When I was thirteen I was lucky to have a history teacher who inspired me, made me learn to think for myself, and gave depth to my private life. Many of us, I think, have had the same experience there was one good teacher at some point in our lives who changed us, and this made all the difference. Vimala Ramchandran's recent research with poor children in U.P., Andhra, and Karnataka also confirms that the biggest motivator in getting children to complete primary school is a welcoming, and affectionate teacher.

The following appears in honour of brevity, the defining characteristic of leaders. And of The Times of India Speednews, a new edition of The Times of India that packs in more news, in a concise form. For astute, time-pressed readers who demand a quick uptake.

'The World as India' is the title of a lecture that Susan Sontag gave in London last year, which was published in the Times Literary Supplement this June 13.

In it the distinguished writer celebrates the success of Indians in harvesting their legendary English-speaking skills in the global economy through call centres and other services. But Harish Trivedi, the no-less distinguished critic at Delhi University, promptly wrote an angry rejoinder in which he characterised call centres as ''brutally exploitative'' and its employees as ''cyber coolies of our global age, working not on sugar plantations but on flickering screens, and lashed into submission through vigilant and punitive monitoring, each slip in accent or lapse in pretence meaning a cut in wages.''

Indians have good reasons to feel confident. Our economy has grown 5.9 percent per year since 1980, making it the fifth fastest growing major economy in the world over a 23 year period; this is not a case of one swallow making a summer. We may be well behind China, but remember that the West created its Industrial Revolution at a 3 percent growth rate over 100 years. More recently, our population growth has begun to slow, and in 1998 it was down to 1.7 percent compared to its historic 2.2 percent growth rate. Literacy has also begun to climb—it reached 65 percent in 2000 compared to 52 percent in 1990, with the biggest gains taking place among women and the backward states. More than 200 million Indians have risen out of destitution since 1980 as the poverty ratio has declined to 26 percent. And we may have finally found our competitive advantage in our booming software and IT services. Finally, all this has happened amidst the most appalling governance; imagine, what might happen if governance improved.