Q/Q - quality by quantity ratio

Shrikant Patil write...

This ratio struck me as I was driving around Konkan last week...We have a million graduates annually and many studies have confirmedthat only 25% of these are employable.

...

Indian economists keep talking of a middle class that is 300 million strong. In her latest book, " We are like that only" Rama Bijapurkar talks of only 6 million that can afford all available consumer goods.

We have 18 million kids, at any age point between 5 and 15, and we struggle to fill a class room for the National Defence Academy.

We need to add the dimension of quality in everything we do. If you look at our media, social discussions, work output, activities, status in society it is very quantitative and not qualitative.

It is a pathetic Q/Q number, the root cause why the software industry is struggling when one dollar still buys 40 rupees and the per capita income of India is US$564....

Tarun Malaviya writes....

The ratio brings out sharply what ails us as a nation and people. The reason for this is not hard to see –

Self serving attitude-

We celebrate achievement (taking) and the achievers (the takers) and disregard the givers (the teachers). We give ever more to the takers and ever so less to the givers.

Nehru's dream of creating an elite set of people who would then help multiply this set and drive the nation forward has been belied. Most of those who benefited from the nations initiatives forgot to give. Most of those who were given thought it fit to peruse self serving goals.

A Mai-Baap mindset-

I think this must have happened sometime around when the Britishers ruled India (or maybe it was earlier still) that we developed a Mai-Baap. That the king (the government) must provide for us. That we are a helpless lot living by the grace of the rulers.

What can change this--

A worthy tradition-

I feel that despite the abysmal governance and unprincipled politics, this country has managed to sustain a huge human population and move ahead, only because of this rich tradition of giving. Completely lost on the celebrated & the achievers but still preserved by the artisans, artists and the gurus in the form of Guru-Shishya Parampara. The best in India are the beneficiaries of this tradition.

It is incumbent on us (the more privileged) who've had such teachers and got the best from this country to give back. Not in half measures but wholly.

Individual & Private enterprise--

The story of progress of us as a nation is that of private enterprise. It is a story of people who have quit the Mai-Baap mindset. It is the story of people who have quit waiting for someone else to solve their problems. It is story not just confined to the world of business, but runs across all dimensions of economic, social, cultural and the governance landscape.

My hope and belief is that the tribe of such people would grow ever larger. Our work should be to encourage and grow such enterprise.