Harshavardhan Jegadeesan's

Competition is good, very good!

Written by Harsh Jegadeesan on 10:00 PM

Update - The Nano project pulled out of West Bengal and moved into its new home - Vibrant Gujarat. Reason, enterprise of the CM and his team, pragmatic land acquisition policies and a business-friendly environment. Most important outcome - healthy competition between states to woo businesses!

For the past few days, I was disgusted seeing the news on Tata's Nano plant and the Singur agitation. A politician has been garnering press attention over a mismanaged land acquisition strategy of a state government, in the process holding one of India's corporates to ransom.

Though the leftist government headed by a not-too-leftist chief minister has been trying all it can to improve the situation and retain the Nano plant in West Bengal, there is competition now. Today, Karnataka offered to provide Tata's with the necessary support to setup the Nano plant in Dharwad. Such an offer has forced the leftist government to be more "competitive". The Chief Minister is trying to get on top of the situation and make sure that the plant stays in WB.

Competition has driven the leftist to act, and act fast. Competition has always been good, no doubt, our industries have improved and customers are smiling than never before. Governments have always been 'monopolistic', that explains inefficiency in governance and skepticism among the citizenry. Now I hope competition among our governments to attract investments and to create jobs will improve governance.

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| Posted in » current events, musings

At world's end?

Written by Harsh Jegadeesan on 10:49 AM

Today, September 10, 2008 is a historic day for mankind as we try to recreate Big-Bang, the theory which explains the beginning of our universe. Our quest to understand the initial conditions of the universe as it was, close to 14 billion years ago will start at 7.30 GMT today in CERN. By doing so, we hope to answer elusive questions on mass, gravity and the theoritical higgs bosons - the "God Particle".

Scientists would attempt to re-create big-bang using a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the world's largest particle accelarator powered by nuclear fusion. Through this momentous and biggest human experiment, scientist aim to validate the Standard Model, the model of particle physics which explains fundamental interactions among elementary particles that make up all matter. However, there is a section of dooms sayers who believe that this experiment would cause minute "unstable" black holes which would cause eathquakes, tsunamis and eventually engulf the whole world. Some people are quoting a Nostradamus predication that the world would end due to a disaster caused by the LHC today.

Does that mean we are at the world's end? I really don't know. But I am scared and excited at the same time, a mixed feeling running through my veins! As any normal human being, I live my every day assuming perpetualty of life till one day I find I would live no more. My list of "to-dos" >> "already done". If I am at world's end, I would wait for the "Noah's Ark" - a space shuttle in its 21st century avtar to go to the 'utopian world'. An inclusive world where there's no evil, no killing over one's faith, no poverty and no hunger, where I can start all over with my unfinished business. But for the moment, I am waiting to watch the spectacle on television today evening!

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| Posted in » current events

Bhindra, Boxers and India's Sporting Renaissance

Written by Harsh Jegadeesan on 6:09 PM

When Abhinav Bindra clinched India's first ever individual gold medal in olympics, the whole nation erupted in joy! Chinese dailies featured Bindra on the front page, although with a bit of sarcasm, the headlines read "A nation of billion celebrates its first individual gold after 60 years". Coincidentally, China too got its first olympic in shooting (Xu Haifeng in 1984 L.A olympics).
Then came our boxers and wrestlers from small towns and humble backgrounds to win 2 more bronze medals, taking our total tally of medals to 3, our best ever performance in modern olympics.

Bhindra and our boxers have done us proud, will they lead India's sporting renaissance? Sports in India has always taken a back-seat due to lack of quality infrastructure, government funding, our ailing and corrupt sports authorities and federations, but most importantly the lack of desire and collective will! India in its bid to match China's olympic grandeur , is loosening its purse and upping its spending for the 2010 Commonwealth games. But are we making concerted efforts to up our medals too?

Indian sports for all these years has been centered around "cricket", thanks to the multi-million viewership and big money from corporate advertisements. Cricket coaching camps have mushroomed all over India thanks to the popular IPL's 20-20 format and our small-town boys who have made their money playing cricket! we are leading the world in cricket, a sport which we adopted from our erstwhile rulers - the British. Can we replicate our cricketing success to other sports?

China in a span on 2 decades (1984 - 2008) has increased its medals tally and got more gold than the U.S for the first time. China attributed the olympic success to the "emergence of Asia", its economic upheaval has no doubt attributed to China's success in olympics. Can India, the other asian tiger emulate this? We might not agree on or afford the means that China has adopted, nevertheless we must build a right ecosystem to chase our olympic glory.

The sporting culture must start at our primary schools, where currently sports is given up to pursue alternate and safer career options. In most cases, sports is never a career option, due to uncertainties, threatening injuries and simple lack of encouragement from parents and teachers. Our government has to increase the spending on sports, our sports bodies must manage these funds effectively to build quality sporting infrastructure, spot and groom talent. Our corporates and media have to endorse and glorify olympic sports! We have to aggressively target and pursue certain sporting disciplines for the 2012 London Olympics. India's sporting renaissance must begin!