Rising India

BusinessWeek (Dec 8, 03) has the cover story on the 'rise of India' and its implications for American economy. Intel's Andy Grove is quoted as saying that the American IT industry could follow the path of steel into decline.

A comparison between India and China is inevitable in such an analysis. Below is what BW thinks:

China's Strengths	India's Strengths
GDP Growth: 8% for the past decade vs. India’s 6%	Language: India’s manpower is more fluent in English
Infrastructure: Highways, ports, power sector and industrial parks are superior	Capital Markets: Private firms have readier access to funding. China favors state sector.
Foreign Investment: $50 bn+ a year vs. India’s $4 bn	Legal System: Contract law and copyright protection are more developed
Exports: $266 bn (in 2002) was 4 times India’s	Younger Population: 53% of India’s population is under age 25 vs. 45% in China

I think democracy also plays a vital role in making India’s rise a sustainable phenomenon. A follow-on article in the same issue talks about it:

Decades of democracy and affirmative action have allowed participation of the poorest in the system and brought them to national power. For the poor, the most potent cure for poverty is education. That is resulting in surge in school spending in villages. Young Indians get 5 more years of schooling, on average, than their parents, and there is nearly universal primary education.

Even some of India’s part follies are truing into sources of strength. Socialism and import substitution, for example, held the economy back. But they also produced generations of entrepreneurs who had to develop indigenous products, from shampoos to satellites, with their own resources. This self reliance has enabled Indian companies to win Deming quality awards and export orders.

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DMOZ aka Directory Mozilla

[Through Rajesh] An excellent graphic depicting the relationships amongs various search engines. DMOZ supplies directory results to most of the search engines.

DMOZ stands for Directory Mozilla (because of its 'loose' association with Netscape's Mozilla project). This is an Open Directory Project (ODP) which is a 'human edited directory of the web, compiled by a vast global community of volunteer editors.' Only a self-governing effort like DMOZ can make the task of categorizing internet content feasible.

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