India at a Glance
February 09, 2009 - by Kanishka KelshikarThis winter I finally went home after three years! Three years is a long time and in that time, a lot has changed back home in India. The landscape is different and 'mom and pop' stores have been replaced by shopping malls and multiplexes. There are even more vehicles on the roads, the streets are crowded and from a distance it looks like the economy is still booming. On taking a closer look, however, I realized that a different picture seems to emerge.
One night, I was having dinner with some friends who are recent graduates of the engineering program at Pune University. India is, for the most part, a service-based economy; my friends aspire to be proud members of the service industry back home. That night, amidst profound conversations about where we planned to go out that weekend and how we wanted to bring in the New Year, we stumbled across the topic of careers and our future. I was shocked to find out that a lot of my friends still had not heard back from the firms that had recruited them in April and May of last year. Some of them were initially set to start working two months ago! They said that the recruiters explained the delays as a result of cost-cutting efforts on the part of the firms. In fact, a significant portion of the previous recruit class was yet to be placed! As a result most of them are now working part time or taking up certificate courses to try and keep themselves busy while the leaders of the country try and fix the economy.
