Going for gold in India

IN WINNING India's first-ever individual gold medal, rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra said he tried to treat the Olympics as just another tournament. "If you think of the hype, the medal, your mind thinks of the Games as a dangerous situation," Bindra said. "The Olympics is a serious thing, but I don't want to take it seriously."

Bindra's attitude is instructive. In the final days of the Olympics, host nation and emerging industrial giant China competed with the resource-spoiled United States for first place in the medal count. Together, the two countries had won nearly 200 medals by yesterday. Meanwhile, India, the world's second-most populous nation, had only three. Now, no nation wants so little loot per capita. Bindra himself said, "With our depth of talent and expanse of people, I firmly believe India can be a world-class sporting power.".....According to its 2007 review of intangible assets of intellectual property, talent, and trained workforce, the consulting firm Brand Finance rates India as third in the world behind the United States and Switzerland. In the 2008 Global Outsourcing 100, five of the top 10 companies are Indian, as are one-fifth of all firms.

India obviously has barely touched its potential, still faced with vast poverty, corruption, and infrastructure needs. University of Michigan global management expert C. K. Prahalad this spring told Indian business leaders that if India, which is already producing 3 million college graduates a year, can educate the poor, it will have the world's largest pool of trained people power by 2022 (Read more..)


Source :The Boston Globe