[Thread] Happy Independence Day! 🇮🇳 How far have we come since you were born?

..unless either of the two mess up insanely bad We'll probably get to the #3 spot if things go well. But it seems impossible that we'll ever go beyond that. Internal reasons that are very hard to fix:- (1) Our population TFR fell below standard replacement rate in 2023. This means we will not be able to follow the same economic growth trajectory required to reach developed status before population stagnation or declination. This is not a death knell but definitely very VERY bad news. (2) Our blue-collar workforce skill levels are not only subpar but are slowly falling behind the world standards every year. Much of our youth aim to join government orgs like the Army or the Railways which train for the job later, not before. Despite a national shortage of skilled plumbers, electricians etc, our vocational training orgs have been unsuccessful in attracting people towards these careers as well as churning out skilled workers. (3) Our bureaucratic environment is extremely slow with pathetic turnaround times on initiatives. This is not government specific and has always been the case so it seems like this will always be. This is not even a problem unique to India as many other countries have been facing this too but it is still a factor that negatively impacts our growth massively. I wish it was just internal reasons but a large part of it also comes down to both China and US being aggressively great at ensuring their successes:- (1) Chinese manufacturing seems nearly impossible to overcome - not just for India but also for the US. Yes, we might win over some industries and companies like the US, Vietnam, Thailand etc. have been doing but the amount of autocratic control in China allows them to crush competition easily. Case in point - the recent tussle between India and China on solar manufacturing which China won by autocratically lowering their prices. (2) If de-dollarisation succeeds, it will benefit China the most because (contd. in comments)

The date when India said to the world: “We’ll take it from here” 🥰

Actually, watching this at work live. We’ve done it finally. Moments like these, you realise that we may suffer setbacks and failures but it’s our tenacity to get back up and fight our way to the top. Especially, after the failure of the last mission, it’s proud to say that our Scientists did the best to learn from the mistakes and made the best out of it. We are now part of an exclusive club, the #1 country to get to the Lunar South Pole and the #4 country to actually land on the moon(after US, Russia and China)

While we complain and whine about all things wrong with our country, which is well within our rights to do so, we also need to acknowledge the cost others paid to get us this freedom. 1. As per British Administration records, about 6000 British died in the Indian Mutiny. The casualty count for Indians is at 800,000. This includes figures for those who died during the mutiny and the subsequent uprising as well as in famines and epidemics that followed in its wake. 2. If we estimate excess mortality from 1891 to 1920, with the average death rate of the 1880s as normal mortality, we find some 50 million people lost their lives under the aegis of British capitalism," they write. "But this estimate must be considered conservative. India's 1880s death rate was already very high by international standards. If we measure excess mortality over England's 16th- and 17th-century average death rate, we find 165 million excess deaths in India between 1880 and 1920. This figure is larger than the combined number of deaths from both World Wars, including the Nazi holocaust. 3. The British colonial regime looted nearly $45 trillion from India from 1765 to 1938. The amount is 15 times the annual GDP of the UK today. Even if it wants, it still can't return India the money it looted to not only build itself as a major global power but also fund much of the development in the today's developed world. 4. The Indian peasantry and workers produced the second largest merchandise export surplus in the world for at least four decades from the 1890s," writes Patnaik. "But India was never permitted to show current account balance, leave alone current account surplus. These enormous exchange earnings, appropriated by the then world capitalist leader, Britain, allowed it to export capital to develop Europe and the regions of European settlement, despite its running large and rising current account deficits with these same regions. The rapid diffusion of capitalism was ensured thereby to what constitutes today's advanced countries. With this amount of human and economic costs paid to attain the freedom that we have, let’s not forget the contributions of those who came before us and let’s not get blinded by party loyalties or religious identities to undermine what we got!

Remember as a child how excited I would be, and how patriotic it would feel. Now it's just a holiday. A long weekend. I don't know why my feelings/patriotism went to die. I'm curious but, what does it mean to you?

Hi folks, Hope you all are enjoying your holiday. I had this typical question this morning contemplating Are we free? Govt is for rich , bureaucrats are corrupt to the core , system is failed , education is a meme , women safety has gone to gutters , youth are jobless , homeless and aimless. What are we celebrating today? Celebrating our 78 years old past or our ignorance of present?