Delhi Metro...Looking Good

Its looking good...

Line Scheduled time of opening Total Length

Line 1 - Dilshad Garden Extension June 2008 25.15

Line 2 - Jahangirpuri Extension Jan 2009

Line 2 - Gurgaon Extension Jan 2010 44.65

Line 2 - Qutub Minar Extension Jul 2010

Line 3 - Noida Sec21 Extension Jul 2009

Line 3 - Dwarka Sector 21 Extension Dec 2009 53.43

New Lines:

Line 4 - Yamuna Bank-Anand Vihar ISBT Sept 2009 8.74

Line 5 - Inderlok-Mundka June 2010 18.46

Line 6 - Central Secretariat-Badarpur border Sept 2010 20.04

Airport Express line Aug 2010 22.40

(IGI Airport - New Delhi Railway Station)

Total = 192.87 kms

Boy...little is now left uncovered....

Tourism

I had written an article quite some time back on the growth potential of Indian tourism - http://suvidblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-indias-tourism-traffic-will-plateau.html. And then came across another piece today - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Holiday-traffic-expected-to-fall-30/articleshow/4363913.cms. And am saddened that tourism's luck has finally run out. Would agree that most of it could also be driven by 26/11 and the global recession (Stay-cation guys!) but there was always minimal headroom for tourism to grow in India and dont see the growth of yester years repeated moving on...

Welcome to 2009 - I see a good year...

Well good for India really...and thank the elections for this. Its the year when the black economy returns to become white...All the accumulations in the hands of politicians and parties get handed out across the country to the poorest of the poor - Direct cash in the hands of the people - The most efficient PDS scheme in the world!! And this money then would stand invested, consumed and saved....Yippee!!! All companies focusing on rural would stand to gain. Aint the dance of democracy interesting?

BRIC is now IC...

Well finally the demographic dividend has come back to aid the India growth story - The only two economies which continue to grow are India & China...Both Brazil and Russia continuing to languish and I am told that the old days of barter are back in Moscow...Hmmm...

Sorry folks...Have been busy earning a living...

So now that the title explains partial blame for the delay in updates, the articles to follow would be an update on the telecom sector and the biggie - The Nuclear Deal. A deal where the most short-term thinking members of India's leadership were exploited to achieve the most long term achievement of our country's history...Do Shibu Soren, Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh even know the long term impact of their wheeling dealing - the ends justifying the means here folks...

I hate to tell you that I told you so but I told you so...

Just completed a routine go-through of http://www.swaminomics.org/. And guess what I found. An article about SEZs - available at http://www.swaminomics.org/articles/20071202.htm

The article says and I quote -

Policies for SEZs should be such that -

1. First, every SEZ promoter had to be an industrialist, not a builder, ensuring that this was an industrial project and not real estate in disguise.
2. Second, the promoter had to have an anchor project of his own in the SEZ. This ensured provision of high-class infrastructure, which a builder might neglect.
3. Third, the promoter had to buy land voluntarily from farmers and not expect state acquisition on his behalf. This avoided the heart-burning seen in Orissa and West Bengal.

And most importantly - "The Gulf of Kutch is the only coastal area in India with low rainfall. Farming is tough, so farmers are willing to sell their land"

I promise I wrote my article about Rajasthan before reading this. Wake up Rajasthan...

To read the "Rajasthan Article" - click here.

http://suvidblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/perfect-state-rajasthan.html

India's progress - A myth

A great article, given that it is posted on rediff it is quite unlike that website to post articles of such profoundity.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/06utop.htm

Looks at all the negatives of the so-called demographic dividend. This article exposes the crisis we also call "demographic dividend". A few quotes from the article to elucidate the point -

Who will create the jobs to absorb the net increase of 71m young people of working age over the next five years? Most are poorly educated and only a fraction will find regular work. Who will feed them and supply them with water and fuel? India has 18 per cent of the world's population but only 4 per cent of its fresh water and just over 2 per cent of its land area. Many of the country's groundwater aquifers are already in critical condition. Available per capita water supply has declined since 1975 and water demand is set to exceed all usable sources of supply by 2050. The bulge of young people today, furthermore, will in time become a bulge of pensioners in a country where only 11 per cent of the working-age population have formal pension arrangements. India will thus face the same problems of ageing and high dependency ratios as Japan and Europe today, only on a larger scale.

India does not have much time to shape up....