Whether personal or societal, transformations generally require will and vision. In the case of personal transformation, unless one is a schizophrenic, a combination of intelligence, basic human values, determination, foresight and will is sufficient. For social transformation, something more is needed. Clearly leadership matters.
Here’s something to think about. Below the fold is an extended excerpt from the book, “Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas” by Kwang, Tan and Fernandez. Indian leaders ought to take note. Or at the very least, they should read what Lee Kuan Yew …

In an article in the Business Line titled “Kalam’s PURA will not work,” Lee Kuan Yew makes the case for urbanization of the population for India to develop.

If I were asked to name one national political leader — contemporary or in the past — who is deserving of deep respect I would answer “Mr Lee Kuan Yew.” There is something about him that puts him in the top of the heap, in my opinion. It could be his basic intelligence, his deep insight into politics, his masterly understanding of world affairs, his breadth of vision, his obvious scholarship, his impish wit and his Confucian wisdom. The more I read him — and read of him — the …

The title of this post is from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, The Deserted Village (1770). It appears here:
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

The NY Times of 30th May reports (“Power and Tenacity Collide in Singapore Courtroom” — Thanks, Naman) on the clash between two personalities — one powerful and famous, the other powerless — in a Singapore courtroom. Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, 84, met his political adversary Chee Soon Juan, 45, in court where the former is suing the latter for libel. In a newsletter published in 2006, Mr Chee had accused the Singapore government of corruption. Mr Lee takes charges of corruption seriously and refused to let Mr Chee’s …

Lee Kuan Yew begins an article in Forbes.com with:
Even though the [Indian] economy’s annual growth rate has been 8% to 9% for the last five years, India’s peaceful rise hasn’t led to unease over the country’s future. Instead, Americans, Japanese and western Europeans are keen to invest in India, ride on its growth and help develop another heavyweight country.

I came across this site lee-kuan-yew.com which appears to be a portal with information on Lee Kuan Yew, his speeches and his writings. I am pretty pleased that right up there is a link to one of my favorite series of posts on this blog: Lee Kuan Yew on India. Read it but be warned that it is a bit long and it is not a pretty picture. But then, when it comes to what I write about, it ain’t pretty anyway.

[Continued from Part 3.]
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe, said Abe Lincoln. Astonishing how much profoundly practical wisdom is packaged into that simple declaration. Time spent in sharpening the tool is time well-spent; so is time spent in thinking through a problem and thoroughly understanding the problem before rushing off to solve it. And in most cases, since there is almost nothing new under the sun, there are already known solutions to many problem. So the most …

[Continued from Part 2.]
The recent performance of India’s private sector has underlined an important economics lesson, that competitive markets work where too often the command and control system founders. Within your arm’s reach is a device which is a miracle of modern technology—the cell phone. It took the government telecom monopoly 45 years—from 1951 to 1996—to install around 14 million land lines. Between 1996 and 2000, with the liberalization of the telecom sector, India’s installed capacity doubled to around 30 million lines. In the next five years, India’s telephone …

{Continued from Part 1}
Reading Lee Kuan Yew’s lecture is edifying at various levels. As an observer, he is incomparable. But he did not merely observe; he hinted at solutions and did so without being rude. You know the Hindi saying, samajhdar ko eshara kafi hota hai (to the intelligent, a mere gesture suffices). Unfortunately, his talk to the Congress and other assorted disciples of Nehru must have been as useful as a bicycle to a fish. Nothing that LKY prescribed for India is surprising or counter-intuitive. Yet it is good …

Lee Kuan Yew was invited to deliver the 37th Jawaharlal Memorial Lecture on 21st Nov 2005 in New Delhi. He called it “India in an Asian Renaissance.” I am an unabashed admirer of Lee Kuan Yew and I should also add that I am a very severe critic of Jawaharlal Nehru. So I decided to read Yew’s lecture and also read between the lines and make a few comments

Visiting Singapore is both an exhilarating and a depressing experience for me. To observe the transformation of a mosquito-infested swamp full of poor people into a vibrant developed nation of prosperous people in a brief span of 40 years is exhilarating. Comparing Singapore to India from an Indian’s perspective is depressing: how did we–given all the advantages we had in 1950 compared to Singapore–squander it all and end up being a poor misgoverned over-populated country? That is the depressing bit.