The Tale of Three Indian Teams

 

Team India has to play it very well from here on. There are three teams in action on the field and each team has a big asking rate. The opposition who is hell-bent to defeat team India is strong and Opposition’s main ally is the Internal Divide and weaknesses in the Indian team.   

The team India in charge of the executive pillar of the Indian Nation has to play it very well on the World stage.  The world is a place that historically needs to always have a cold war. In the Cold war, nations believe more in public posturing rather than real negotiations. Because public posturing is mostly what we’re seeing as the United States finds itself spiraling toward a new kind of cold war with both China and Russia. Russia has taken real belligerent action versus Ukraine challenging the US while China continues with its trade wars and spy balloons if they really matter. Senate majority leader Mr. Schumer called for stronger U.S.-India relations as a way of countering China's growing authoritarian presence in Asia and around the world. The US needs nations such as India, the world’s largest democracy, to work with the US to strengthen democracies in Asia and around the globe. Schumer also stressed that close ties between the two countries would be a crucial counterweight to out-competing China and responding to its authoritarianism. India is one of the leading powers of the world and a strong U.S.-India relationship is a must for democracy, technological advancement, and a strong world economy. Meanwhile, many western leaders made public statements congratulating and thanking India to help their economies after landmark plane orders by Air India. India’s vaccine diplomacy and Covid success story after initial setbacks have been exemplary. West is looking forward to India for the decisive role.  India has an opportunity to fill in this space of international influence. India’s economy has been remarkably resilient to the deteriorating external environment, and strong macroeconomic fundamentals have placed it in good stead compared to other emerging market economies as per World Bank. Policy reforms and prudent regulatory measures have also played a key role in developing resilience in the economy. Increased reliance on market borrowings has improved the transparency and credibility of fiscal policy and the government has diversified the investor base for government securities. The introduction of a formal inflation-targeting framework during the past decade was an important step in lending credibility to monetary policy decisions. The World Bank has revised its 2022-23 GDP forecast upward to 6.9 percent from 6.5 percent considering a strong outturn in India in the second quarter. But usual enemies will try to use every possible trick in the trade to discredit India, the Indian ruling dispensation, Indian institutions like Judiciary, Financial regulators, and possibly even EVMs. Some enemies are known, some hidden under the garb of philanthropy, some religious lobbies, some influences, opinion-makers, media, neighbors, and finally internal seditious lobbies. India has a role to play in Quad, Afghanistan, and Asean and had in the recent past been credited by the CIA chief to have the influence to avoid larger conflicts. With the elections in Indian closing in 2024, it's going to be a crucial year for Team India to continue the momentum on Human Development, Growth, Infrastructure, and International significance. There will be all-around attacks accusing India to lack a democratic quotient and a rise in fundamentalism.  But the strong emphasis on Indian values of live and let live has not been abandoned.  We need growth and development to reach the bottom strata of society for equitable all-around growth for each and every Individual of any caste, religion, or region.   

The team India which uses the human capital of India to have dominance in Information Technology has its own challenges.  As Infosys Founder Narayan Murthy says each downturn in the economy can be an opportunity for the Indian IT services Industry. Indian IT industry has delivered growth by offering value for money during the recessions. Indian IT industry has been lacking in original innovation and world-class products. India also is losing its cost advantage.  But Indian Industry needs to reconcile the eternal demand for services while providing value for money. Product license revenues are lesser than service revenues for that product. Thus innovation coupled with strong practices built on services is the way to go for team India. The Indian education system has to make graduates more employable. The gap between junior and senior-level salaries has to be rationalized. Startups should really be able to estimate the right market size and be sales focused rather than capitalization during the period when capital is hard to come by. Team India should target new markets, new technologies, and models during this downturn.  

Finally, the team India as we know popularly which takes up the cricket fields has their recent success stories like the other two team India stories mentioned above. Team India also has challenges. Team India has retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy and is almost certain to reach the WTC finals. From the stuttering decade of the 80s when a test win versus the top side was the rarest of the rare to the dominance we see now has been an intriguing journey for a cricket fan. Defeating South Africa in South Africa and England in England are the frontiers unconquered in the tests and of course, ICC silverware eludes for a decade.  But team India has played very good cricket recently to reach dominance. There are many contributors in this journey from the black decade of the 90s till today. But India also has immediate challenges: Inconsistent selection policies, overload due to league cricket, Injury management, rigid strategies, and meltdown during key moments. We are not clear on priorities as the test team needs to acclimatize in England before the WTC finals but all major players will be playing IPL then.  Women's team India has reached the semi-finals of the world cup. But the real challenge lies ahead.   

  

Judging it

 

 

These days I am having few opportunities to serve as a Judge on various talent shows and Cultural competitions. As a Judge, I felt a distinct need to be consistent and the biggest challenge is to remove personal bias. The efforts by the young and old participants, as well as their strong intent to excel really entrust heavy responsibility to the Judges. And please note these are just cultural competitions in the NRI diaspora which is trying to remain its touch with its roots and where participation is more important than the results.  Imagine the responsibility the actual judiciary in India has. It has to work as a pillar of democracy to uphold the legislation done by democratically elected representatives. These days judiciary has said everything including the Executive which accordingly to me is bit overkill. Also, the latest conflict between leaders of legislating houses and the executive is a good outcome as country needs judicial reforms and each stakeholder including ‘we the people’ should have a say in that.  Commenting against a specific judgment or ruling can be tantamount to contempt but participating in the debate is definitely acceptable, as per democratic principles. Even talent judges on national television and local events try to overcome personal biases and be consistent but the judiciary despite having guidelines and protocols can be consistent and unbiased. Few factors like selection/election of judges, judicial Infrastructure, and age-old practices really are constraints. Do judges represent all the sections of society or as perceived historically since the British rule era has been a privileged class of milords?  

What are the Issues Plaguing the Indian Judiciary? Most important is the Huge Pendency of Cases. With around 4 crore cases pending, India has the largest backlog of cases in the world. According to experts, the Indian judiciary would take more than 300 years to clear this backlog. The existence of a huge number of vacancies across the Indian judicial system is one of the main causes behind the huge case pendency.  Also, lower courts often lack basic facilities for the litigants, staff, or judges. The issue was exacerbated during the pandemic when the physical hearing was restrained. The pandemic highlighted the failure of the Indian judicial system to realize the aim of e-courts. We are far behind the advanced nations in employing technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, in the justice system.  

Also, Slow Hearing of Cases is an issue. As per the report by the World Bank, the average time taken for the disposal of a case in India is 1450 days (around 4 years). The aphorism “justice delayed is justice denied” perfectly fits the Indian scenario. The huge pendency and “the culture of seeking adjournments” diminish people’s hope of getting justice from the system and thus breed discontentment.  The lack of a quick dispute resolution mechanism repels investment and thus impedes economic growth.  

The most important issue is the Lack of transparency in the appointment of judges  

The Collegium system is one of the most contentious issues between the judiciary and Parliament. In this system, the appointment or elevation of a Supreme Court Judge or the transfer of a High Court Judge is done by a forum consisting of the Chief Justice of India along with the four most senior judges of the Supreme Court. This system has evolved through various judgments of the Supreme Court, not by any act of Parliament. It is not mentioned in the Constitution either. The collegium system limits the role of the government in the appointment of judges. The government only approves the names suggested by the Collegium. Though it can raise objections, it is bound to accept the proposals if they are sent again by the collegium. Thus, the independence of the judiciary remains intact. However, the system lacks transparency. No major democracy in the world practices it. This opaqueness of the system is accused of breeding corruption and nepotism. That is why several sections demand the abolition of the Collegium system. An attempt to reform the system of appointment culminated in the passage of the 99^th Constitutional Amendment Act, in 2014.  The Act proposed the establishment of the National Judicial Appointment Committee (NJAC), composed of members from legislative, judicial, and civil society. However, the Supreme Court declared it null and void. As per the Supreme Court of India, the Act violated the independence of the judiciary. Thus, any step in this direction has to strike a balance between the independence of the judiciary and the transparency of the system. A solution to this burning issue can come only when the government and the courts cooperate with each other.  

Finally, as mentioned Judiciary is Out of Touch with the Common People. At present, the proceedings of the courts take place in two languages—Hindi and English. This is completely detached from the ground realities of India, where a large number of people cannot speak either of the languages.  A Parliament Standing Committee for the Ministry of Law and Justice suggested in its report that the composition of the higher judiciary should reflect socio-economic diversity and inclusiveness. For example, statistics show that women constitute nearly 48% of the population but account for a mere 3% of the highest courts of various states.  

 The Indian judicial system requires comprehensive reforms.  Reforms should be such that they improve the functioning of the courts without undermining their independence. Increasing the number of judges as well as the number of benches across the country will help reduce the number of pending cases and also expedite trials. Fast-track courts and e-courts should be established. Although the ideas of fast track and e-courts are not new, they have not been properly executed on the ground. We finally need an in-between solution to NJAC vs. Collegium debate.   

   

It’s now up to the Judiciary, Legislation, and Executive to work with Media, Civil Society, and Public participation through online/actual forums dedicated to the reforms, avoid delays in justice and make ‘ milords’ a real part of us.    

 

 

Artificial Intelligence and Aspirational India

 

Everyone has an opinion about Chat-GPT and Artificial Intelligence. Engineers and entrepreneurs see it as a new frontier: a bold new world to invent products, services, and solutions. Social scientists and journalists are worried about its impact on society, politics, economics, and general well-being. 

If one Googles: ‘ What is ChatGPT?’:  Chat GPT is a technology that uses statistics, reinforcement learning, and supervised learning to index words, phrases, and sentences. While it has no real “intelligence” (it doesn’t know what the word “means” but it knows how it is used), it can very effectively answer questions, write articles, summarize information, and more. Chat-GPT-like products are “trained” (programmed and reinforced) to mimic writing styles, avoid certain types of conversations, and learn from your questions. It is not a new idea (we’ve had chatbots for decades, including Siri, Alexa, and more), but the level of performance in GPT-3.5 (the latest version) is far exceeding. One can ask questions like “what are the best practices for IT security compliance” or “how do you build a programming training program” and it answers pretty well. And it has lots of other capabilities. It can answer historic questions like who was president of the US in 1856, it can write code. Satya Nadella believes 80% of the code will be automatically generated. ChatGPT-like products can write news articles, information summaries, and more. These systems are “trained and educated” by the database of information they index. The GPT-3 system has been trained on the internet and some highly validated data sets, so it can answer a question about almost anything. But the Internet is a source that is dubious because “the internet” is a conglomeration of marketing, self-promotion, news, and opinion. Some senior AI engineers believe that Chat-GPT will be biased, simply because of the data it tends to consume. Its competitor Google is building products with ethics inbuilt for example: “do not give financial advice”,“do not discuss race or discriminate” and “do not give medical advice”. One expert believes that there are hundreds of applications for ChatGPT in business: recruiting, onboarding, sales training, manufacturing training, compliance training, leadership development, and even personal and professional coaching. If companies focus AI on a trusted domain of content it can solve the “expertise delivery” problem at scale. This tech can be compared now to the early days of “mobile computing.” In the early days we saw Mobile devices as an “add-on” capability to our corporate systems. Then it grew, expanded, and matured. And today most digital systems are designed for mobile first, they build entire tech stacks around mobile, and we study behavior, markets, and consumers through their phones. Now let's understand threat points. A lot of jobs will change.  There will be jobs that will be immediately impacted by Chat-GPT for example editors, reporters, analysts, customer service agents, QA engineers, etc. Of About 10.3 million jobs open, about 8% (800,000) will immediately be impacted. Some people are already concerned about the Misuse of ChatGPT in education and skill building. Some people believe chatbots might replace programming jobs in Indian IT Industry. It's early days as yet but the threat looms over as well there is an in-built opportunity to master the technology and use it effectively. 

But there is a serious threat that looms over another AI:  Aspirational India and there is as well an opportunity.  These are the last 12-14 months before the General Elections in 2024 as well in some key states. We already have seen that India stands out as a bright spot in the otherwise gloomy economic outlook in most of the world.  Aspirational India which has risen since the 1991 liberalization under PV Narasimha Rao and has seen growth in the mid-2000s, faced a global recession from 2009 till 2011, recovered from the double whammy of Covid and consolidation of much necessary GST regime. Now as we recover again we might see the politics edging out the economic gains achieved. We may also see security issues in the near future which might challenge India's story. The neighbors have their own problems internally but won’t shy out from conflicts.  India's story might be challenged, and tarnished in the International arena as we have seen during recent attacks on the incumbent party by a biased piece of journalism that challenges Indian institutions and some targeted financial houses to again tarnish financial systems suggesting crony capitalism. Aspirational India which created startup environments, tech and services economy, innovation and entrepreneurship will be the ones who will be affected more.  Recessionary trends or downward spirals in Indices or diffidence by domestic and foreign investors will impact jobs and growth. But then aspirational India has the opportunity to size up various political and economic agendas. India still is a very vibrant democracy. It can lead political parties; Incumbents and Challengers to stay on the track which supports Aspirational India.  Aspirational India has Natural Intelligence and can derive from various data sources: Biased and unbiased. Aspirational India can discern dubious agendas in opinion-making, and economic decision-making. We should observe the focus on Infrastructure, Cleanliness, Healthcare, and Education as pillars of growth within the political agendas. We should also analyze trends in internal security for citizens against major challenges like terrorism, naxalism, etc., and corruption which impede us as a society. We need efficient bureaucracy.  Aspirational India was an element that was totally ignored during the license raj.  It was a crime to aspire. Those privileged were given access to money and power. Outsiders never had a chance. But as we see outsiders and aspiring Indian success stories across the domains, things are changing. We cannot afford to derail the India story. As elections will be nearer, we will see more threats looming to impact India's story which is still nascent and we have miles to go to reach where we want to be. It is time for aspiring India to make its opinion count. 

Both Artificial Intelligence and Aspirational India are standing at the inflection point in their respective Histories