Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Electricity-less Superpower

India is a land of diversity and a land of promises. We are a fast growing economy and soon to be world superpowers. India is a force to reckon with and the world better not take us lightly. We will ascend the power ladder and sit on the top soon… or will we?

The recent power grid failure in the north and then the east has really made a mess of the things, people have been caused a lot of inconvenience, and the officials are left wide eyed in surprise unable to deal with it effectively. Amid all the chaos and confusion, we forgot that the world is watching us. A recent story on Time World reads as below:

 

The new power failure affected people across 13 states — more than the entire population of the European Union. They raised concerns about India’s outdated infrastructure and its insatiable appetite for energy that the government has been unable to meet.

 

I am not here to trash my country, nor do I seek to preach views and opinions on how this debacle could have been avoided or handled. All I want to do is voice my shame and sadness to have encountered such a post, that mocks my country. I also wish we weren’t making tall claims on being the next superpowers when we don’t even have a system to overcome our own power crisis. The Time World post ends with:

 

But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India’s households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year’s census.

 

If you heard a cracking sound, that is just my heart breaking… Do you feel bad too when you come across such news pieces?

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