Western ballast on pooor Indian backs

Shankar Acharya: The Audacity of Hope

Obama’s election will not, by itself, solve the gravest economic and financial crisis since 1930. It will not end the war in Iraq overnight or revert American civil liberties immediately to the pre-2001 status. Or defuse the international hot-spots of Pakistan, Iran and the Middle East. Or provide instant solutions to climate change, energy scarcity and other pressing, planetary problems. But what it will do, indeed has done, is provide real hope that the world’s most powerful country will approach these profound problems in a serious, consultative, multilateral way. In international politics there are no cast iron guarantees. But we can hope. Yes, we can.

Such infatuation

Here is a man who was somebody in India’ s bureaucracy. He should know the difference between PR, spin and reality. Such blind infatuation with the West - from a person who has been there and done that.

This entire article strengthens my point that the Westernized Indian is expensive ballast on the backs of poor Indians. For the record,

in 1967, Shankar Acharya graduated from the Oxford University and in 1972, he obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the Harvard University. He was the Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford in 2000 and Stanford University in 2002.

He worked with the World Bank in various capacities since 1971, before returning to India in 1982. He was the leader of the team which produced the 1991 `World Development Report’.

His most significant assignment was as the Chief Economic Adviser to the GOI (in the rank of Secretary) between 1993 and 2000. He was also on the board of SEBI and EXIM Bank of India during the period. His previous assignments with the GOI include the roles of Senior Adviser (rank of Additional Secretary) and Economic Adviser with the Finance ministry from 1985 to 1990.

Should know better. Shankar Acharya should.