Toastmasters 2nd Speech

1

Written on 5:48 PM by nitesh

YVR Different

Once upon a time in hot and humid jungle there lived an elephant, she was big, slow and lumbering history. She used to talk nostalgically about her glorious past and the others animals used to comment that it was long ago. One day she fell ill and the veterinarians suggested her that she had to change the way of her living otherwise she had to sell her ivory tusk to live. She declined to see and started to change and slowly that elephant has started to transform into tiger. It has started roaring; stripes are coming on its body it is transforming into a tiger. All small and big animals are coming to look and admire the giant elephant

Any guesses who the elephant is and who are the big animals??

It’s our own India and big animals are developed countries of the world.

India is roaring with full strength; economy is showing highest growth rates in the world

But still...Why all of us are afraid?!!!

Because………..may be we are not following the proven path of development

First of all what is that unique path of development the land of Buddha is following and what are the advantages we have!!!!!!!!!

1. Democracy

Government of the people and by the people

Development is looking ahead towards the future but democracy is making plans for the coming elections. It’s very difficult to make plans for development under democracy. Take the example of the sealing drive in Delhi. Many houses were illegally developed and there was illegal business going on in the residential areas but now many of those areas are legalized under new master plan .You know Why? because elections are coming up

Let’s discuss which path other countries took: US growth, which occurred in an era when they used to exploit the blacks as slaves. Similarly Japan was also growing at 5-6% before the World War 2 when it was under autocracy.

We have so many political parties so its obvious that there will be hindrance to any move related to development.

If we are successful in becoming developed we will be the first country to do so under universal adult franchise that means having voting rights for all.


2. Growth led by domestic consumption:

With growing incomes of the middle class Indian’s spending power has increased and this is creating a huge demand of products in India itself. People are spending a lot instead of saving all the money.

China and Taiwan were doing just the opposite when they were at this stage as India is now, they were saving instead of spending.. Much of the demand in the east asian countries was from other countries i.s these economies were more export-led i.e. exporting a lot of manufactured goods.

For India its both way internal as well as external demand


3. Growth driven by service sector

Countries followed the path of becoming a manufacturing hub by and slowly moving up to high knowledge requiring products like automobiles, electronics and services. This path was followed by countries like US, China, Japan, Korea etc., But India is following a different path. . It is using the skills of its burgeoning educated middle class in service sector like – information technologies telecommunications, airlines, banking etc and then moving to the manufacturing line. Services sector comprises of 53.6% of GDP even though we have got 60% of our population employed in agriculture


Does this step was by intention or by chance??

I think it was by chance because When East Asian economies and China opened up there was huge demand for the manufacturing products so they followed the tried and tested export - led path and when India opened up its economy demand for services was growing and above all services sector required less infrastructure development.


4. Demographics

Demographics is a shortened term for 'population characteristics' like race, age , income , mobility etc. Though large chunk of our population is without primary education but a demographics shift in coming decade will cover this up. Education revolution will boost the labor force and increase the savings rate as more people will be working. By 2020 median age of our population will be 28.7 years compared to 38-40 of countries like china , usa , uk and japan.

Now comes to big question

Will we be successful?

Elephant’s dirty skin has started to shine; dust is fading away, though still chunk of dirt is there


  • We have to stop spending more then our revenues i.e. control budget deficit, there is a need for better transportation system, roads airports have to come up fast.
  • Laziness and slow working style of the government officers has to be opposed
  • Poverty and illiteracy has to be compressed to a vanishing point.

This doesn’t mean we cannot contribute anything

We can

  • First of all we have to work hard to make the elephant roar.
  • We have to keep the government on their toes and oppose any wrong move by the government authorities
  • We have to step forward just like we did in Jessica Lal Case
  • Moreover there is a need for more tatas , mittals , ambanis ……….. and I am sure there will be few like them among uss …….
  • You You You ……… you all women have to dream big like icici women, like kiran majumdar , indira noyee ….. You have to become goddesses of big things.


Finally With our free press, democracy, private sector, entrepreneurs, middle class we will surely become not only tiger but a Liger Lion + Tiger.


Reference:

  • Business World Feb12-07 issue
  • India Unbound
  • Shashi Tharoor Article on Sunday TOI: Feb 25th
  • Economist Feb Issue

Sorry for not writing regularly here, busy writing on sportolysis

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