Opinion Inflections,Continuums and So On
It is an interesting human habit that when something new comes one resists it but if it gains acceptance it becomes so to say normal.
It is an interesting human habit that when something new comes one resists it but if it gains acceptance it becomes so to say normal.
During the last year our column in the Express Group has talked of two ideas. They were both received with a bit of unease and in some quarters opposition,of course of an intellectual and not personal nature.
The first was the idea that Indian agriculture is at an inflection point. There were three ideas here. The first was that with fast economic growth the demands for agricultural goods would be more. The second was that such demands would be of a diversified nature rather than just more grains. The third was that the economy had reached a cut-off point of around three thousand dollars per capita income in terms of comparable dollars after which agricultural goods demand zooms like it did not do so earlier.
This many felt was not kosher. We have a lot of poverty and so more grains will be needed. But poor people also eat eggs or vegetables. These are not air-conditioners. Ah,but Alagh you are wrong. There were hard boiled mangers who had lost money in agriculture and they were not biting.
But by now the inflection point in agriculture is like the morning chai. I discovered it is the in thing when senior management in Infosys uses it as day-to-day parlance and so it goes on. I am not particularly an intellectual property wallah and so get happy when I see acceptance.(Please keep this as a secret from the editors of this paper).
Incidentally,notice the only way of keeping a secret these days is to put it in a newspaper blog and then no one apart from your boss bothers about it. After three days,wink wink,yawn,yawn,thank you Mr Prime Minister but the price of tur dal has gone up again.
The rural urban continuum was worse. Here the idea was that actually India has according to UN agencies a fairly widespread market structure and so when the economy expands,trade and people go from small to large villages and from large villages to small towns and so on.
If we understand this we will make it easier more enjoyable and profitable. Aha,but we have ayatollahs who say that we are not urbanizing. The FAO and UNDP can say it but who bothers. If somebody like the Labor Burue says it after a survey of 300 districts there are more than two hundred other districts.
There are satellite pictures. But Alagh satellites have limits. This one became kosher sooner. For one thing Rahul Gandhi said at IRMA that when he is in Amethi he meets all the time people coming from other villages and towns. When he is in Delhi and Bombay he sees people coming from Amethi.
The data geek that he is,he has also worked out that some six hundred million persons are moving and boy he wants to do something for them as persons. Now I notice that separately the newspapers caught up with that. And so there are advertisements of Rural,Urban and Global Continuums.
I am happy,the advertisers are happy. The Ayatollahs are not. But who cares.
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