Blogging Through India

Why Am I Going To India? November 7 2005 I Get Asked That Question A Lot. The Answer Is Simple: There Is An Economic Tectonic Shift Taking Place And I Want To See It Up Close For Myself. The Moment That Defined This Shift For Me Occurred About Two Years Ago. The State Of Indiana Where I'D Lived And Worked For Many Years Awarded A Multi-Million Software Development Contract To An Indian Company Called Tata Consulting. This Would Not Have Seemed Out Of The Ordinary Except For The Fact That Indiana'S Economy Was Struggling And The Government Went All The Way To India To Spend Indiana Taxpayer Money. This In A State That Graduates More Computer Science Majors Per Capita Than Any Other. How Could The Bid From Tata Be So Compelling That The Governor Risked The Public'S Wrath Which Rained Down On Him? And The Contract Was Subsequently Rescinded. I Started To Research That Question And I Learned That Just Because I Do Know Something Big Is Happening Doesn'T Mean It'S Not-Or Something Like That. What I Discovered For Myself Over The Ensuing Twenty-Four Months And What Thomas Friedman Articulated In His Book The World Is Flat Earlier This Year Is That In The Past Ten Years India And China In Particular And Eastern Europe South America Southeast Asia Etc. In General Had Opened Their Economies To Foreign Investment And Unleashed A Highly Motivated Well-Educated And Very Large Middle Class To Compete Beyond Low-Wage Manufacturing Jobs. In The Span Of Ten Years Three Billion New Capitalists Joined The World Economy. The Numbers Are By Now Well Known But They Were News To Me A Year Ago: China Graduating 500000 Engineers Annually India Graduating 250000 Engineers; The U.S. Graduating About 70000 A Significant Number Of Whom Are Studying Abroad In China India Singapore Taiwan Etc. In Fact In Engineering Science Medicine And Even The Law India Graduates Four To Five Times As Many Students As The U.S. Ch