I wish the news on the economic front during Diwali is good. But unfortunately it is not.
The government has been promising that the inflation will start coming down after the Kharif Season. Despite a good monsoon, and a more than fair Kharif Season, the food inflation remains above 12%. When will the Government ever understand that there is a major supply and distribution side concern. Despite getting a rap on the knuckle from the Supreme Court, and despite the Agricultural minister Sharad Pawar wanting out 5 months ago, Government has adopted an Ostich like policy or putting its head under the sand and refusing to believe that a crisis exists. There is a criminal negligence on the inflation front.
We have surplus food grains but the poor are starving for want of foodgrain. We have not heard of a single initiative from the Government to construct/augment the foodgrain storage facility or to have a master plan for foodgrain logistics across the country. It is amazing how the whole issue has been swept under the carpet.
Manmohan Singh has two things going for him - he is 'clean' and he is an 'economist'. But his tenure has seen the worst of the scams. The scamsters from Raja to Kalmadi to Chauhan are having a field day. CWG was a national loot, and the Maharashtra CM and many in the Congress party and the Armed forces party to even swindling Kargil widows, and the 2 G scam is at another level of corruption altogether. All through this the PM has been a silent spectator, to the point of turning a nelson eye to the whole sordid corruption saga. It is almost as if he is facilitating it. It is nice to be personally clean, but as a leader of a great nation that is aspiring for global leadership, one should take leadership and responsibility in rooting out corruption. So the balloon on his being clean is pricked. I have written about his non performance as an economist before. So what do we have - a weakling who cant even say boo to even the lowest in the ministry. We get the leaders we deserve, but frankly even we dont deserve such nincompoops.
The RBI has gone and increased the interest rates upwards again. We live in one of the highest interest rates, highest tax rate, highest inflation rate regimes in the world. This is reminiscent of the bad days of early 1990's. Frankly, but for the comfortable forex scenario, the situation is actually worse than when the reforms started.
Politically, the Government blunders along. No initiatives on the Maoist front, and absolute disaster on the Kashmir front. And the Congress is up to toppling non congress governments using the Governor and money power, as happened in Karnataka of late. We have lost the war of words and policy game with Pakistan, and has not taken on China despite them harassing us on various fronts. Why, we have not been able to convince Bangladesh to give back our territory that they have forcibly acquired from us.
We need to leverage our Economic and Military clout. But instead what we will see is fawning on Obama when he visits tomorrow - the leader of a Country in decline, shorn of his political, economical, moral, military clout. What a shame!
Deepavali is a festival of lights. At least on the Deepavali day, that is tomorrow, let us hope for some light out of the darkness we find ourselves in. A darkness created by our indifference as a citizens.
But Life moves on. It has to
HAPPY DEEPAVALI!
Warning : Practice safety while lighting crackers and don't indulge in sweets
