A 6 month old thought, refreshed by Commanding Heights

About 6 months back, just before I got admission into ISB, as a sociology student, I had a thought, which is a question and I sought some ideas. Though no one responded to that then from the yahoo group where this is posted, I did get some response from Prof. Krishna Kumar and from the Commanding Heights video. Please go through the original post and respond to me, if you have time, by mail (kiran.aalla@gmail.com)

Background: Many of the erstwhile developing countries like India and China are experiencing fantastic growth rates from last four years at least. As cited in the Bestseller "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, the new off shoring and outsourcing developments are giving great opportunity to countries like India and China with huge Man Power though in two different areas such as IT Services and
Manufacturing respectively.

While this growth has definitely raised the per capita income of the citizens it is also increasing the widening gap between the incomes of haves and havenots. According to official numbers about 30% of the population live on less than $2 per(Rs. 100/-) day, while many of the IT folks around make atleast double than that per hour in the median range. Government and other agencies such as Nasscoma and CII are playing a great facilitator role by luring Corporates by making everything easy for them through steps like single window clearance, providing land at low prices, and many other such steps.

While there is so much Media focus that is being given to such initiatives, not much attention is being given to the Poor and even the lower Middle class. Unionisation and organized labor are slowly becoming impasse. In the growing industries Managers are taking extra care to ensure that there is no possibility of unionisation and
sometimes even courts and governments are giving pro-corporate feelers and discouraging any organized effort for the low wage workers.

Suddenly the whole scenario appears to be moving into a situation totally against the poor and lower middle class. Their incomes are stagnated, there is no protection for their jobs, a lot of demand is placed on their productivity, there is no one on their side to fight for (even the left are becoming extremely silent except in places
where they are not in/sharing power)

But why should we think about this?

One of the effects due to the above kind of developments is that the unorganized sector is viewing the IT tag with a tinge of jealousy and trying to charge premium sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly without the knowledge of the payer. I remember once an Auto guy refused to give me a ride as he wants to have only white skin guys.

Racial discrimination in India?? Another thing you would agree is that almost all the Auto guys either charge more on meter additionally or the meter itself is tampered with. Even the old loyal and part-of-the-family house maid is vanishing. Instead a demanding short tempered maid is increasingly becoming part of daily Management challenges.

Don't you agree with me that increasingly society is becoming imbalanced leading to frustrations, which may ultimately lead to a dangerous scenario leading to increased violence and robbery.

In this kind of scenario, if you are a consultant to the government and to the society overall, what steps would you recommend, what kind of balancing forces can be created, how to see that the balancing forces do not become the opposing forces?

Do respond with whatever occurs to you.

Looking forward for your thoughts.
Regards
Kiran