In your editor’s not unlimited experience of seminars and intellectual fests, the three-day Milken Institute  Global Conference 2013 spread over April 29-May 1 in Los Angeles, was arguably the greatest accumulation of the choice and master spirits of our age. The more than 3,000 attendees (most of whom paid $7,500 (Rs.4.13 lakh) delegates’ fee for the three-day conference, hotel expenses excluded) were given the choice of attending 140 sessions addressed by 600 multidisciplinary panelists from over 50 nations. Star panelists included Bill Gates, Tony Blair, former US vice president Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, billionaire Carlos Slim, top CEOs, university presidents, Nobel laureates, and major institutional investors from around the world.

In a welcome address to delegates, Michael Milken, the promoter-chairman, and Michael Klowden, chief executive of the institute (estb. 1991) outlined the conference agenda which would “address a wide range of questions with global implications”, including education, health, climate change, the fracking revolution, bioscience research and Africa’s renaissance, among other subjects.

Over three action packed days with simultaneous panel discussions starting at 8 a.m, and concluding at 6 p.m, followed by private and public receptions, speakers and delegates brainstormed about how to deliver these promises, with delegates streaming into the 11 conference rooms and massive auditoriums of the Beverly Hilton, surely among the best convention venues worldwide. Your editor — a prophet not without honour save in his own country — was included in a panel on international education reform chaired by Lowell Milken, co-founder of the institute and a widely respected champion of K-12 education and teacher development in the US. Although somewhat dwarfed by highly eminent co-panelists including a US senator, economic advisor to the prime minister of Israel; US deputy secretary of education, director general of basic education of China, but never at a loss for words and ideas, your editor highlighted the mess created in Indian education by reckless populism, and neglect of public education. Opining that private initiatives — including low-cost private budget schools — are the saving grace, I argued that the best policy option for India is to raise standards in government schools, colleges and universities rather than pull down private education institutions, which seems to be the official objective. The interested can view the entire panel discussion on You Tube (www.milkeninstitute.org#2013GC).

Nevertheless listening to the other panelists and learning about the huge resources their governments lavish on developing syllabuses, curriculums, pedagogies and children’s learning outcomes, was a frustrating and humbling experience for this unofficial representative of a nation so apathetic and neglectful about developing the world’s largest human capital resource bank. 

Different India story

The Milken Institute Global Conference 2013 wasn’t my first. In 2009, I attended and chaired a panel discussion on Indian education. At the time the feel-good story about India was that of a democracy matching communist China’s annual economic growth, with the Congress-led UPA government and prime minister Manmohan Singh’s star riding high on the eve of the UPA-II’s re-election with an increased majority. Four years later, the most common reaction of business, finance and government leaders about the India growth story was a rueful shake of the head, and a few polite words about this country’s unlocked potential and squandered opportunities.

While in 2009 a full panel discussion on the potential of Indian education including the prospect of developing the world’s largest child population generated considerable excitement, this time round the India-centric discussion was ‘India: How long a pause?’ in which the panelists dominated by venture capital tycoons speculated upon how and when the Indian economy would recover its growth momentum.

The panel comprising self-assured billion dollar fund managers of Indian origin, opined that policy fixes are the antidote to the pernicious poison of self-serving ‘socialism’ which has been injected into the vital organs of the Indian economy by all mainstream political parties over the past 65 years. The opinion repeatedly voiced at the Global Conference was that pervasive corruption and rents extraction have disheartened foreign investors even as the quality of human resources available to manage and grow businesses is very poor. Unless these fundamental issues are addressed politically, the growth pause being experienced by the Indian economy could stretch into eternity.  
                                                          
Global underlings

After the end of the intellectual fest which was the Milken Global Conference 2013, your editor took a smooth private sector (Amtrak) train to San Francisco, an 11-hour journey which confirmed that the public sector Indian Railways is essentially a cattle and livestock service, even for passengers travelling in the upper classes. For several decades your editor has been advocating the transformation of Indian Railways into a track leasing and maintenance corporation. But, this advice has been ignored by a self-serving establishment which profits mightily from this government monopoly. The plain truth is that Indian Railways is a century behind the US in railroad development, the bitter price of State monopoly.

Subsequently the excellent logistics, civic governance and maintenance and not least, immaculate pavements, parks and pedestrian plazas of San Francisco and even crowded Hong Kong, impacted the heavy price the long-suffering public in India has paid for pandering to the whims and misgovernance of the Nehru-Indira dynasty which has ruled the nation for almost half a century.

But for this sorry condition of the nation, the inert public, co-opted intelligentsia and greedy uncaring middle class are as much to blame. Easily bought by the loaves and fishes of office and unmerited subsidies at the cost of the poor majority, they have lost their moral compass and all idealism. Now these very complicit forces suffering massive Stockholm syndrome are set to vote in the Congress or the BJP — two sides of a devalued coin — into power, studiously ignoring new political formations such as Lok Satta, Aam Aadmi and the Children First Party of India. The fault is not in our stars but in the public and intelligentsia, that we are the world’s underlings.