Nandan Nilekani, co-chair of Infosys, faced a blizzard of tongue-in-cheek questions last night from a curious and genuinely respectful Jon Stewart. Nilekani has a new book coming out on Friday, Imagining India, and the interview roamed widely over huge swathes of sociopolitical terrain.
Stewart asked why India would be a more preferable overlord for the U.S. than China (“don’t be modest!”), about the month-long elections in India (“if a voting machine breaks down, do you call someone in the United States?”), the biggest detriment to India’s future (NN says getting education right), whether U.S. is a good example for India or not, and how Nilekani inspired Thomas Friedman to title his book The World is Flat…JS: “did you think to yourself, I’ll walk across it and kick his ass for some royalties?”
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are fast becoming the only TV outlets to regularly (several times a week!) feature authors as guests. That, coupled with incisive questioning and cut-the-crap clarity…is it still fake news if they’re getting laughs for pointing out the ludicrous aspects of real events?
Anyway, check out the clip. Nilekani ends up wowing Stewart, and as Jim Cramer can attest, these days that’s no easy task.
Interesting. In many ways as a society I think we resemble the US far more than the UK; which is odd given the colonial relationship. My disagreement with Nilekani, is that the biggest problem for India, is to tackle our social and economic inequalities, of which education is an important part but not the whole answer.
Agree that India is more like the US than the UK in diversity and tolerance (although having head of govt be the same person as head of state would not work in India). How better to address social and economic inequalities than through education, and education through technology? Good that NN presented the idea of a young population as a capital asset instead of a liability as previously painted.
Bigger the population, bigger the market and hence the people at the top – economically and otherwise – have started calling it a dividend instead of a penalty. But it sounds like a fallacy to me.
The poverty and illiteracy stricken who form that market still bear the burden of non-existent or overburdened infrastructure and services of all kinds. Surely each of them could be living in much less inhuman conditions if India had a population commensurate with its resources.
I would like to believe the Nilekanis out there but I am not convinced of the trickle-down. For one, the whole inexpensive outsourcing/services model very much hinges on those people remaining poor. They are the maids/hairdressers/milkmen/.. who form the cheap yet easy lifestyle that is then arbitraged.
Non-Don spoke well. I’ve read The World is flat and it has no mention of the origins of the title.
Oh.. and saying overlords is a bit too much.
Education without the appropriate policies and conditions can lead to perverse outcomes. The rise in graduate employment and the desire to move out of unskilled labour but unable to find enough openings in the service and skilled sectors of the economy has led to increasing fustration by many young students who want something better than their parents and won’t go back to a life of manual labour but can’t find the kind of careers they aspire for. there is also an unfortunate side-effect also whereby education tends to reinforce certain prejudices against those who lack it and against those who labour in the unskilled sector, which can have unfortunate consequences in an economy like ours. There will need to be some policy changes that generate employment in growth sectors; rather than the jobless growth we have seen that benefit only the highly specialised educated elite.
Education is also a long-term strategy that is most effective when directed at the young; for those past the stage of student life but still illiterate and trapped in low skill or peripheral employment (and this is a large section of the population) other solutions will need to be found.
here is the link to a 2005 interview, where friedman himself talks about it.
[WIRED: What do you mean the world is flat? FRIEDMAN: I was in India interviewing Nandan Nilekani at Infosys. And he said to me, “Tom, the playing field is being leveled.” Indians and Chinese were going to compete for work like never before, and Americans weren’t ready. I kept chewing over that phrase – the playing field is being leveled – and then it hit me: Holy mackerel, the world is becoming flat. Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance – or soon, even language.] Link
2nd gen indian american living in the desh for 2 years now. jon and stephen are my daily lifeline.
along with SM.
thanks mutineers (esp anna, abhi and amardeep). WTF! esp all of you! all awesome!
i have a 15 year old 3 gen son who’s loving SM, so keep it coming!
I agree with the comments above that education is not the end all answer. Yes, start young, but their parents also need incentives to send the kids to school instead of sending them out on the streets or fields to be wage earners (however miniscule their wages might be).
I was amazed to learn in a previous SM post re: 300 Million being lifted out of poverty under the new economic policies and technology boom. But then I was more shocked to learn that child malnutrition rates are still worse in India than in many sub-Saharan African countries – the national rate of underweight Children is 42.5 percent compared to China’s 7 !
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/world/asia/13malnutrition.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
We all know how being well fed can affect your ability to learn and retain knowledge, and education is so important – but it will make more of a difference if less children go hungry and have the ability to learn with a full stomach.
And yes – John Stewart is one of the few places you will find nowadays with insightful, cogent, lucid and sometimes brilliant interviews (when it comes to ‘the TV news media’).
Sorry that should read graduate unemployment.
The poverty figures are a little bit misleading, since their defintion has be altered and the base used is very low. While there has been a significant decline, this has only been taking place since 2000; the 1990s were a stagnant era in this respect. The ‘boom’ has also passed by the sectors of the economy where most Indiansget their livelihood from the urban informal sector and agriculture. If working conditions here could be improved and minimum wage legislation actually enforced, it would be a huge step forward.
Don’t know much about NN, but I know I extremely dislike Friedman.
The safety net is good enough to keep them from starving to death but not quite adequate for optimal nutrition. Sub-saharan Africa, in contrast, has less of a safety net and as a result the food insecure population is more likely to die of hunger rather than merely suffer from it.
There is light at the end of the tunnel for India, however. I know of several NGOs that focus on providing free lunches for students if they attend school. This has the doubly advantageous effect of improving health and nutrition and improving school enrollment. Akshaya Patra is an organization I have donated to before. The rural development foundation does the same thing, except they build the schools in which they will later be serving lunch.
As for stress on the infrastructure, India has enough manpower to properly administer the infrastructure. It wouldn’t be up to the standards of Switzerland or the Scandanavian countries, but it would be passable. The problem India has comes from poor management, corruption, and a political system that focuses on dispensing economic rents rather than economic development.
Would’ve been a great interview if Nandan had been humorous too…
Who is this “Nandan?” Jon Stewart was clearly interviewing the “Naan Don,” overlord of breads and other baked goods.
To be fair and balanced, Stewart must invite Prema. Now.
15 · Yoga Fire said
very 🙂
14 · Cherry-P said
Yeah, he was too earnest in his answers. In terms of advancing the coolness factor of Indians, I would rate this interview very low.
Granted that’s not why NN was on the show, but I care much, much less about his book sales than I do about how media appearances by various Indian personalities mould American perception of Indians/desis.
Yes and no; the safey net only really worked in some states and in the cities. It didn’t function so well in the rural hinterland. The reason why you won’t hear much about starvation deaths is because when they do happen, they occur in these areas and to marginalised communities, particularly adivasis, the administration will then jump through several hoops to try and claim that the deaths were due to anything but starvation. It is actually not always easy to prove a starvation death and the cause of death is usually given as something else such as stroke, heart failure, poisoning (usually from consuming inedible items like tree bark etc.) as then the admin doesn’t have to act. We have seen this phenomenon recur in places like Kalahandi and central Bihar. It only gets reported occasionally when there is a juicier scandal involved as when the Director of the Health Dept was censured by the acting Chief Justice in Maharashtra for going on an ADB deputation to study health systems in SE Asia while during 2003-4 of his tenure nearly 9,000 children died of malnutrition.
One of the ‘reforms’ has involved moving away from a universal food distribution system to a targeted one, which has excluded many people from coverage.
What’s wrong with being earnest?
“In terms of advancing the coolness factor of Indians, I would rate this interview very low.”
how is coming across as articulate, intelligent, shy but confident and good humoured in a not-so-obvious adult fashion “uncool.” ?
So when does Jon Stewart interview DR. COMMANDER SELVAM?
He’s also a sharp-dressed man. I hear girls go crazy for that.
Great interview. I really wish I had more to add to this discussion beyond the obligatory contempt for Friedman and the concern about India’s growth-without-progress, but mainly I’m focusing my energy on where to get that suit. And maybe his book also.
Thanks, cicatrix.
21 · Whose God is it anyways? said
Not uncool, but also not cool. He landed in that middling zone, which blends out of the sub-conscious as immediately as he gets off the screen.
20 · Oscar said
Earnest = Bizarro-Stewart
“He landed in that middling zone, which blends out of the sub-conscious as immediately as he gets off the screen.”
it’s hours since he was off the screen yet we are all talking about his interview, even to the point of critiquing his presence on the screen. so he hasn’t really disappeared from the subconscious the minute he was off the screen:)
@Branch Dravidian:
They’re probably waiting until he announces his promotion to OVERLORD DR COMMANDER SELVAM. Stewart’s a busy man. No time for astrological subordinates.
26 · Whose God is it anyways? said
I don’t need to point out the obvious here, do I? Any brown presency is much stickier on the brown-dar. I think about Uma Auntie still, but that has no meaning to what that non-desi dudette down the corridor that I am crushing on thinks about desis.
And BTW, Uma Aunty rates better than NN on my scale of propagating Indian awesomeness.
“..but that has no meaning to what that non-desi dudette down the corridor that I am crushing on thinks about desis.”
i guess my answer would be that if that woman thinks less of you (or you imagine that she would think less of you) because of nandan nilekani’s lack of enough “coolness”, then maybe she’s not worth crushing on and maybe the problem is not mr. nilekani. would an indian woman who thinks less of americans because of bill gates’ subdued presence on talk shows be worth worrying about? i can’t imagine any american worrying about bill gates’ “cool quotient” on an indian talk show. and this is the first i’m hearing of “uma aunty,” so thanks for the link.
i’m curious, just what should mr. nilekani have done/said to appear more cool? and what is defined as “cool”? thanks.
defining cool = uncool. Let that be your first lesson on coolness 🙂
I am just kidding. As you can probably tell, I am in the Branding/Marketing/PR/Media/consumer-psychology realm at work and things such as this engage my attention more than they should.
the biggest detriment to India’s future (NN says getting education right)
I disagree. At the risk of derailing this thread, I think the biggest detriment, is future governments at the national level not being secular enough or provide enough rights to the individual states. National Indian governments have to get the balancing act of Hindu Muslim relationship right. To the extent that education is important, teaching the fundamental rights from the Indian Constitution would be a great place to start.
“defining cool = uncool. Let that be your first lesson on coolness :-)”
thanks:) as you can tell, i am most uncool. but if coolness is in right now, then my being uncool must be cool (i hope). after all:
“avoid the reeking herd shun the polluted flock live like that stoic bird the eagle of the rock. The huddled warmth of crowds Begets and fosters hate; He keeps above the clouds His cliff inviolate.”
etc. etc. etc.
“I am just kidding. As you can probably tell, I am in the Branding/Marketing/PR/Media/consumer-psychology realm at work and things such as this engage my attention more than they should.”
interesting. i don’t disagree that perceptions are important and i too, as an indian citizen, indulge in sometimes being judgmental of my compatriots on the international scene. i guess we just differ in our perceptions of mr. nilekani and what constitutes cool (of which there are many shades. )
Yes and no; the safey net only really worked in some states and in the cities. It didn’t function so well in the rural hinterland. The reason why you won’t hear much about starvation deaths is because when they do happen, they occur in these areas and to marginalised communities, particularly adivasis,
Conrad can you give documentation on this. Everything I’ve read has shown that Indian has not had a FAMINE, not individual cases of starvation, since the Brits got kicked out. And a part of this has to do with a working democracy, according to Amartya Sen – though some people see differently…
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5DD103CF932A35750C0A9659C8B63&pagewanted=1
Everything I’ve read has shown that Indian has not had a FAMINE, not individual cases of starvation, since the Brits got kicked out.
No, not a mass famine but Conrad is surely right in noting that the safety net functions rather unevenly, especially as he notes, in places like Kalahandi (Orissa). Do a google search for “Kalahandi starvation” and look at the results.
I don‒t think anybody would disagree that India has not had a famine and this is mainly due to its democracy. But Senâ’s theory has been much abused, it doesn’t mean that starvation deaths won’t occur it just means that mass starvation deaths concentrated over compacted space and time won’t occur. Everyday hunger is a given and there will be a steady drip, drip of starvation deaths, in small enough numbers and dispersed over a wide enough area not to cause a massive upcry. In this Banik is correct I would add the findings of Bob Currie who wrote an excellent book on Hunger and Politics in Kalahandi as well. Even Sen and Dreze’s work acknowledge that there have been somewhere in the region of 4 million “excess” deaths due to malnutrition and related factors in India over this time.
It is difficult to get national figures for starvation deaths because such deaths often occur in remote rural areas away from urban centres and agriculturally prosperous regions, are difficult to identify easily as starvation deaths after the fact and face extreme resistance form the local administration in being reported as such because there is an impressivel formal legal machinery that has to be activated once a starvation death is officially notified. Scanning the newspaper and journal articles will bring out cases of such deaths occurring in significant numbers when they catch the attention of active journalists and are difficult for the administration to cover up.
More specifically data on this is contained in the Right to Food Report of the two Food Commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court to look into hunger and starvation in India and this is available as a published volume by the Human Rights Law Network. “Weakening Welfare” by Madhura Swaminathan and “The Republic of Hunger” by Utsa Patnaik are also two works which cover the declining access to food and its impact on the population by two well regarded academics. The story I mentioned about Maharashtra comes off a Times of India and Indian Express report, which I don’t have a link to online since it was several years ago. There is an editorial by Tavleen Singh which mentioned the Bombay (as it was then) High Court order to the state govt
http://www.indianexpress.com/oldstory.php?storyid=50772
This came off the back of a report commissioned by the state govt to its Family Welfare and Tribal Welfare Ministries which found that about 1000 tribal children were dying each month from malnutrition and starvation across the state; this isn’t online either but you can see a citation in the 2007 Asian Human Rights Report for India (on p.117-118).
http://www.achrweb.org/reports/india/AR06/INDIA-AR2006.pdf
There was a committee led by Drs. Abhay and Rani Bhang set up to look into the issue of Child malnutrition and they estimated death rates to be much higher, most of which were also caused by starvation/hunger. That report isn’t online either but an interview with Dr. Abhay Bhang here mentions the findings:
http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2219/stories/20050923006001400.htm
And Maharashtra is a relatively progressive and wealthy state; UP where I worked starvation deaths happened with an alarming regularity in poorer villages amongst landless workers and adivasis in hill/forest areas without any attention being generated.
The word ‘education’ is so frequently touted as a response to all social ills that it barely means anything anymore. Yes, the education system needs reform, but there are so many other aspects of life that need to be addressed to truly level the playing field (other SMers have pointed these out). I would add to this list mental health, which is sorely neglected as a consequence of chronic disparities.
Education is but one prong of the solution.
@Conrad. It seems like the problem is concentrated in the belt spanning Orissa, MP, UP, Bihar and Rajasthan. Care to speculate why? Is this entirely a socio-economic issue, or is there a supply side problem as well? I know the monsoon hasn’t been too kind in recent years.
And if you don’t mind saying, what do you do?
The book is extensive and covers many of the things people are mentioning including rural/urban; the states Nilekani calls “BiMaRU” (sick): Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh; corruption; infrastructure; etc.
Stewart is a comedian. The idea that a nation that leads the world in hunger, that is drowning in its own feces (http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751397), that is near the bottom in Human Development Indices can be a role model for other nations is nothing but an obscene joke. Nilekani boasts of the number of engineers India produces annually but what he neglects to mention is that only a very small fraction of these “engineers” are considered employable by foreign corporations. Just look at India’s shabby infrastructure, its abysmal sewage systems or lack thereof, its failed bureaucracy etc and draw your own conclusions about the quality of people produced by India’s educational system.
Africa in general has been more successful in feeding its children than South Asia despite being victim of a number of famines. This is the shame of India.
37 · LeVar said
It doesn’t come out until tomorrow…how did you get your hands on a copy? Mini review in comments please!
i got my copy from sellers on alibris about a month and a half ago.
I find Dhoni’s logic very well rounded.
India is bad for proof look at the bad condition of things in India.
Why are things in India in bad condition? Because India is bad of course!
But what makes you say India is bad? Well just look at the bad condition of things in India!
But what makes those conditions bad? The badness of India and Indians!
See how well rounded it is? It moves in a perfect circle!
Interesting…did you get a U.S. edition (I see they’re for sale now) a month and a half ago or Indian/other edition?
Dhoni/Prema/Vyasa, You have been trolling this site for a long time now, could you please learn to use the link function for your web links instead of just cutting and pasting the urls?
@Conrad. It seems like the problem is concentrated in the belt spanning Orissa, MP, UP, Bihar and Rajasthan. Care to speculate why? Is this entirely a socio-economic issue, or is there a supply side problem as well? I know the monsoon hasn’t been too kind in recent years.
I think it depends on what problem you are talking about exactly. If it is hunger and starvation then I would add Maharashtra and probably parts of Gujarat to that list and West Bengal too. I see the main divide as not one of BIMARU states vs the Rest but a North-South divide. The Southern states are pretty much far advanced in tackling these issues along with literacy, life expectancy and child mortality. Kerala is famous for this but Tamilnad is also very advanced and even Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh perform significantly better than their northern peers. In the north, aside from the Green Revolution aread of Punjab and Haryana only J&K are relatively free from this scourge. Parts of the Gujarat and Mahrashtra do well, as do the major urban centres but outside that the picture is pretty weak.
The issue is mainly socio-economic; you can see it from the withdrawals that these states make from the PDS, states like UP, Bihar and Orissa which have high hunger levels and poverty don’t withdraw and distribute anywhere near as much food as Kerala, AP or TN do. There is a good study by Jos Mooij which captures this discrepancy.
I don’t think it is a ‘supply-side’ problem as such; since Kerala is a major deficit state but manages to withdraw enough food from the PDS and distribute it to those of its population who need it. If you look at districts like Kalahandi which have been studied extensively you will see that they are also food surplus areas and actually export food. This is in line with Sen’s thesis that what is happening here is not a case of FAD (Food Availability Decline) but entitlement failure.
Why this is the case is a matter of intense debate. I would say there is a certain geo-politics of the PDS which gives some states more incentives to withdraw food than others, there are historical reasons which have meant that social conflict has allowed the construction of broader coalitions of different groups for developmentt in some states than others where identity politics is much more divisive and also different political party systems and cultures have meant that things like food are an intensely political issue for political parties in regions like the South to a degree that is not true in the North. But these are complicated matters which probably don’t have a single answer, though I am working on one!
And if you don’t mind saying, what do you do?
No, I don’t mind you asking. I am writing up my PhD thesis at the moment which covers the political economy of poverty policy in India; which is why, of course, I am interested in the topics raised here.
30 · amaun said
I agree that balance needs to be restored, but rewriting the constituion would be a good place to start, not teaching it. (Guess you have’nt read the POS that the Indian constitution is, between the articles, directive principles, fundamental rights and fundamental duties and its deference to a stupid, outdated penal code, and the deference to just about any law passed by lawmakers. It is as secular as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic. Go to the source and read the damn thing if you do not believe me)
Sure it would be nice to have a secular govenment:
Banning “religious war universities” from a view of public safely Stopping subsides to religious schools and costly sops to various communities and spend the money on a secular education, Moving to a modern uniform civil code,to prevent the self ghettoization of various communities Preventing the governmental “governance”/looting of institutions that belong to a particular religion Pandering to religious leaders of specific communities to win elections Ensuring that the all of the federation’s states have ual rights, irrespective of which religious community is in a majority. Enforcing a broken windows type policy to everyone starting a riot/ indulging in hooliganism, irrespective of religion
are all nice secular steps, but they should be a lower priority than having a strong, competent, uncorrupt and clean, efficient, development oriented, education focussed government
Conrad, thanks for the info. You’re right, it is a distribution thing since tons of food simply spoil in government granaries. It is a real tragedy and scheduled tribes are the worst affected. Along with MP, we probably want to add Jharkhand and Chattisgarh which are otherwise neglected and face raging maoist violence.
As for Nilekani’s book, looks like an interesting read for sure. Although, Abdul Kalam’s “India 2020 ” sets the bar high.
See how well rounded it is? It moves in a perfect circle!
I find her responses ignorant and asinine and am trying not to get into her trollish comments that often don’t make sense b/c it smacks of a lot personal hatred.
Nandan Nilekani on “On Point” yesterday. Nice podcast of interview http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2009/03/nandan-nilekani-imagining-india-the-world/ (I heart WNYC AM 820 🙂 )
Originally, I got excited about the book when I read Nilekani’s interview with Nitin Pai in Pragati back in January. So I went to alibris to find it and put it on my wish list. And thats when I saw that it was actually available for purchase.
Since the book was available so much in advance of the US release date, I presumed I would be getting an Indian version of the book when I was buying it. But after I got it, I realized it was an uncorrected proof to be used for the US PR launch campaign. Its missing some of the things available in the official release, most notable the foreward written by Thomas Friedman.
Anyway, its a great book for those interested in learning about not only the progress that India has made, but also about some of its failures. It discusses many of the challenges that lie ahead, about government initiatives to solve those problems and overcome those obstacles, as well as solutions proposed by NGOs and the private sector when the government doesnt succeed
13 · Cherry-P said
This is routine practice at The Daily Show, most of the times he is humorous and writers which come to his show are always serious about the issues which they have discussed in the book. Most of the times Jon and Steven (Colbert)don’t give much importance to the contents of the book, but what they do is to introduce the new book and the author to people.