Ahmedabad, 23 November, 2011

Shri Rajesh Jain, Director on the Board of Gujarat Informatics Ltd (GIL) was one of the members of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s delegation to five-day China visit early this month. Shri Jain is one of the first bloggers of India and has penned down a series of blog posts about his visit to China with Modi and his delegation.

Some of the points Shri Jain narrated in his series of blog posts are interesting:

-One interesting conversation was around whether democracy is an enabler or hindrance for development. In this, there were the two contrasts – China with its authoritarian regime, and Gujarat as a democratic set-up within India. My conclusion was that more than anything else, it was the vision and the will of the leadership that made the biggest difference.”

-India’s bilateral trade with China is at about $70 billion, but India imports twice as much as it exports to China, leading to a significant trade deficit.

-China had capital and capacity to export to the world, and India needed both. China’s foreign investments were $60 billion last year, and only a small fraction of that were in India.

-China has started rolling blackouts to control emissions, in India blackouts are due to shortage of power on the contrary.

-In China, government officials regularly visit businesses to ask about problems, contrary to this government officials visit Indian companies asking for money!

-The presentations of Gujarat govt in China had Chinese text, the videos were in Chinese. Business cards handed out by the government team (including Mr. Narendra Modi) were in red, and in Mandarin.

-What struck me in the conversation with Mr. Modi was how attentive he was. He listened carefully, and never once interrupted me. He gave appropriate suggestions which advanced the ideas I was suggesting, and concluded by detailing out what needed to be done next. For me, this conversation was a revelation. There was such a different between the image of Mr. Modi created by the media and the person I sat next to and talked on the flight. I have met many Indian leaders from both the BJP and Congress in the past years. As I tell friends, with most of them, one can barely speak for a few minutes before they take over the conversation. It is almost as if they have attained supreme wisdom – and their only purpose is to preach, not listen.

The five-post series is available on this link: Post 1 , Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, Post 5