Yearly Archives: 2011
Intriguing Insights About and Between U.S, India and China
The Economist uses interactive maps so creatively! Here’s what I would like you to take a peek at. They have compared the states or provinces of U.S., India and China to various countries based on equivalent GDP, population or GDP per person. Can you say wow? Well, you will, once you see these innovative maps!
They reveals some fascinating insights and also work to shatter misconceptions about the economic well-being (or not) of certain regions. I’m really trying hard here – to put this in enough words that intrigue you to click on the links below and experience the interactivity. I hope I succeed! This is so very, very interesting and I would hate for you to miss it. Both the content, as well as the super creative presentation of it.
First, let’s look at the United States. To give you a taste of this, let’s take the largest state with respect to GDP – California. Guess which country of the world its GDP is closest to? I’m going to let you find out which. Now, take one of the laggard states. Let’s see….how about Alabama? Well, its closest country in terms of GDP is Nigeria.
Big Texas is always an intriguing state. Its GDP is equivalent of that of Russia, while it’s population resembles Saudi Arabia’s the closest. Interesting stuff, wouldn’t you say! And that’s just a taste of it.
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Next, let’s take a look at India. It’s largest state (GDP-wise) is the same one where I live, Maharashtra. After all, it does include the financial capital of the country, Mumbai. Guess which country is closest in terms of GDP? I’ll tell you. This state has equivalent population to Mexico but it’s GDP compares more closely with Singapore. But then, when you take it a step further, and look at GDP per person, it compares to….Sri Lanka!
Now, don’t you want to check out the same stats for another of the Indian states?
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And, then there’s China, the Asian Tiger, or is it dragon? Projected to overtake US as the world’s largest economy around 2020, how does it fare in all these dimensions?
The most populous province Guangdong, with almost 100 million people, most closely matches Indonesia’s population. Macau is the richest per capita with a GDP per person that matches, actually exceeds, that of Qatar. Why? Its population is tiny, similar to that of Solomon Islands, while it’s GDP is relatively high, matching that of Panama.
Here’s another interesting one from China – Shanghai (province=city), which is equivalent to Cameroon’s population, Finland’s GDP and Saudi Arabia’s GDP per person. I would say it’s doing relatively rather well.
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All in all, I just wish I had more time to delve into and play with these maps! Some day….
But, let’s draw some quick conclusions from this data. Of these countries, the US leads in every way, and India lags behind all three with China somewhere in the middle. While the potential of both emerging Asian countries is undisputed, there is still such a wide disparity between them (even between China & US) and the super power. Its really hard for me to fully comprehend how or when these gaps will close. As for the gap between China and India, it’s immense!
Regarding India, to quote a friend who commented on this revealing data: This also shows how great our potential is, if we invest in nurturing our human resources. Education, education, education! Now that we have the population that we do have, we should be turning this threat into our greatest opportunity.
Now, if we can continue to dream a bit longer, wouldn’t it be nice to have a reliable government who can make this happen?
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Mobile Usage: Here, there and everywhere!
Your mobile phone - Mahout, don't leave home without it!
I write this post knowing that it will likely get outdated quickly because of the blindingly fast pace of change in mobile technology. Even so, what has happened over recent years is simply amazing. What speaks better than numbers?
As I write today, there are some 6.9 billion or so people on this earth. Accompanying them are a whopping 5 billion mobile phone subscribers. Now, that’s what I call a Number with a capital N.
Coming to this country, India has the second highest number of subscribers in the world after China. Over the last half of the 20th century, while the Western world progressed in a logical fashion by getting everyone connected using land lines, India and much of the third world struggled with establishing the infrastructure needed for those types of connections. It was just not comprehensive enough because it was not an affordable investment for those governments.
With the advent of wireless technology and mobile phones, however, the third world simply leapfrogged the developed world and raced full speed ahead.
Anyone who has been to India can attest to the reality on the ground – virtually everyone here is connected via a mobile phone, and you can see them everywhere you look (not to mention hearing all kinds of interesting ringtones!).
But even so, when I started digging to find out more specifics that were quantitative rather than qualitative, the numbers were unbelievably huge. Here are some of them –
Today there are a staggering 811+ million wireless subscribers in India (that number is equal to ~67% of its population!).
Compare that to the mere 34 million land line subscribers in the country – equal to less than 3% of the population!
Moreover, India and China account for almost 50% of the total mobile subscribers in the world. So, when people talk ubiquitous, this is what it means.
According to a recent article by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google that was published in Economic Times, Asia is the key for unlocking the mobile internet. Here are a few of his statements regarding this:
- Asia has been a leading innovator in mobile Internet technology for years.
- Asians are using services that would be the envy of many people in the US.
- The SMS is very much alive and well and doing more than ever before.
- Asia’s mobile community is converging on the open Internet from all sides, whether it’s through the SMS, the smartphone browser capable of rendering all Web pages, or open-source operating systems like Android.
- China is the second-largest country in terms of downloaded mobile apps.
- The expectation is that Asia will become a global hub for app development in a few years.
- We expect a billion people will have inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years.
This will be a huge market for those making mobile apps – wherever in the world they are.
I will probably re-read this post in a few months and have to correct the facts above by increasing the numbers, but as of today, they are valid. Incomprehensible as they may seem…
Finally, I end with this fascinating excerpt from a write-up in The Economist (India’s Economy: The half-finished revolution):
“India has world-class information-technology exporters but imports lots of fridges; it has 15 times more phone subscribers than taxpayers; and in the coming years most Indians are likelier to be connected to a national, biometric, electronic identity-system than to a sewer”.
That’s what I call the yin and yang of life in India.
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Man in Turban; Photograph by Harkanwal Singh. (Harkanwal Singh) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 