[dragonfire]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I am not sure what you mean. Many PMs between Nehru and Dr.MMS had 2-3 degrees each from proper universities. Three of them were even lawyers. Only LBS, Indira, Rajiv and Gowda didn't have college degrees.

That essentially leaves us with PVNR, Vajpayee and Modi. Gujaral and Chandrasekhar weren't really around a lot of time as PMs and were mostly fillers. While PVNR and Vajpayee did have degrees, Modi's degrees are still suspect.

Coming to what I meant, it is that the two people I mentioned stand out when it comes to academics and not just got some degree. I understand that it didn't come out properly.

[kiku007]

A true visionary. May his soul Rest In Peace!

I don't know why, but the minute I saw this thread I was reminded of the below memory from my childhood.

It was the early 90s. Pepsi had been in India for a few years, but Coca-Cola wasn't because they left before I was born. My cousins and I would savour Coca-Cola from the cans brought over from overseas. Is Coca-Cola better than Pepsi? That's not the point is it? Forbidden fruit is the sweetest.

So we were elated to know that Coca-Cola was re-launching in India in late 1993. On the first day it was available, my cousin and I went to a small shop to enjoy the Made in India Coca-Cola available in the distinct green tinted glass bottles. This memory is burnt into my brain.

It's funny my addition to this thread is a Coca-Cola bottle, when others have pointed out foundational economic changes. Perhaps this shows the impact of the changes from the pov of a kid in the 1990s.

So yeah, spare a thought for the architect of the liberalisation era in India. This changed India forever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUrm49MKAc

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by kiku007

So we were elated to know that Coca-Cola was re-launching in India in late 1993. On the first day it was available, my cousin and I went to a small shop to enjoy the Made in India Coca-Cola available in the distinct green tinted glass bottles. This memory is burnt into my brain.

Where Coke goes can IBM be far behind. In 1978 George Fernandes, a union leader turned politician, famously tossed Coke and IBM out of India. They both refused to reduce their holding of their Indian subsidiaries to below 49%. For IBM the Indian market of 1978 was simply not big enough to kow tow to the Govt's new policy and neither Govt nor IBM saw India as a outsourcing destination. In those days the Govt did not think in terms of job creation, GDP growth etc - they instead thought in terms of ideologies, bureaucratic & political control, etc. To be fair MNCs too did not see us as much more than a small side show with a million threads of red tape. Today IBM employs over 100,000 in India, over a third of its world wide work force of 288,000!. Where red tape goes we still have a long way to go.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by dragonfire

That essentially leaves us with PVNR, Vajpayee and Modi. Gujaral and Chandrasekhar weren't really around a lot of time as PMs and were mostly fillers.

No love for Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V.P Singh, etc? Modi was after Dr.MMS, so I was not counting him.

Many of these guys got their degrees from some of the oldest universities of India, with British education standards. Don't judge those colleges lightly.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Where Coke goes can IBM be far behind.

Great point about IBM, I wonder how folks these days know that it was IBM which revolutionized the IT salary in India. IBM came back to India in 1992 and created a Tata-IBM venture namely Tata Information Systems Limited ot TISL. TCS was in-charge of training their team and I was one of the TCS faculty.

Here is a post from 2007:

Originally Posted by Samurai

When I got into Software, the pay and job opportunities were on par with Civil, but less than Mech or Electronics.

Then in 1992, TISL (now IBM) offered 8K per month for trainees, this was when most people started at 2K-3K.

By 1993 most IT companies had started matching the salary to retain their staff.

It would have taken few more years for IT salaries to raise if TISL (or IBM) had not tried to shakeup the employment market so dramatically.

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by Samurai

No love for Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V.P Singh, etc? Modi was after Dr.MMS, so I was not counting him.

Many of these guys got their degrees from some of the oldest universities of India, with British education standards. Don't judge those colleges lightly.

IKG and MD are 2 very important figures in this list. Their degrees and universities might have been good or important, but how they damaged the top echelons of the country's security is very well documented in several books.

During MMS tenure, the country flourished on almost all fronts. Was it just his education and degrees that helped? I reckon it is much more than that. Education and degrees certainly help, but don't suffice. The individual needs to be a
a good and persevering human too.