Anagha Speaks

Its Official! The 'billion plus' term that was being used since the end of the past decade has been validated by the 1.2 billion count as concluded by Census of India 2011. Here is a quick glance at the numbers (whew!) and some interesting comparisons that I thought I should share with you: 1. We added 181 million or about 18 crore of people in the past 10 years, since 2001. So we produced about 1.8 crore babies per year; 50,000 babies per day; 2000 babies per hour and about 35 babies per minute!!! 2. Indians constitute about 17.5 % of the world's population, while Chinese constitute for 19.4%. Together, Indians and Chinese account for almost 37% of the world's entire population.  3. If we add the entire populations of United States, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan, their total would come to about 1.2 billion. 4. The population of Uttar Pradesh (about 20 crores or 199 million) and Maharashtra (about 10 crores or 100 million), two most populous states,...

Last week, I had a chance to visit and stay in Gurgaon, a new face of suburbia in India. I was appalled at the chaos that is Gurgoan. I had heard about the glitz and glamour of the city. The NH8 that connects Gurgaon to Delhi is lined with tall glass facade buildings, showing prominent corporate brands on their faces. The NH8 itself is a multiple lane freeway, where cars speed to and fro between Delhi and Gurgaon, carrying in them elite business class of India, churning wealth and pouring money into the country's economy. While this is happening at one end, where the private sector is complacent in its own wealth, the roads and the urban infrastructure is terrible. The minute you step out of your own glass building and stand on the road, you see a high speed vehicle access but no place to walk! Footpaths are not only non existent, its extremely unsafe to walk along the road sides at dusk. The dusty landscape of this region spills on to the new roads, so the road sides are sand fill...