Got a chance to spend some time reading up about Switzerland and am trying to compare India and see the difference.
1. Switzerland has not been in a state of war for almost 200 years. They did not participate directly in World War I or II. India already has three wars to its credit in the past 75 years.
2. India’s population density is 380 while Switzerland is 190. Every time I try to find out the root cause of day to day issues we face in I am told about the high population in India and how things are uncontrollable. Just a reminder to every one who use that excuse, the population density of Singapore and Hong Kong are close to 7000 – I guess it is time to realize that in India.
3. Switzerland is not a member of European Union – but have applied for it. They are a part of Schengen agreement. The biggest surprise was that they joined the United Nations only in 2002!
4. Switzerland has been ranked very high in many indices when compared to other countries in the world:
- 1st in Economic Competitiveness
- 1st in Tourism
- 1st in highest nominal wealth per person
- 2nd in life expectancy
- 8th in GDP
- 1st in ‘No Bribe’ Index
- Zurich and Geneva are on top of ‘Best Quality of Life’ index
- 9th Human Development Index
4. Their recent events to be proud of are:
- CERN, near Geneva, is the home to the birth place of World Wide Web. India can definitely be proud of its rich culture and the geniuses it has produced over more than 1000 years.
- Roger Federer is from Switzerland – who is adored by millions of tennis fans, very similar to how Sachin Tendulkar has been adored by millions of cricket fans.
Here are a few reasons for Switzerland to love India:
- There are almost 50 different Indian movie crews shooting movies all over Switzerland at any point in time. I am sure this must be boosting their economy in a consistent basis. In fact, they are considering a Indian Film Festival in August to celebrate this.
- We all know about the Swiss bank accounts discussions that happen all the time when Indians try to look for places where all the black money is kept. So from an inflow of foreign currency stand point, Indians are among the highest contributors to this.
Here are a few organizations that have chosen cities in Switzerland as their head quarters:
- International Red Cross Geneva
- United Nations Geneva
- WTO Geneva
- IATA Geneva
- IOC Lauzanne
- FIFA Zurich
This is just a sample set – but the point to think is; Why? The fact is that Swiss neutrality is the key to the way in which they have been accepted by the other nations and organizations.
Overall, Switzerland is quite an impressive country with well rounded growth in various fields. While India has its own strength, I wish to see India become better by studying such nations and improve.
Hi Hussain, I have a different opinion about #2. Population and population density are two different things. High population density may not mean a high population overall as in case of Singapore and Hong Kong which have just around 5-7 Million people, a little more than Chennai 😉 So guess the difficult part is about bringing more people, spread far and wide, to follow rules. To those who complain population being the reason for all the mess in our country, the right comparison probably would be China.
Isnt it easier to look at each MLA constituency in India and compare that to Singapore or Hong Kong? Imagine if each MLA in India did their best to make their constituency better than Singapore, how would India be? That is what I was talking about 🙂
[…] Switzerland is one of the most advanced nations in the world. If you want to know more about Switzerland as a country, please visit Wikipedia or click here for my views with comparisons to India. […]
The main difference between India and Switzerland is the way of living. In Switzerland there are villas and bungalows that are found to live in whereas in India there are flats which is mainly popular. India does not consist of very strict rules to be friendly with the environmental and not to harm it whereas in Switzerland it is very strict.