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Scripting the Future

Many commentators have forecasted the imminent shift of the global economic focus to the Asian sphere. As the world comes ever closer together in linkages of business, technology and culture, at the end of the first decade of the new century, India’s future is of concern to everyone in the world.

However, while the fundamentals of the India story are stable, there are many questions about the nature of India’s growth that demand our attention. While the Indian economy has transformed in the last fifteen years, the farm sector has stagnated through the last decade. India’s genius in innovation is still unorganized, not yet addressing the core issues of its people, not yet sweeping across the hinterland changing the way crops are grown, children educated, industry grown. There are genuine questions whether we are creating a better society, a better, more responsible country, now that the opportunity to change exists. There is still wide-spread gender inequality, high levels of female infanticide and oppression. Or rivers and soil are being used too roughly, and our population continues to grow.

On the other hand, many thousands of Indians, whether in the government, or in NGOs or in personal missions, are working to resolve these very issues. NGOs have spread like wildfire across our plains and valleys, many dedicated officers in the government are revamping operations using technology and economics, people are sacrificing everything they have to protect our forests and rivers. So the question that lies in front of us is what must we do to script the future we want for ourselves and our future generations?

There are no simple answers to these questions, but in their structure lies the shape of our future. At IIMB we hope to play a positive part in every step of this journey, and Vista 2010-11 is geared towards this very goal.