Saturday, November 26, 2005

IT has not contributed to employment generation vis a vis its export potential

Sorry for the long heading, but I had to give the entire context. That statement is the conclusion of Prof. C.P. Chandrashekar of JNU. Saw this in The Hindu today. The article is headlined "Can journalism's core values survive the onslaught of digital, interactive media?". So does that mean journalism is restricted to only Print Media? And what are the core values of journalism that the print media is upholding?

But fun was yet to come.

There was almost no evidence to show a significant horizontal diffusion of IT into other sectors such as manufacturing, C.P.Chandrasekhar, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said. The sector had grown rapidly due to an expansion in exports. Though IT could make a significant difference to economy-wide growth and welfare, its contribution to employment generation did not match up to its export potential.

India had become a significant importer of both hardware and packaged software which affected domestic markets. Though IT's contribution to the country's balance of payment was substantial, the sustainability of export boom was questionable as it had not had a significant impact on the population, he added.

I don't have any research data that the JNU professor seems to have regarding diffusion of IT in manufacturing. But I have worked in a manufacturing unit, and have many friends who are in manufacturing sector and the empirical evidence is clear that IT has diffused much more into manufacturing sector than what the professor seems to imply. Even small units (about Rs. 20 cr turnover) have some sort of ERP package to improve their efficiencies.

And what was that about employment generation not matching export potential? Didn't we read last month that TCS, Infosys and Wipro are the top three largest private sector employers in India?

The last sentence, "sustainability of the expert boom is questionable as it has not had any significant impact on population" is equally questionable. What is the relationship between sustainability of export boom and impact on population? Beats me.

It is probably this kind of questioning by lay men that is causing jitters to institutionalised media.

5 comments:

Rams said...

So long as N.Ram is in charge of "The Hindu" group, such articles will continue to appear and we will have to put up with whatever the Mount Road MahaVishnu chooses to dish out. The article is not only factually incorrect, it is also shocking to read such shlock writing from someone who claims to be an academic from one of the country's leading universities. But then academically distinguished in India, esp, in economics and liberal arts, by default means a left leaning loonie hypocrite who bashes everything that even remotely suggests people doing well independently of Govt; no doubt most of these so called academics prefer their children to study in Ivy league schools in the West. Chandrasekhar is an old Frontline columnist as well- so you can imagine how predicatable his take on the IT industry is going to be.

I was discussing the same topic with a friend, who suggested that the forward castes in TN would have really in a bad shape by now, if the the IT/telecom boom had not started in the early nineties. I would say it has benefited even broader section of the population - maybe that's the reason for the rage that fills up our communist types who were planning to dish out social justice to these evil city slickers.

It's surprising to me how people still consider "The Hindu" to be a balanced newpaper inspite of N.Ram's open political leaning and family relations to the DMK etc. Even more worrying is the people who don't know "The Hindu" don't know how to organize themselves. Sashi Kumar (formely of Asianet) another Kerala commie sympathiser and N.Ram are behind the Asian school of journalism in Chennai, that's training journalists and already a lot of the national media is filled with graduates from this school. You have to hand it to the commies - they are experts at infiltrating systems and destabilising from within. The only way to combat the Mount Road MahaVishnu is through Blogs!

Kaps said...

they used the term online journalism and missed out the blog.

The Hindu has chosen to ignore the Manjunath murder episode.

Lakshmi said...

Oh my god! The state of Hindu is really pathetic. Btw, how are N.Rama nd DMK family related?

Anonymous said...

1. N. Ram's niece (his elder bro's daughter) is married to Dayanidhi Maran, the childish (NOT childlike) and agenda_pushing minister of IT, comm etc. Actually this may not be the involved issue. But the union of 'the hindu' employees is *totally* controlled by DMK's trade goonion wing called LPF. This may be a problem. Anyway, there is a love-hate relationship that goes on between this paper and the DMK - depending on the current issue etc.

2. No paper can afford (reasons: ad revenues, political pressures, competitiion from yellow tabloids such as TimesOfIndia etc) to follow an unbiased line of reportage. A cursory perusal of Noam Chomsky would make this clear. 'The Hindu' however, has long since lost even a thin veneer of unbiased point of view. As is the case everywhere, 'caveat emptor' would be suggesion.

3. Of course 'The Hindu' published details of Manjunath. (at least in Bangalore edition)

4. All kinds of pseudo-secularist, pinko, commie, sangh-parivar bashings, left-extemist, right-fundamentalist etc etc have their place in life and time. :-)

5. What is important is that we need to recognize that every person (like, say, Chandrashekar) have a right to mouth their opinion - but I don't think they have a right to be taken seriously...

All-in-all - dear Senthil (would you prefer to be addressed 'Chenthil?'), a nice blog with a refreshing air. Please do keep it up. (same goes for the comments here) :-)

Chenthil said...

Rams, I too have wondered about it. Almost every academic in India seems to be left leaning. Do we have any capitalist academics :-)?

Kaps, true. The Manjunath news didn't make it to the Chennai edition, but looks like they covered it in Bangalore edition.

Lakshmi, Ram's niece is married to Dayanidhi Maran.

Ramjee, everyone has the rights to voice his opinion and I equally have the rights to question them. And I prefer Chenthil :-)