Author’s photo From DDLJ to Udta Punjab Punjab occupied an outsized space in my childhood map of India. My first cycle came from the Atlas factory in Ludhiana, and my first watch shared the HMT brand with the tractors that sowed the seeds of the green revolution. As a 6 year old, I was taken on a pilgrimage to one of the temples of modern India, where a silent lift winched us up to the ramparts of the Bhakra dam, and my little being was overwhelmed by the power of water coursing down its concrete slopes, into canals swollen with surging streams of turquoise.
Since Vietnam and Reagan Raj and his undeclared war against the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, America has used unconventional means to finance wars. In case of Afghanistan war, heroin exports were a major source of indirect funding of the war—the money kept local powerful Afghan feudals happy while American troops provided security and logistical support for the trade. The consumers of this dangerous illicit commodity stretches from Udta Punjab to God’s own country in the South to seedy alleys in European cities and the homeless in LA. That’s also a major portion of the cost of Afghanistani war, not just the trillions spent by US taxpayers and millions of lives lost.
In addition to various reasons, so immaculately listed by you, which are ailing the growth of economy of Punjab, another thing which I noticed, in my home town Jalandhar (and which may be true for various other districts too) is what I call, domestic brain-drain.
Where we have sufficiently good quantum of higher technical/business education institutes in many a major districts, with one of the finest academia imparting quality education, most of the students graduating from these can't be employed here in Punjab due to lack of industrial and business hubs(as rightly pointed out by you too). All these well groomed and chiseled brains in such institutes, go out to Gurgaon, Banglore , Hyderabad and Pune to contribute.
I happened to attend "Vision Punjab" platform last month which was addressed by CM too in addition to various industrial leaders and here I flagged this issue of domestic Brain Drain. However, the proceedings of the entire event lacked the will to act and the requisite energy to push economy-cart in the right direction.
Now when I read your article, I understood the root cause of why this great state is, what it is.
Thank you so much for such an amazing, yet lucid piece of read. Grateful.
Since Vietnam and Reagan Raj and his undeclared war against the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, America has used unconventional means to finance wars. In case of Afghanistan war, heroin exports were a major source of indirect funding of the war—the money kept local powerful Afghan feudals happy while American troops provided security and logistical support for the trade. The consumers of this dangerous illicit commodity stretches from Udta Punjab to God’s own country in the South to seedy alleys in European cities and the homeless in LA. That’s also a major portion of the cost of Afghanistani war, not just the trillions spent by US taxpayers and millions of lives lost.
Another superb read Sir.
In addition to various reasons, so immaculately listed by you, which are ailing the growth of economy of Punjab, another thing which I noticed, in my home town Jalandhar (and which may be true for various other districts too) is what I call, domestic brain-drain.
Where we have sufficiently good quantum of higher technical/business education institutes in many a major districts, with one of the finest academia imparting quality education, most of the students graduating from these can't be employed here in Punjab due to lack of industrial and business hubs(as rightly pointed out by you too). All these well groomed and chiseled brains in such institutes, go out to Gurgaon, Banglore , Hyderabad and Pune to contribute.
I happened to attend "Vision Punjab" platform last month which was addressed by CM too in addition to various industrial leaders and here I flagged this issue of domestic Brain Drain. However, the proceedings of the entire event lacked the will to act and the requisite energy to push economy-cart in the right direction.
Now when I read your article, I understood the root cause of why this great state is, what it is.
Thank you so much for such an amazing, yet lucid piece of read. Grateful.