, or does it seem like this “free marketeer” sound like a rabid socialist in the US context? His reason for doing things is not to increase the wealth of the society or some nonsense like that, but to bring electricity to people homes, education to the schools, build infrastructure for the country. I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a free-marketeer, but boy those sound like exactly the same things I would hope motivates any government action. Of course the details of implementations may be contentious, but once these basics are agreed on its a matter or reasonable debate, as opposed irreconciliable differences. I was always a little unsure about the 42nd amendment. It seemed less about implementing the socialist agenda (outlined above so eloquently by the current Prime Minister) and more about jockeying for position in the Cold war.
Punjabi Boy,
Dude, I know what it is. My question is WHY it’s called a ‘fifty’…
Sorry Amardeep read your question in a hurry – I have no idea why its called fifty but it sounds cool. I will ask around but I can only imagine its origin – the name must date from the time of the British and when Sikhs started moving to the city and becoming prosperous in Delhi and Lahore etc and started getting fashionable and pimping their style up a little bit.
The Indian governmentÂ’s policy naming schemes are an odd hangover cocktail of faceless socialist, stymied bureaucrat and shudh Hindi or Sanskrit:
Always interesting to see Manish’s post contain the obligatory SAJA crowd pleasing statements. I bet you squirmeed when India named its missiles as Pritvi, Agni and Pakis dumbly thought it was for Pritviraj and named their missile Gazni LOL
amardeep, maybe because the keski is midway (50%) to a dastaar.
a totally unrelated thing: That assh@le Christopher Hitchens bi#ch slapped by Jon Stewart yesterday was a fun thing to watch.
Not to hijack the post (sorry) — RC, notice that he hasn’t updated this on his website yet! Wonder if he will…
Sikhs have a garment called a fifty? Wow you guys just got cooler. Do American Sikhs pronounce it ‘fi’ty’? Holla!
Yet another Gupta I have to somehow suck up to. Sanjay Gupta has been my target so far, this guy looks richer. I envisage a world controlled by a clandestine underground masonic brotherhood of Guptas. It shall be called the Gupta Dynasty…the Return. You will all be pawns, pawns I tell you, pawns!
Maybe because it covers around half your forehead?
You should tie the fifty or patka in such a way that it should cover upper part of your forehead.(i.e. cover around 40% of your upperpart of forehead with fifty or patka)
Always interesting to see humorless jingoists.
Wait, no it isn’t.
Oops.
Manish,
Huh, nice theory (though I’m skeptical in my gut). Still, along those lines maybe we should rename the patka the ‘poora’.
I just spoke to the old man at home and he reckons it is the fifty-fifty half way to a pugh storyline.
Its just one of those crazy Singh things.
Funny the picture of the PM above is a actually located @ http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/28_8_2004_Manmohan%20Singh.jpg interesting.
–Arundhati Roy
seriously, this lady frowns at everything. India’s very top is the least corrupt we have had maybe in the last 30 years (am excluding most of the cabinet ministers-just the PM, FM, President etc) and this lady still cant take it. She is one Booker woman gone bad. Her first book sucked and she doesnt have the balls to write anything worthwhile after that (Please exclude her once-in-a-while rants in myraid newspapers). This happens to be an alternate profession and from what I hear you can make a decent buck. I dont have the pertinant links, but I remeber a news item (I think in NDTV)showing the corruption in these so-called NGOs. Make a lot of noise outside the country – collect $$ and then stash a decent % in your account. Neat.
Well… regarding fifties my children it is a) and I quote “adds beauty to the pugree” b) its suppose to rep the keski or second turban to order to double diss the moghuls cos the pug was strictly for the nobility innit. So all you fifty wearings sardarjis are just fronting.
And the chance of either being true….
fifty fifty of course !(groan)
You mean ‘pifty-pifty‘ 😉
GoST rocked. I’m waiting for her to come to her senses and pen some more fiction in between saving the world.
The book did have lyrical prose…and a nice etching of mallu christians. But, nothing extrordinary otherwise. Its common knowledge that she got the booker that year coz it was India’s 50th birthday. How many of us would have actually read it if not for the Booker award. She still remains a one book wonder and me feels that status is not going to change any time soon. In the meanwhile, lets make some money by creating an NGO.
Oops…lemme add something good about her too – she is the most pretentious page-three-activist-for-adivasis today. Her next book must be tentatively titled “Damn the Dam: Lets all go back to Stone Age (while I pocket some small change in the bargain)” by Frowndathi Roy.
Medha Patkar, Anand Patwardhan, Teesta Setalvad are some other slimy creatures from Arundhati’s lot. BTW, did you know that these people are heavily funded chief guests of AID and the Singh Foundation?
oh yeah…they are all part of the {for profit}NGO Inc – money and/or publicity mongers. Am not totally dissing all NGOs. Some of them do stupendous work but dont have the avarice for publicity and moolah. Somebody should skewer that Teesta shitalvad. I will stop my comment here…its Friday night and I am not sober.
“I dont have the pertinant links, but I remeber a news item (I think in NDTV)showing the corruption in these so-called NGOs.”
pertinEnt, frowndathi. not pertinAnt. and it’s remeMber, not remeber. and maybe i am just saying this because i love arundhati roy and you don’t.
Speaking of turbans, I wonder when Bollywood will finally have a turbanned man in a lead romantic role. If it has already happened, my bad. I am not a Bollywood fan but as I understand the above has never happened.
Kabir Bedi?
Sunny Deol in “Gadar”
Sunny Deol in Jo Bole So Nihaal
Thanks for corrrecteing my wrrong spallings. You deserve a purple heart for your effort. But Arundathi still sux.
Sunny Deol is not a Sikh, he is an Arya Samajist. Even in the movie where he is supposed to be a turbaned Sikh, his hair and turban magically disappeared and reappeared in every other scene. So far there have been no real turbanned Sikhs in a lead role in Bollywood. I’d like to see a real turbaned sikh like Rabbi Shergill in a lead role in a bollywood film – he looked pretty fine in his ‘Bulla’ video.
Mini, AlMu asked for a turbaned man not a sikh. Are you saying SD’s turban/beard disappear in Jo Bole So Nihaal. Anyways unlike you, SGPC and other ‘religious’ sikh people were fooled by the movie, they thought Sunny was playing a sikh character and they bombed some theaters in Delhi.
Also, don’t think having a turban and beard will work out for a bollywood actor. Said actor will be relegated to playing only sikh roles. Unless, you want to work mostly in punjabi movies this can’t be good careerwise.
Funny term that … “Arya Samajist”… I’ve told folks my family ascribes to the principles defined by the “Aryan society” from before the partition. The response has been interesting.
Er…Sunny Deol was playing a Sikh in “Jo Bole So Nihal”…
“Said actor will be relegated to playing only sikh roles.”
I’m assuming that a Sikh working in Bollywood couldn’t be that orthodox so he could probably throw back his hair in ponytail and play other parts. Fans have gotten used to Bollywood actors who refuse to appear on screen without their mushes, i think fans could get used to guy who always has long hair and a beard in every movie he’s in like that Nirmal Pandey.
Actors and Actresses are not supposed to bring their real identity to the roles they play. The meaning of acting is:
“Temporarily assuming the duties or authority of another” (www.answers.com)
Do you think Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Clint Eastwood, Omar Sheriff, Tom Cruise ever want to typecast themselves in the industry according to their ethnic identity/ political identity/ sexual indentity ever.
A kiss of death in movie industry would be to look very different from the main stream: be it Hollywood or Bollywoood.
That is one of the reason Denzel Washington has succeeded where as James Earl Jones could not.
Common sense, common sense.
Actually, he asked for a “turbanned man in a lead romantic role.” Doel’s character in “Jo Bole” doesnt fit the bill of a lead romantic role as there was no romance in that movie, unless you find his mom fainting everytime he got sexually aroused by looking at every girl romantic! Deol also played a Sikh in “Border” but not in a lead romantic role.
Do we all SM readers live on earth? Movie industry is a business not “equal opportunity” showcase.
Within a 1/2 minute, I have two examples of sikhs playing a lead romantic role in Bollywood:
1) Vijeta Shashi Kapoor produced Vijeta for Govind Nihalani and cast his son Kunal as hero and himself as the father. Kunal Kapoor plays as a turbaned sikh. In fact, it was a pretty decent movie, little artsy.
2) Sonny Doel in Ek Prem Katha http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/Gadar:EkPremKatha/
Seriuos Financers Needed;
I have this beautiful movie I want to direct. I wrote the script but when I take it to financers, they all go into laughing fits.
I dunno… The story has:
Gay love affair between hindu boy and a muslim boy as lead romantic roles. Then there is also a lesbian pair between buddhist and Christian girl, again lead.
The story is on scale of David Lean movie. Need 10 million dollars, not an art movie.
Contact me only if you have cash. The script has been sitting on my desk for ten years
“Actors and Actresses are not supposed to bring their real identity to the roles they play”
Actors bring their race, gender, age, height, other physical characteristics and their mainstream looks into their roles when they act unless hide them with makeup, prosthetics, special effects, etc… most of the Bolly/hollywood actors don’t have to really stretch to act their parts.
“Do you think Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Clint Eastwood, Omar Sheriff, Tom Cruise ever want to typecast themselves in the industry according to their ethnic identity/ political identity/ sexual indentity ever.”
The actors you mention were for the most part typecasted into certain roles and type of movies. BTW,I look foward to seeing Clint Eastwood playing the lead role in “Hot Young Black Chicks.”
Most of the films in Hollywood and Bollywood are bombing because they’re the same old mainstream, cookie cutter crap. If they threw their not so original “common sense” out the window, Holly/Bollywood might up with better movies.
Sure, you have a valid point but who is going to fund them? Robert Redford and Mel Gibson can only fund so many movies.
Do you have cash, please call me. I have the script for the kinda movies you have been talking about. Call me……..my number is 987-654-3210
None of the actors I put in the reply have remained typecast, even Clint Eastwood (playing cameos with chimps – that is why I put him).
Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Sean Penn have made a career by constantly changing their persona. Just “google” their career. Even, Tom Cruise, from Top Gun to Eyes Wide Shut.
We are not even talking Peter Sellers and Ben Kningsley here.
Yes, I have cash… plese check your voicemail for my message.
Either the PM has articulated his views very well or the interview has been superbly edited. Either way, it made very good reading.
He certainly has his priorities right. Rural Electrification, for instance. Not just to light up the villages. Not just solar lamps and stoves. But to provide 24 x 7 power supply, enable more rural employment, bring about lifestyle changes ( not just poverty allevation) and thereby stop the migration to cities which are choking anyway. He himself heads an Energy Panel. Hope he can get his act together.
I guess it depends on how the particular person is received. For example, when John Abraham first started appearing in Hindi films, he looked very different indeed from the majority of Indian lead actors (yes I know it’s become fashionable recently for Indian men over there to now grow their hair long and straight, but this wasn’t the case when “Jism” was first released). Shahrukh Khan also looked completely different to his main rivals in the early 90s with regards to what, at the time, was regarded as the “ideal” hero in an industry still looking for the next Amitabh.
Some would also say that Bipasha Bapu doesn’t necessarily fit the stereotype of how a lead Bollywood actress should look, considering she’s much darker than people like Kareena Kapoor, Preity Zinta etc.
shrug These things are fairly unpredictable, I think it’s a matter of an unconventional looking hero/heroine arriving at the “right” time, whatever that may be.
I agree 100 %
In fact, when Amitabh came on the scene…he was very different in demeanor than the “brown boys” of the days (Rajesh Khanna, Shashi Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor). It was 70s; the Indian society was hungry for Desi version of James Dean.
However, the crux is “star power”, baby “star power” The living example is Salma Hayek who even has a very distinct accent. The ones who survive have “mojo”.
Let me just concentrate on sheer malleability of Robert DeNiroÂ…he gains lot of weight (Jake La Motta in Raging Bull), becomes an thin Italian immigrant (Vito Corleone – GodFather), has a Mohawk (Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver), overweight mobster (Al Capone-The Untouchables), a severely challenged patient (Leonard Lowe in Awakenings), a tattooed psycho (Max Cady in Cape Fear), Dickensian character (Arthur Lustig in Great Expectations), and Don Lino in Shark Tale.
I can do same thing for Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Sean Penn, Peter Sellers, and many others. They gain weight, they loose weight, they shave their head, they grow facial hair – they keep changing.
These not just some character actors. Â…Â…They are the stars of Hollywood, the Real McCoyÂ’s.
Don’t waste time on their real life persona, concentrate on how talented they are in “acting”
How about one and only Â…Â…Â…Â…Johnny Depp? Taran TaraÂ…Â….
In real life, and all the roles he plays (Platoon, WhatÂ’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Edward Sissorhands, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Choclat, Pirates of the Caribbean, Charlie and the Choclate Factory) there nothing common when it comes to looks and persona.
He never repeats himself. Look at his real life pictures.
He is to be Gregory David Roberts in Shantaram, that is going to be something.
“I think we’ve all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically.”
I guess your parents didnÂ’t allow you guys to watch movies.
When I look at countries like South Korea, all children who are of secondary-school-going age are in school; our children drop out even before they complete primary schoolÂ…
In South Korea a child is taught that education is THE most important thing in the world. Add to that the fact that Korean is an absurdly simple language, and add to that Confuscian society where the older you are the lesser the chances of your getting disobeyed, and voila! one old granddaddy taught that to his kid and it gets propagated all the way down.
Although I appreciate Mano’s thoughts, it is hardly practical to aspire for change SK proportions. We must devise a literacy campaign uniquely our own.
Why don’t they get Shantaram to play himself when he’s older? He’s already got the acting chops – as long as the movie ends up being a dushm dushm action caper with big hair and goatees. I read some of his book, crazy.
Who would you get to play yourself? I’d get Joe Pesci.