On business - 3

Democratization has set in for good.
There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when IAS was the coveted job to do. Then came Engineering and Medicine that ruled the roost for very many years. Till one day in mid-1991, PVN Rao liberalized the country. Management and Chartered Accountancy suddenly became the rage.
Today, eighteen years later, anything is ok - fashion design, culinery courses, acting , interior design, real estate , NGO and charities are all considered at par. Water management , Civil engineering, Nanotechnology and Petroleum engineering are as coveted as Computer technology. A Dentist is as coveted as a Neurosurgeon.
'Business' was looked down upon and the middle class dream ended with a service and retirement pension. A pawn broker was looked down with contempt. Now, credit card and mortgage firms pay the highest salaries.The economy has shifted from being agrarian and industrial to knowledge driven. And one cold afternoon late last year, Jet Airways tried to retrench 1900 people, resulting in a huge stir, political protests, an apology from the chairman and a re-instatement of the people . A month later, as the world came crashing down financially, Jet quietly removed over a thousand of its employees without a protest. Hire and Fire is now an accepted part of Indian corporate world for good, settling the Union issue once and for all.
Accountability has also reached high standards. You need to tread the straight and the narrow - with judicial and media activism, its difficult to fool all the people all the time anymore.
And while its cool to be an entrepreneur in the knowledge economy, there's now a level playing field for first gen entrepreneurs.
Heave Ho !