Tag: Make in India

Governments Don’t Create Corporations

Governments of successful economies don’t create large corporations.

The economic prosperity of a country is usually the consequence of the economic freedom that its citizens have. Entrepreneurs create a large number of small enterprises. Some of these grow up to become giant globe-spanning multinationals not because of government largesse but because some of those small enterprises created value for its customers and grew organically as more people found its goods and services worth buying.

Google, Facebook, etc etc, were not conjured up by some politician, or a bureaucracy, or through government diktat, or any “Make in India” type marketing campaign. For large corporations to grow in India, what is needed is an environment that is conducive to the small enterprise. This will of course not happen because there’s little hoopla one can engage in by freeing the little guy.
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Indians Make it in the USA, not in India

Prime Minister Modi is visiting the SF Bay area this weekend. Entreaties to “Make in India” will echo all around. Sadly, little attention has been given to why Indians themselves are unable to make in India, or even make it in India. Indians make it anywhere except in India. Particularly, Indians make it in the US. They are immensely successful as entrepreneurs and as top level managers in major corporations in the US. Why?

I wrote this in February earlier this year. Here it is, for the record.
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Make India first to “Make in India”

Let me tell you a story. It is about a friend who is building a school in India. Motivated by idealism to do something for India, some years ago he decided that he would build an excellent K-12 school. An expatriate for a few years in a developed nation, he thought it was time for him to “give back” something to his native land. Knowing of my interest in education, he asked me to advise him and I did as a friend without any pecuniary interest in the venture. I kept in touch. Just the other day he called me from India to tell me how things were going. Here’s what I heard. It is both instructive and depressing.
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