René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

Here is another angle to the ongoing discussion on the rivarly between India and India. A lot of though had been put to parallels and similarities at the Asia Society Conference recently in Mumbai as this article describes. The story might not be new, but the comparison has a least a valid starting point. Both countries had the same GDP per capital 10 years back, boast the same huge level of population with more than 1 bn each and account as prototypes of “emerging economies”. However today, China’s average GDP is double to that of India. Without having actual figures at hand, but based on the account from a speech I watched and blogged from Union Minister Mani Shankar Ayer, I would not assume that the Gini-Coefficient (which measures the level of (un-)equal distribution in an economy) was in India any more favourable. And then there is the constant comparison with the polished infrastructure in China and the rotten one in India. In one of my YEO-events, a fellow member in the Bangalore Chapter brought the situation to the point: “Whatever has been achieved in China, happened because of the government, whatever has been achieved in India, happened DESPITE the government.

At the same time, to present a counterview in the New York Times from Thomas Friedman, author of the fantastic book “The World is Flat“: In the long run he gives India with its vivid democracy a clear thumbs-up.