Re: how far away is the goalpost?

["Ash Mahesh" <ash_mahesh@hotmail.com>]

> why do you say it is not a clear goal? aren't the standard
> parameters per capita income, life expectancy, infant mortality and
> literacy rate? if we improve these and at the same time move towards
> crime free society, our aim would be met.

Poor choice of words on my part, perhaps. I meant instead that whereas a
loosely worded statement like "make India #1" is definitely measurable
in terms of the above parameters and others, we might benefit from
breaking down the goal into identifiable posts along the way.

For example, do we have a reasonable understanding of where we currently
place on an index of such parameters? Are there identifiable components
of such an index which are easier to tackle (or harder, for that
matter)? Is there a place to begin? If we are number 23 by 2004, would
that be acceptable? That sort of thing is what I had in mind when I
first raised the issue of not having markers for our progress.

Perhaps we could grab some info from some ranking of the states, weight
them by population and produce a national average value for the index.
The UN has a Human Development Index which presumably has already done
this, maybe we could grab that and see how we might move to the next
step on such an index? If we are country number 171 (we all know it is
possible!)  what will it take to get to 170, for a start?

Such incremental steps have one advantage - by highlighting our progress
along very measurable paths, it is easier to rope in the efforts of a
larger section of the population. Kinda like a United Way campaign, or a
public-radio fund-raiser. Keeping the audience informed is one way to
bring forth their participation. This is also more consistent with my
way of thinking, which is that involvement of much larger sections is
crucial to IP's success.

Ash

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