India: The Underachiever

For over 10 years now, India has been mentioned in the same breath as a lot of other emerging economies. It's right there in the middle of the BRIC acronym, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China. BRIC has now gone on to become BRICS with the addition of South Africa.

Yet the sad reality is that we have a democracy which functions well for the most part, (because we leave it to our various Gods to rescue us?) but lately has just been limping along, with our leaders unable to do the right thing by the citizens or the country they are supposed to be governing.

I found the below table on the Catalyst website and decided to share it, as it spoke volumes about how we have been lagging on every parameter, except in the first criteria - about how much percentage of women constitute the population of India. Here we beat China by a mere fraction. The numbers prove that without Indian women becoming empowered enough to take their place in the economy, this country will always be a laggard. It's a well known economic fact, that western countries have achieved economic prowess because their women have made progress and contributed to those countries' welfare. They have not been only riding on the shoulders of their male citizens.

With numbers like these, I won't be surprised if South Africa also manages to beat us on some of these economic growth and social improvement indices, in the future.

Can our so-called leaders finally get their act together and really lead India?  Or we'll be making it to covers of magazines like Time, which had Manmohan Singh on it, with 'Underachiever' written in red, across his photograph.

Table sourced from: http://www.catalyst.org/publication/214/women-in-emerging-markets. Also this video is a good watch - http://youtu.be/KMv-pzu9H2w

CaratLane: A shiny, classy online experience

I recently shopped for gold jewellery, and I did it online rather than at any offline store. I was very impressed with the experience. CaratLane not only has some really classy designs but they also have such a smooth process to buy it off them.

I didn't have to register my entire life history with them to begin shopping. The site lets you view their collection entirely and you can complete a transaction as a 'guest', which means you give them all your information at the last minute at the time of making a payment, and you don't have to be a registered user of the site. They also have a toll-free number that you can call and place your order.

I paid for my earrings through net banking, and within 2 days I got a call from their customer service team verifying my credentials and they told me that the earrings would be delivered by a certain day. On that particular day, I got a call from a company rep who told me he was on his way to deliver the earrings and that I (or a family member who was receiving it on my behalf) should keep a ID handy.

The earrings were insured by the site during transit, till I got them. And opening the package was a delightful experience. It came in a silver and maroon colour tin which had the site's name printed on the lid. Within this was a gift box filled with potpourri. And in this box was a milky coffee colour suede box which contained my earrings. The cherry on top of this experience was that there was a handwritten 'Thank You' card saying 'We hope you enjoy your earrings.'

I have never seen such great service even at offline stores, where they have included a Thank You card with my purchase. I think it's time jewellery stores sat up and took note of this simple gesture, which left the biggest impression on me.

So, while people rave about the earrings I have bought, I'm happy with the entire transaction. And coming from someone who normally does not like shopping, that is saying a lot!