Seriously, does it take a lot of brain power to realize that no country will ever be truly self-sufficient and happy without basic research (not just in science, but also in humanities)?

Booking railway tickets have been made quite easy. Looks like I have different experiences with the government agencies than some other commenters. I renewed my passport in Chennai within 4 days on my last trip. No bribery, nothing illegal. The only drawback was that I have to go in the morning once to get into the first of the line and then in the evening to actually apply. They take only limited applications per day. And the waiting room was cramped. I was suffocated for a while.

It is as painful as extending my driver license in the US , being a resident alien I have to drive upto the state capital (40 miles) and have to submit relevant immigration documents. I can’t get it in the local DMV/RMVs.

I agree with the other commenters who have talked about the undue “influence” of the “government officials”. It is an hangover from the British period. We need to get rid of the model where each “senior government official” gets around 20 sidekicks who do nothing but wash / cook / serve / drive for him.

quotas are always sub optimal and ultimately hurt the country’s progress….

There was a popular joke at the time of Perestroika in Gorbachev’s Russia .It was said that in the first year of Perestroika ,everybody would have motorbikes,in the second year everybody would have cars,in the third year everybody would have planes.When asked what people would do if everyone had planes,the answer was simple.If you came to know that bread was available in Vladivostok,you could quickly board your plane and join the queue ahead of others.Sometimes ,when you look at the types of policies being made here at the altar of political correctness,sensible indians wonder whether the Gorbachev joke may soon have an Indian counterpart.

If you haven’t read this, check it out. http://www.amazon.com/Corruption-Indias-C-P-Srivastava/dp/0333935314/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205360909&sr=8-16

“Corruption: India’s Enemy Within” is written by an ex-IAS officer who has been Private Secretary to many PMs. He gives a great account of his observations and solutions on how one might go about solving the problem. Most people know what the problems and solutions are with respect to what is stopping India, its the how and who which is the problem.

I haven’t read all the comments so do not know whether this has been answered, “Tiger” is usually used to refer to emerging economies which are growing stronger and are growing at a breakneck speed. E.g. Asian Tigers were Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea in the 90s. In 2000s, China is refered to as a Dragon and India is refered to as an Elephant, a slow growing and big economy. Of late, India has been refered to as an elephant showing the stripes of a tiger due to its high-er growth rate of 9%.

To the person refering to population problem, it is known that demography is everything. No longer India’s population is looked upon as a liability. Everywhere growth usually follows higher population, IF (Big IF) right economic policies are in place along with other institutions, which is followed by lower fertility growth followed by slow down in population followed by lower population followed by lower growth. Japan and Europe has a problem of lower population growth. China is fine but they are getting older faster than they are getting richer. India is the only country which will have the most working age population till 2050.

Indians are often too hard on them selves, I’ve worked in both Shanghai and Mumbai. When I came to Shanghai our office was in a huge fancy building nothing less of what you see in the west, when you went in to the office there where hardly any people and even less work being done. Mumbai was the exact opposite, when I came to our companys office I almost started to laugh, it looked like the garage where Bill Gates started Microsoft. But the Office was cramned with people and alot of actual work was being done. If you talk to people that have experienced working in both India andChina they will give you the same picture.

China, every thing is of the highest standard, everything works like a clock, just take their top notch magnetic train that goes from Shanghai to the airport, it is the fastest train in the world. But it’s completely empty, and it’s 50 miles long, thats it! It’s just show, it’s like the Concorde plane, no one wanted it, no one asked for it. India doesn’t work like that, India can’t set away that kind of resources just to make a PR statement to the west, Indian companies grow organically. China today makes me think of when Nehru went to the Soviet Union in the 50′s and admired the industrial growth in the country, which subsequently made us tilt towards Soviet instead of the US. Today we, and the world admires Chinas strenght and industrial growth, but none of it is organically growth, it’s top down investment, some day these investments, like the train from Shanghai to the airport have to pay for them selves, and that is when we the comparison bewteen China and India becomes relevant.

That said, the Economist is spot on about India. That said, the Indian civil service is a tough nut to crack, any government that lays off that many people will be in huge trouble and maybe it’s for the better. Maybe it’s fr the better. Indias private sector has shown that it can grow despite the civil sector, 10 years ago working in the civil sector was everything an Indian graduate would dream about, nowadays the tables are turned. When private alternatives becomes more attractive than the public sector, not only for the customer, but also for the employee things will sort out for them selves and that is much better than creating a huge crisis by privatizing faster than jobs are being created, in the worst case scenario you’ll end upp as some South East Asian countries did in the mid 90′s.

What is UP with Che and parks? The ballpark in NYC is named “Che Stadium”, and now Che is taking over the Software Tech Park.

At this rate, we will soon be singing, “Oh, Che, can you see by the dawn’s early light…”.

Unless Lou Dobbs’s Mexican nightmare comes true first, in which case we’ll just sing “José, can you see…”.

They are reserved for the financially challenged masses of India.

Most reservation counters usually have queues with chairs in rows…. so obviously you never went to a reservation counter. The unreserved tickets are usually very quick because they are bought on the spot, and need no information at all (not even your name).

OK so now I’m being told I never did something that I’ve actually done? Funny.

Anyway, oftentimes when reading SM I get the feeling people are talking about another India than the one I’ve lived in since 1993. But then again, I’ve never lived in Mumbai, so maybe that explains it.