MBAUniverse.com Exclusive: Preparing for GD? IIM-C alumnus S Balakrishna offers advice on Hot Topics

To arm you better for the final battle MBAUniverse.com launches today its special series of topic-specific articles. In this series we will provide you exclusive content on relevant topics for GDs that have high probability of becoming the key topics at leading MBA institutes for the 2010 MBA admissions.

Today we present to you the first of the series of topic-specific articles written by Mr. Sidharth Balakrishna. He is writing this series of articles on GD exclusively for MBAUniverse.com. Mr. Balakrishna has been involved in MBA coaching for over five years. He has also written the best-selling book ‘An Introduction to CAT-Tips from an IIM Alumnus’, published by Pearson Education.

Today’s Topic: Will India or China be the next superpower?

Mr. Balakrishna gives his advice on how to approach this specific topic. The article follows:

It is important to lay down a structure for the discussion in the beginning of a GD. In the first couple of minutes, the group should look at outlining the parameters of the discussion-what all could be discussed in the duration allocated for the GD.

For this topic, you should first lay down the criteria on the basis on which they would make a choice between the two countries. These could be the following:

-- Economic factors, including quality of infrastructure

-- Military strength

-- Social infrastructure-education, health etc.

-- Influence the country has on other countries in the world

-- Leadership

Now, these factors could each be examined in turn. Remember that evaluators judge the quality of your analysis, for which you need to go beyond mere opinions. Thus, your statements have to be backed by reasons/ justifications and logic. You may need facts, data and examples for this.

Thus for economic factors, points such as the following may be brought out:

-- The current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the two countries (maybe both in actual and in Purchasing Power Parity terms) and GDP growth: We know that China is well ahead of India here as its GDP is thrice that of India in actual terms and its growth rate is also higher (has been in double digits for a number of years before the global economic slowdown).

-- Trade balance: China outscores India here as well; it has a massive trade surplus, while India has an increasingly large trade deficit.

-- Investment: China receives considerably more FDI and FII than India does.

Per Capita Income: Once again, the per-capita income in China is substantially higher than that of India’s.

Let’s move on to the next parameter: Military strength. What all could we consider? Maybe the following:

-- Nuclear capabilities of the two countries

-- Missile technology

-- Size and effectiveness of the defence forces (in terms of number of personnel, training imparted etc)

-- Military technology such as latest weapon systems, aircraft carriers etc

On most of these parameters, China is again ahead of India. It has been a nuclear power for much longer than us. Its missiles have a far greater range of over 5,000 kms (they are testing even longer-range missiles now), while India has struggled to develop long-range missiles such as Agni.

China has more advanced military technology in other areas as well, such as nuclear submarines etc.

The best mantra is 'to be your natural self'. Do not manufacture artificial responses.

Now, if we move on to the next parameter, social infrastructure, we could look at factors such as:

Education: We could look at infrastructure and indicators such as number of schools/ thousand people, literacy rate, gross enrolment ratios, number of teachers, etc. as well as the quality of educational institutes. While India does have some top-class higher education institutes, the scene at the primary and secondary level is not that encouraging with student and teacher absenteeism, lack of infrastructure in schools etc

Health: We could look at facilities and indicators-number of doctors, hospital beds etc. per 1000 people, quality of healthcare etc.

Other indicators such as Life expectancy, Sex Ratio etc may also be considered when one looks at Social Infrastructure.

The other parameters could be analyzed in a similar manner.

Remember what is important is not your opinion per se, but how you justify it. Is the topic adequately analyzed? The person who can justify his opinions and provide some facts and data to support his points will impress the evaluators.

For further readings on this topic you can refer to the following links:

http://business.mapsofindia.com/india-economy/india-vs-china.html

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/columnists/swaminathan-s-a-aiyar/India-to-overtake-China-in-2020-Swaminathan-Aiyar/articleshow/5401241.cms

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html(Choose India and China for statistics)

http://www.indiadaily.org/entry/india-vs-chinawho-is-the-next-economic-giant/

For any further queries you can email Mr. Balakrishna at: bsiddharth_2001@yahoo.co.in