The Lambretta and Vespa era in India

 

Photo by Tim Gouw: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-piaggio-vespa-motor-scooter-parked-beside-gray-and-red-concrete-building-240222/

Middle-class India has long gotten used to cars in all sizes and shapes. In that sense, the country has become like any other nation around the world with a large middle-class population possessing a fair amount of disposable income. Of course, millions are too poor to afford cars, but there are millions who can (India is number three in the world in vehicle sales after China and the U.S.). But there was a time not all that long ago when most of middle-class India would only dream of owning cars.

So, what did the middle class drive? A few of them who could do so would drive the bulky and almost vintage Ambassador and Fiat cars, while the rest rode two popular Italian brands. Lamborghini and Ferrari? Nah! They rode scooters-Lambretta and Vespa!

Those of you who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s would remember them well. The Lambretta was the bigger and more stately two-wheeler and could accommodate a family of four. This would comprise the one manning the controls, the pillion rider, the bigger child seated on a steel carrier behind the spare wheel at the tail end of the scooter and a small child standing on the footboard in the front placing his hands on the handlebar between the father’s hands that held the ends.

The Vespa was the quicker scooter though smaller in size. It was also easier to kick start when compared to the Lambretta, which was harder to operate and came with a recoil. The Vespa was a family vehicle too, but would rarely see four people riding it at the same time-though three people was quite commonplace. People would not just commute to work but often go on long rides across hundreds of kilometres, often to other towns and cities.

There was a veritable boom in the scooter industry with every middle-class Indian worth their name wanting to own a Bajaj scooter a homegrown brand very similar to the Vespa, which it replaced. Over the years, it launched many popular models like Bajaj Chetak, Bajaj Super and Baja Priya. The Lambretta similarly got replaced by Vijay Super. In later years, towards the 1990s Vespa made a comeback with its LML Vespa range of scooters. Honda introduced the first gearless scooter in India in collaboration with an Indian company Kinetic, marking a watershed in the evolution of the scooter industry in India.

Scooters in the ’70s, ’80s and even ’90s were two-stroke geared affairs, providing a fair amount of power and the pick-up too was good. The noise levels were high too, but nobody seemed to mind. They were easy to repair and anybody could deal with starting trouble by tilting the scooter to its side or sometimes by cleaning the spark plug! That was what seems like a lifetime ago. Everything about India was different back then in the sense that life was laid back, but people had more time for each other. No one was in a conspicuous consumption race leading to nowhere.

We are in a different age now-the digital age. Let’s hope it leads us to an era better than the Lambretta and Vespa era!

Getting rid of our obsession with cars

Photo by Cesar Perez: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-sports-coupe-733745/

 It is obvious that the world needs to get rid of its obsession with cars as a personal means of transportation. Yet, we see no signs of that happening in any major way. There is a lot of action happening along the lines of replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric ones as if the latter don’t cause any pollution at all. Shouldn’t one be looking at a future with fewer and fewer cars, rather than obsessing with what is better- gasoline cars or electric ones? Cars are bad for the environment and that is something that has been proven beyond doubt.

What we need to do is to get rid of our obsession with cars-a malaise that is increasingly catching on in the emerging economies of the world like India. I would like to clarify that in my opinion, while we need way fewer cars, I am not suggesting that there be no cars at all as some people really do need them. If you have a daily long commute to accomplish and have no recourse to reliable public transport, sure it would make sense for you to have a car. If you are someone who needs to travel out of town frequently, you could possibly go in your car than pay through your nose for a plane ticket. In any case, an aeroplane is known to be way more polluting than a car.

It is the obsession with cars that I abhor. In the larger cities of India where young working adults often live with their parents in apartment complexes, it is not uncommon for a family to have two or three cars. Often, there are quarrels with the neighbours over parking space, but they will not think of riding in one car and save themselves a world of trouble. Buying more and more and bigger and bigger cars has become a matter of prestige notwithstanding the perennially choked roads and some of the most polluted roads in the world.

As many towns and cities in the West legislate to introduce more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly lanes in place of automobile freeways, countries like India and China which for decades had most people riding bicycles as cars were beyond their reach, they are now are going in the opposite direction. Currently China leads the world in the number of automobiles sold, with the US and India in the second and third place respectively. Considering that less than 9% of people in India own a passenger vehicle, one can expect an ocean of cars to deluge the nation of nearly a billion and a half people in the time to come.

People all over the developed and developing world need to be weaned off their reliance on personal cars as an effective way of getting around and instead, be encouraged to adopt public means of transport like buses and metro rail networks. They should also be encouraged to ride a bicycle instead of going somewhere by car or even walking if it is possible. The infrastructure needs to be put in place for this in the shape of larger, better and more comfortable bus and metro rail networks as well as more pedestrian walkways and bicycle lanes. This has to be done at the expense of cars so that people are disincentivized to use them.

It makes every sense to do so from an environmental and personal health point of view. Fewer cars will go a long way in mitigating the factors that contribute to global warming and by encouraging people to walk, cycle and take public transport, there would be a massive reduction in the incidence of lifestyle diseases on account of the exercise they will get. A clear win-win for all. The glamourisation of cars has to stop and the health of the planet and its people should be something that people should focus all their attention on. The time for obsessions is over. It never leads to anything good.

Why US Presidential Hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is a bit of a farce

 

Photo by Edmond Dantès: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-holding-a-voter-pin-7103165/

38-year-old US presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy aiming to secure a nomination as the Republican party’s presidential candidate is the man of the season. Apparently, he performed very well in the last inter-party debate, where he impressed everyone with his devotion to the most outlandish of Trump’s views of the world and how it should be dealt with. That a man of Indian origin should align with people who border on being neo-Nazis and likely detest people of colour like him is incomprehensible to anyone with a modicum of decency. People in India are bemused by the antics of this brown man who pretends to be more Anglo-Saxon than the whitest of whites and panders to the extreme xenophobia of some of them.

He is happy to be a climate change denier and defends his decision to not get vaccinated against the Covid-19 pandemic. In other words, he ticks every box in the list of necessary prerequisites for a person to be accepted by the extreme right lunatic fringe he caters to. But at what cost to his own self-esteem and heritage? Though he calls himself a practising Hindu, he calls the US a nation founded on Judea-Christian values. What does that imply for his Hindu coreligionists in the U.S.? Does he even care? Already Donald Trump’s pastor has conveyed dismay at a non-Christian entering the White House with his “strange gods.” These are the kind of people he is willing to sell his soul to.

Despite his chicanery, he is not averse to taking a sly dig at his competitor for the position of Republican Party presidential nominee Nikki Hailey alluding to the fact that she goes by the supposedly Western first name Nikki, not realizing that it is an Indian name too, given to her by her parents. Ramaswamy is a rank opportunist whom the white supremacists are happy to endorse if he helps further their nefarious agenda and goals.

Forget the fact that here is a man with a convenient conscience who does not even see how ridiculous and pathetic his attempts at ingratiating himself with people who nearly carried out an insurrection in the U.S., but look instead at how harebrained his solutions to the problems his country faces are. From firing 75% of the federal workforce (including the FBI, the IRS and the Commerce Department) and pardoning all “peaceful” January 6 protestors to stopping U.S. aid to Ukraine and supporting fossil fuels over the long run to raising the minimum voting age to 25 from 18 making an exception for those who serve in the military and  “first response services” or have passed a civics test usually taken by citizens seeking naturalization.

The man is a clear and present danger to the health of not only American democracy but to democracies and the rule of law throughout the world. The world could use one less demagogue. Ramaswami is best returned to his pharmaceutical business and writing a whole series of books on anti-wokism or whatever excites his fancy at a given point in time. The world needs a dose of sanity right now, more than anything else and sanity is not a hallmark of what Ramaswami stands for at all.

India quietly elbowing out China on the world stage

Photo by Vraj Shah: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-hand-1721637/

There was a time in the very recent past when the world looked nervously as the Chinese economy surged and grew to the number 2 spot in world rankings. The veritable manufacturing headquarters of the world, as China’s wealth and profile grew, so did its geo-political ambitions. Its ambitious global infrastructure project Belt and Road dazzled the world and drew support from nations across the continents who lined up to be part of the project that seemed to show the path to a whole new golden age of economic growth.

India was one of the few countries in the world that refused to toe the Chinese line and made it a point to object to the very idea of the grandiose infrastructure project, which it saw as nothing more than a land-grabbing exercise on a global scale combined with trapping struggling nations in a pernicious debt cycle. The incredible growth of the Chinese economy over the past two decades occurred because the Americans had turned an indulgent eye to the former slowly and inexorably becoming a global manufacturing hub and the fulcrum of the global supply chain.

With success came hubris and China under its new dictatorial president Xi Jinping embarked on a revisionist path that involved making outlandish territorial claims vis-à-vis its neighbours and behaving roguishly with any nation that didn’t agree with their point of view. A case in point is the way they threatened the Australians with punitive trade tariffs on their imports after the latter called for an enquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From its perennial fixation with repossessing Taiwan, and claiming most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters to starting an armed skirmish with India in the high Himalayas to justify its illegal attempts at consistent land grabbing and its trying to browbeat Philippines and Vietnam, China has been flexing its muscles at just about anybody it thinks doesn’t show it the respect due to a great power that China was always meant to be.

Unfortunately for China and its great delusions of grandeur, its great economy is sputtering to a halt. Its population is ageing leading to an inevitable economic decline and the West has joined hands with partners like India to slowly extricate everyone from having to rely on China to keep the global supply chain healthy. Moreover, with the flow of cutting-edge technology and investment from the West to China drying up, they are looking at very bad times ahead indeed. Growth has plummeted and unemployment has risen among a very highly aspirational youth leading to social unrest.

India on its part has quietly gone about building its economy in a big way by investing heavily in infrastructure and forging close economic ties with nations ranging from the US, and the European region to the Middle East and Japan. Strategically too, India has been shoring up its military capability by purchasing cutting-edge aircraft, building infrastructure in the Himalayas, making its own aircraft carrier and forging strategic alliances with a host of nations. The most important one is the four-nation QUAD comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia.

In its immediate neighbourhood, India has helped an economically devastated Sri Lanka by extending credit lines to them that no other nation in the world including China would do. It has largely warm and friction-free relations with all its immediate neighbours, apart from China and Pakistan. India is also enhancing its naval presence in the Indian Ocean knowing fully well that it can choke China of food and fuel supplies at will, as all the important sea lanes to China from the West pass under the Indian peninsula. In a direct blow to the much vaunted and faltering Belt and Road initiative, the new economic corridor from India to Europe, The India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) which was announced at the recently concluded G20 summit will prove to be a catalyst for stimulating close economic ties between Asia, the Arabian Gulf and Europe- a potential game changer, if there was any.

By ensuring that the African Union became a full member of the G-20, India has done more for the continent than China with its tall promises and dangerous policy of making supplicants of nations it purports to help. Moreover, the world is not suspicious of India’s motives, the way it is of China’s. Unlike the single-party ruled autocracy with an opaque way of conducting its affairs, India is a vibrant democracy that follows the rule of law. The growth of India will be good for the world as India is a force for good. China is no longer the growth engine of the world, which is a good thing too, for its growth can become a cause of danger to the world and even its own people.

Like the proverbial race between the hare and the tortoise, India may have been late in picking up speed, but it is getting there and will one day forge ahead. Look at the way the whole world including Russia and even China arrived at a consensus on the G20 New Delhi declaration, something that the whole world thought was impossible, thanks to India’s tireless efforts. India is quietly, but inexorably elbowing out China on the world stage. The latter will likely be busy staving out economic crises, social unrest and food shortages in the years ahead. It may not be that apparent yet, but the next few decades are India’s.

Will India be the definitive G-20 breakout nation?

 

 

Photo by Navneet Shanu: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-carriage-wheel-672630/

With the much talked about G-20 summit set to commence in New Delhi on the 9^th of September with the leaders of some 60 countries arriving in the Indian capital, it is a good time to ponder over the question-“Will India be the definitive G-20 breakout nation in the years ahead?”

 The Indian economy is projected to hit a creditable $5 trillion as early as 2027[1] making it the third largest economy in the world, something that the IMF has endorsed. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his part has expressed the hope that India will become a developed country by the year 2047.  Things look headed in the right direction because India is inarguably the fastest-growing large economy in the world at a time when most nations are having a tough time coping with the aftermath of the Covid pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine. China’s economy in particular has slowed down spectacularly on account of its rapidly aging population which has also witnessed a decline in the total number of its people-something that does not augur well for its economy. Add to it, its troubled relationship with the West and most of its neighbours and the country seems headed for serious economic trouble, something its despot of a president is exacerbating with his terrible economic policies.

Can India take China’s place as the growth engine of the world? That may seem like a tall order, but it is best placed amongst all the nations in the G-20 group-both the developed nations of the Western world and the major emerging economies of the world to do so.  India has already shown what it is capable of by building world-class information technology and pharmaceutical industries. Its large and well-educated middle class, a great many of whom are English-speaking helped the country get there. If it could similarly grow its manufacturing ability to match that of China's it could possibly hope to take its place as the world's leading exporter. Another huge advantage that India has over China is the fact that its consumer demand is 15% more than China's at 55% of the economy.[2]

 That India is headed in the right direction is borne out by the fact that it stands a good chance of increasing its share of the global manufacturing export pie with the government seeking to increase manufacturing to 25% of the GDP by 2025, from 17.7% currently.[3]  Given India's size and demographics and its strategically fortuitous geographical position with the major sea routes of the world passing below peninsular India allowing it to not only secure its interests but also use that access as leverage against an overbearing China, there is every reason for it to assert its voice on the world stage.

It has great and increasingly strategic relations with Western and Western-style democracies which are the richest and most liberal nations in the world. The Indian diaspora which is amongst the most educated and well-qualified of all expat communities around the world has reached the top positions in industry, commerce trade and politics in practically every major economy of the world from the US and UK in the West to Singapore in the East. The rise of India unlike the rise of a revisionist and increasingly belligerent China will be looked upon by the world as a stabilizing force for good and therefore welcomed. India is certainly in a good spot right now. How well it rises to the occasion and takes its seat at the high table will become clear in the next few years. Here's hoping for the best.

 

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[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/road-map-for-5-trillion-economy-focusses-on-growth-and-all-inclusive-welfare-finmin/articleshow/102316785.cms?from=mdr

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/12/india-is-quietly-laying-claim-to-economic-superpower-status

[3] https://press.spglobal.com/2023-08-03-S-P-Global-India-in-a-Defining-Moment-for-its-Ambitions-to-Become-a-Global-Superpower#:~:text=India%20has%20come%20out%20of,will%20rise%20to%20about%20%244%2C500.

Why all this fuss about Generative AI?

 Everybody and their uncle has heard about Generative AI. Those who sleep under a rock haven’t. Of course, most people know it as ChatGPT and they haven't stopped yapping about it since its launch. Most of the chatter is about how Generative AI will take away people's jobs rather than how it will help business enterprises perform better. People employed in professions as diverse as writing, coding, law, and medical science have expressed fear that a bunch of technocrats and big corporations will replace workers with Generative AI and concentrate all the wealth in their hands at the expense of society as a whole. The Hollywood writers' strike is a classic example of this type of fear taking root and almost paralyzing people.

 

People are also afraid that algorithms fed with a bias can be used to influence public opinion by unscrupulous elements. Others fear that rogue or unscrupulous coders could cause grave danger to software, hardware, people, and enterprises- a step up from the regular cyber threats of the past. People and organizations would fear stolen identities as well as attempts to besmirch fair names and reputations.

Do we really need to fear Generative AI?

                 

If Generative AI is left unregulated and those that deploy it do so in a manner that does not benefit people- employees, and customers, there may be cause for fear. It is another matter, though that such short-sighted leveraging of Generative AI will eventually rebound on the organization concerned most negatively. That being stated, if it is not to be misused by would-be monopolists and oligarchs, rules and regulations and a proper structure to implement them must be put in place.

 

However, it is pertinent to note that there was widespread fear amongst people that rapid and widespread computerization would sound the death knell of jobs in sectors like retail, banking, and finance about a decade or so ago. In fact, Oxford University came out with a report that 47% of the total jobs in the US were at risk.[1] Yet, things didn’t pan out that way at all.

 

Generative AI will over the long run create a whole new set of jobs, that didn't exist before. AI trainers and operators, auditors for AI-generated work, original cutting-edge content creators, interpretation of content in terms of human sentiment, AI integration expert, AI compliance specialist and a slew of other all-new job descriptions.[2] While all of this is heartening, there will be quite a few challenges and risks that will arise in the short term, as Generative AI continues on its relentless march. 

 

To assuage the widespread fear that has accompanied the launch of Generative AI technology, it makes sense to spread awareness about Generative AI concerning the opportunities presented by it and the inherent risks it might carry amongst the people at large, organizations, and policymakers. Doing so will lead to well-thought-out and responsible deployment of the technology.

 

There must be total transparency and accountability about the algorithms being deployed so that users can pinpoint any biases that might have crept in. At the same time, the developers should ensure that the technology does not lend itself to misuse. The highest ethical standards need to be observed with regard to design and development. Care also should be taken when deploying a range of training datasets, so that the output obtained is fair, well-meaning, and good for society. This requires researchers, domain experts, policymakers, and ethicists to join hands to ensure that Generative AI becomes a tremendous agent of change, economic growth, and all-round well-being.

 

 

 

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[1]https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/07/06/20-new-and-enhanced-roles-ai-could-create/?sh=2298b29b6f04

An Ode to Gasoline

Photo by sergio souza: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-empty-gas-station-3602009/

Now that the world has agreed that gasoline powered car engines need to go and be replaced by electric ones, it is perhaps time to start feeling a little bit (a lot) nostalgic about the reign of gas or petrol as it is also called. It has had a glorious run and what a time it was! Don't get me wrong. I am a strong advocate of the phasing out of all fossil fuels in order to save the world from environmental catastrophe, but let us also consider for a moment what the gasoline revolution achieved for mankind, before fossil fuel over use started wrecking the world.

It made rapid global mobility a realty- something that led to people travelling longer distances with ease and interacting with a far wider world than they did in the era of the horse drawn carriages. It led to a boom in education, trade, commerce, tourism, agriculture and so much else. Then there was the perennial love affair with cars. Ask any petrol head and they will tear up talking about their favourite set of wheels, the special features of the latest sports cars from the houses of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati.

Most of us fondly remember the first car we ever sat in or drove. Then there are the memories associated with buying the first car, taking in its new car smell and getting the car serviced and learning about how the car actually ran and the components that went into its running smoothly. There is so much history associated with gasoline-the oil tycoons, the legendary automobile makers- Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes,  BMW, Lada, Fiat and one could go on and on.

Fast cars in movies, very fast cars taking part in Grand Prix events around the world, iconic car rallies like the Paris-Dakar one, little kids collecting Dinky cars, the contest between petrol and diesel driven cars, drive-in movie theatres and a million other memories associated with the world of gasoline have become an indelible part of most of our psyches. The change to electric cars will no doubt come about, just like the change from the heavily polluting steam locomotives to diesel and electric ones came about. But we did get nostalgic about them and till today there are many steam locomotives running on certain routes around the word as heritage runs. Heck, we still have horse drawn coaches plying in some parts!

I am going to hold on to my dear petrol driven car for a while longer till the time electric cars become affordable for folks like me and love every moment of it. Bring out the hankies people, its time for some big time gasoline nostalgia.