What according to you is the biggest challenge that India as a nation is facing?

Before starting to write about the biggest challenge of India, I would like to do an S-W-OT analysis of India as a nation. In an S-W-O-T analysis we analyze the strength, weakness, and opportunities threats to that particular nation. Strength: 1.It has large amount of area (7th largest nation in the world) and it has got around 125 million hectares of cultivable land. 2. It has got good amount of man power (600 million belong to the working age group). 3. It is a Mediterranean climate which is suitable for both human well-beings as well as well as for agriculture. 4. It is democratic country and it seems to be the biggest strength for people. Weakness: 1. it is multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-traditional behavior leads to diversity, which is one of the biggest hindrances to the feeling of nationalism among people. 2. Illiteracy; even though a temporary problem, it has led to problems like poverty, unemployment and over-population which further causes crimes. Opportunity: 1. if rightly used by all the people, the Indian system of governance is one of the best systems in the world. Threats: 1.Corruption 2. Terrorism and Naxalism 3.Poverty 4. Unemployment.

Well in this essay the threats above, are the problems for a nation. The fight against these problems is the challenge a nation faces Among the four threats above I have mentioned Corruption is the one, which I feel is the biggest among all others and I am also going to relate the other 3 problems to corruption. Corruption: Definition: Its,`Simply not doing the work assigned to a him/her by the country. Examples: Bribery, evasion of taxes, Incompletion of work in the assigned time, etc. Causes: What causes this? Lets look at few reasons: The one main reason is lack of feeling of sensitivity to other people. If a cabinet minister causes loss of about 1.73 lakh crores to the government exchequer, he is being insensitive to the crores of people who just live with Rs.15 per day. Had he even once thought or felt about

their living conditions I think so he wouldnt have done that, but the sad part is, he just never thought about them.. The next cause is a lack of feeling of nationalism. August 6th , 1945 - An atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and 3 days later on Nagasaki19 years later in 1964 Japan hosted the Olympics in Tokyo and was successful in doing soBut in India the organizing committee chief of the Commonwealth games saw this as an opportunity to make enough money for 7 lifetimes and was involved in a huge Rs.80,000 crore scam and brought the nations image down as the whole world laughed as they saw our 11th hour preparations.this wouldnt had happened if everyones blood was filled with love for nation or at least had some kind of patriotism in them. The most important cause: Desire for something, which you dont deserve: People want everything, they want a big house, big car, want their sons to study in the best colleges, everything they want is best. Well its never bad to have big ambitions, even our Ex- President of India Mr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said Dreaming small is crime..but if you want your son/daughter to get into the best college in the world tell him to work harder, give him coaching or give him his own time (its always Slow and study who wins the race) but instead they use their lakhs and sometimes crores of money to get a seat in a college. If somebody wants a luxury car, he should work more hours for it or he should be more smart in his work, why is he using shortcuts like tax evasion for buying a car or a house..every man deserves everything in this universe but the only thing is he needs to work in that direction in a proper manner These were some of the causes of corruption. Now let us see what corruption does: Let me tell you, from childhood Ive heard, read and I was made to think that India is a poor country but after seeing the following statement I doubt it. Last year the Switzerland Government just released the amount of foreign money present in their bank accounts. In that list India has topped the list with $1.4 Trillion (I just converted it into Rupees and the answer is Rs. 67500000000000 its 67lakh crore..) stashed in Swiss Banks, second on that list is Russia with $470 Billion. On the other hand 670 million people live under Rs. 20 a day. If those crores had not taken their flight to Swiss banks or Mauritius banks and if they would have remained in India, the countries face would have been a different one. In the remaining money it allots for some development projects and half of them are eaten by the middle men. The thing is the needy are not getting their basic needs..so I say corruption is one of the biggest causes of poverty.

It will be 10 years old this September 11th. Well I hope so you have got what I am talking about. 09/11/2001 a day that came and shook the world, taking away more than 3000 people with it. America was shocked and in fact the world was shocked..----- 10 years later America proudly and confidently say that No terrorist group in this world has dared to attack them after 9/11 and it is so, not even a single blast in such a huge country which has friends and foes all over the world. Now lets see this part of the world.. At this moment I would like to narrate an incident that may answer the above question. Once I was travelling in train from Karnataka to Varanasi. In the journey I met an Army man. I started interacting with him.. That person used to work in the border areas. After listening to his talks it seemed that he was extremely patriotic . Sometime during the interaction I just asked him with all patriotic people around the border how is it possible that terrorists infiltrate and place bombs and kill 100s of people? He remained silent for few minutes. 10 minutes later he says that there are people in border us who for about Rs.5000 to Rs.10000 risks the life of thousands of people and lets those terrorists insidethis shows that corruption causes Terrorism and other dreadful things like Naxalism. If America has done that I am sure we will also be able to do that if we atop being corrupt. Well people say that Indias bigger challenge is over-population. Its like saying you have too much of money and you have a problem keeping it as all your vaults are full and you are not getting a place to keep it. I was just reading an article yesterday, where a great sociologist said that the greatest investment that a government can make is investing on its people. We have the manpower, all that we need to do is converting it into asset, rather that thinking it as a liability. Unemployment is a problem when effective policies are not in place, which in turn needs a lot of investment. If capitalists give the reasons of machinery efficiency its completely fineI say lets employ people in agriculture and related sectors. If Japanese feed the world with their technology why cant India have a aim of feeding the world with food. Lets make our farmers more educated and technically sound by instituting new agriculture universities and giving free education to them. Employing people in agriculture removes the problem of unemployment and also you are not degrading the environment with highly polluting industries.. Solutions: 1. First and foremost invest in education; if people are educated nobody can fool them. Today we competitive media, right to information bill, every citizen has the right and at the same time has means to know about government. 2. Deepen the democracy; bring more transparency, if needed have stronger acts. The above solutions are for the government to do. It will bring stronger rules which are around 10% of the solution. The remaining 90% lies with each and every citizen of the country. His each and every action should be consciously taken to the betterment of the

nation. Lets be loyal to our nation, our family, our company, our team and thats enough for betterment of all. Parents and teachers play a major role in making a man. The responsibility lies with these people. Finally as a son always indebted to his fathers dreams a nation is always indebted to its Father of nations dreams.. Mahatma Gandhi dreamt of a nation where there is village economy, instead of urbanization we should remain in our villages and work there and develop our economy and instead of mechanization we should use our huge manpower in factories. He said that India will be completely independent when a woman will go alone in the streets at midnight without any fear Its seems a long way to go..but as I said its slow and steady who wins the race..!!!!