I must confess to something bad which I've done since I arrived in India. I've gained a few pounds. Not a million, but a few, as a consequence of not running four or five times a week as I was doing in Minneapolis, and the fact that I really like the food here. Plus I'm driven door-to-door to and from work every day, so any exercise isn't really happening. I need to get moving a bit more.
What makes me feel especially bad about this, however, is that I work in a city which is booming because of companies like mine, and at least for somewhat well-off people the food is good and it's plentiful. But of course it's not like that throughout India, or even throughout Bangalore. In fact a recent study found that an almost unbelievable 42 percent of Indian children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition. Think about that for a moment. With over a billion people in this country and what seems like cheap and plentiful food, tens of millions of children don't have enough to eat. This results in all kinds of things: stunted growth and lack of education being key. In fact 20 percent of all Indians are malnourished, worse than many developing African countries. The most recent "Global Hunger Index" shows that two-thirds of the 122 developing countries studied had reduced hunger levels in recent years, but that hunger levels in India have increased.
India does have a large food program, but of course like almost all other government programs here it's rife with corruption and mismanagement. You can see evidence of government corruption and ineptitude almost everywhere, especially the pitiful state of roads and transport, the piles of trash everywhere, the crappy (literally) water supply, the shaky electricity supplies, the obscene wealth of politicians, and ineffectiveness and indifference of government officials you interact with. Almost every day I get mad at the traffic and how long my commute takes, and when we're travelling we find that tourist facilities are pretty pathetic - those are our little frustrations. But that's really nothing compared to the important things, like starving children.
Another thing which got me thinking about this was on my recent trip to Lucknow, interviewing business school graduates. We had them do group discussions, and one of the questions was whether the amount of money in cricket is impacting other sports. The really surprising thing for me was how many of them talked about the government's investment in cricket and the government as a solution to funding other sports. Not one person talked about what the government's real priorities could be.
What makes me feel especially bad about this, however, is that I work in a city which is booming because of companies like mine, and at least for somewhat well-off people the food is good and it's plentiful. But of course it's not like that throughout India, or even throughout Bangalore. In fact a recent study found that an almost unbelievable 42 percent of Indian children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition. Think about that for a moment. With over a billion people in this country and what seems like cheap and plentiful food, tens of millions of children don't have enough to eat. This results in all kinds of things: stunted growth and lack of education being key. In fact 20 percent of all Indians are malnourished, worse than many developing African countries. The most recent "Global Hunger Index" shows that two-thirds of the 122 developing countries studied had reduced hunger levels in recent years, but that hunger levels in India have increased.
India does have a large food program, but of course like almost all other government programs here it's rife with corruption and mismanagement. You can see evidence of government corruption and ineptitude almost everywhere, especially the pitiful state of roads and transport, the piles of trash everywhere, the crappy (literally) water supply, the shaky electricity supplies, the obscene wealth of politicians, and ineffectiveness and indifference of government officials you interact with. Almost every day I get mad at the traffic and how long my commute takes, and when we're travelling we find that tourist facilities are pretty pathetic - those are our little frustrations. But that's really nothing compared to the important things, like starving children.
Another thing which got me thinking about this was on my recent trip to Lucknow, interviewing business school graduates. We had them do group discussions, and one of the questions was whether the amount of money in cricket is impacting other sports. The really surprising thing for me was how many of them talked about the government's investment in cricket and the government as a solution to funding other sports. Not one person talked about what the government's real priorities could be.
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