Thanks

Vishal

well one obvious and annoying one is that we say we r proud 2 be an indian but nvr cease to ignore fellow indians out side india so smile….:) we smile at all others…..

Great additions to the post there in your comment! Thanks.

And i agree, despite all these little things, i cant stop loving my country. Reminds me of that song from Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

Yep, we love America, so much, that we want to become Them, doesnt matter if we pick up the things that actually dont fit our lifestyle or attitude/thinking modes, but we have to become like THEM, by hook or crook. Soon we will have English(american english) as our National Language(notice the way the Hindi is on the news channel, its mostly Hinglish). Our languages are so difficult to learn, why bother learning it, we can just do away with it and stop teaching it in schools. Our clothes are a pain to wear, our foods- a looong process to prepare, its better to shift to cereal, canned foods and packaged foods, after all we do have the money, so if we fall ill from not taking care of things that matter, we can afford a good hospital too. But we should fall in with the Times and Follow America/Western world. (Waiting for the credit card/mortgage fiascos to happen in India)

Sure, we dont take terrorism sitting down, we just take it silently in shavaasan, all is Peace right?

Mobile phones, oh Yes, I love this accessibility to this invention. It brings more than two people so close to bond – the two meet for a date/luncheon and each sit opposite each other at the restaurant enjoying a conversation with someone else over the mobile.. Ooooh just love the etiquette.

Water supply- we found a new way of conservation- supply water only once in three days. Yet say that India is SHINING(probably with all the NOT bathing that happens when water is in short supply). Same with Electricity.

Now, in cities like Bangalore, they have found a new way to Let the People live in Peace, check this news item…new ways to harass people with bribes? or Really concerned with security?
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec172008/scroll20081217107154.asp?section=frontpagenews

Yet, I still Love this country…*sigh* guess love is Blind, Deaf and Dumb too.

I don’t necessarily agree with all that you have said, nevertheless, it was an interesting read.

Mobiles grew because of these two structural factors, lack of competition from fixed line telephony, the availability of flexible consumer packaging of the services (e.g. pay as you go which is the preferred consumer option) and obvious advantages over fixed lines.

If you think of the growth as an exception – or ironic – in India, consider the African continent where the experience also is growth of mobiles being greater than fixed line telephony. Several countries altogether skipped the fixed line telephony thing. One could argue so many of them have nothing to eat so why bother with mobiles? No?

The ‘many’ referred to in ‘Many would consider mobile phones to be a luxury’ are probably those people who judge others’ life circumstances Mobile phones provide leverage and a chance to the poor, hard working person to earn more and improve his life. In such a case, it is not luxury but an essential.

The irony only arises because of your assumptions about development, my friend. There is no single model for development; nor is the either-or model (e.g. as people often like to say why space programme when we have no food) applicable. Such is life. :-/

As I said, the knowledge asymmetries that drive all other things are clear, but in mobiles the assumption of the knowledge asymmetry is the joke upon us, the armchair analysts. We are the irony in the mobile phenomenon