Spectacularly pedestrian speech

The key portions of PMs speech on Independence Day with my comments in brackets at the appropriate places.

"With government facing attack over multiple scams, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday promised a strong Lokpal to end corruption in high places and asserted that hunger strikes will not help address the problem, in an apparent reference to Anna Hazare's agitation (Strong Lokpal? The current version floated by his Government in the Parliament is a joke on the nation - toothless and one that would ensure no one gets punished. Hunger strike has had the effect of the whole nation being made aware of this monster that is eating us and dragging us back to medieval times. The PM is in denial mode here)

Addressing the nation for the eighth consecutive year on the occasion of Independence Day, Singh said no government has a "magic wand" to deal with the problem of corruption which needs to be tackled on many fronts and asked all political parties to "stand shoulder to shoulder" in this fight. (Dear MMS - you dont have ANY wand to solve even the smallest problem, neither does your Super PM. Why should the other political parties stand shoulder to shoulder with you when your party has not shown any decency in discussing any issue of any importance with them for the past 7 years?)

A day before Hazare was to embark on an indefinite fast demanding a strong Lokpal, he made it clear that only Parliament can decide what type of Lokpal legislation can be enacted. "I am aware of the differences of opinion on some aspects of the bill. Those who don't agree with this bill can put forward their views to Parliament, political parties and even the press. However, I also believe they should not resort to hunger strikes and fasts-unto-death," Singh said. - (But the JanLokpal committee did put put forward their views in the joint panel. Instead of discussing the merits of their version, you took every opportunity to trash them and hounded them which ended in their hardening their stance. After that, will any decent person come forward to discuss anything with your government?)

Acknowledging that corruption is a big obstacle in national transformation, he said the menace should be discussed in a manner that should not create an atmosphere in which country's progress comes into question - (Note that he only mentions that corruption should be DISCUSSED, but did not promise any ACTION)

He also admitted that funds meant for welfare of common man end up in the pockets of government officials - (What about politicians? And we have been hearing this story about 85% of money meant for social sector getting diverted to many pockets since Rajiv Gandhis time. This UPA government has been in power for 7 years!! Have you taken a single step to solve this?)

Speaking from a bullet-proof enclosure amid rains, the Prime Minister touched on a variety of subjects including the sensitive land acquisition issue, naxalism, terrorism, economy and inflation. Unlike in the past, foreign policy issues found no mention in his 40-minute speech on the 65th Independence Day from the historic 17th century Mughal monument of Red Fort - (Even on an independence day, he has to speak from the shelter of a bullet proof enclosure!!! Independence also means that all of us should be able to walk free on the road without the fear of being attacked by terrorists. And that includes the PM)

It is not right to bring the judiciary under the ambit of Lokpal as this would go against the independence of the judiciary, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. PM admitted that we do need a framework in which the judiciary becomes more accountable. "It is not appropriate to bring the judiciary under the ambit of Lokpal. We believe that any such provision would go against the independence of the judiciary. "It is with this aim that we have introduced the Judicial Accountability Bill in Parliament. I am confident this bill will be passed soon," he said - (We have enough bills and laws. The Government thinks mere passing of bills means the issue is resolved. They give a damn about implementation. And there in lies the failure of our nation. Judiciary, like politicians, live in denial mode. If they are not, then they would have taken action against the corrupt Ex Chief Justice Balakrishnan and Justice Dinakaran, long long ago. And they are only the tip of the iceberg)

In short, the PM's speech has been spectaculary pedestrian. He doesnt convince us. What the heck, he doesnt convince himself.
 
And he definitely doesnt inspire us. What a shame!!!

Hey Captain! It may not matter to you, but it does to us.

Like Hindustan Motors, the makers of Ambassador Car, who were totally ignorant of a concept called Product Life Cycle, which finally led it to a comatose situation, the Indian Test Cricket Team has been on borrowed time for a while.

The middle order was ageing, and ageing quickly. Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman are into their late 30's. They have done stellar service to Indian Cricket. But they are at the fag end of their career and needs to be phased out over a period of one year.

Harbhajan's decline was visible to everyone other than his friend Sachin and Indian Selectors. Any decent cricket fan knew that he cannot take wickets, given even a square turner. At least he used to keep the runs down with his negative fast, flat leg stump line. Even that is no longer true. Bhajji is typical of the current Indian Team and Board. He has refused to accept there is a problem, even when it was staring on his face (I still remember a homily of my HPCL GM - "Son, we know you Sales officers will have problems in your Areas. We are not interested in that. What we look for in a Review meeting is whether you are AWARE that there are problems, doing something about it. It is the attitude and thinking that is critical for us). Bhajji has lost his flight, spin and doosra, and with it his effectiveness. He needs to be send back to the Domestic Cricket for a year of grind. When even Ranji players start thrashing him, he will understand how far he has come down.

We really need to look into why our medium pace bowling, where we were supposed to have riches a few years back, is bare. Why do we have highly paid coaches if the batsmen cant last 75 overs as a team, bowlers get thrashed for 700 runs in a helpful track and fielders drop catches by buckets. Heads must roll.

M S Dhoni has never lost a series before. But his Test Captaincy is average. He is just not pro active enough. Also his Wicket Keeping has been abysmal.

The long and short is that our players are just not working enough on their game, with the exception of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman. They are holding on to their places by virtue of their reputation. This is a sure road to disaster.

The fans have reduced the rating of Indian Team from AA to BB- after this England tour.

But will things change. I doubt. 15 years back, we saw the emergence of two wonderful players in an England Tour - a certain Sourav Ganguly and one Rahul Dravid. When was the last time an exciting talent hit the Test Scene in India after that? I can't remember. Therein lies the root cause.

We dont mind if a better team beats us. But what is galling is the way we lost without even putting up a decent fight. And to add insult to injury, we have a captain who said 'it doesnt matter if we lost the No.1 spot". Well it was clear it didnt matter to him or his team, but 'IT DOES MATTER TO US FANS AND THE NATION".

For making that one statement alone, which shows his mindset, MSD should be sacked.

"Upakaram cheythillengilum, Upadrivikkathirunnal mathi"

There is a saying in Malayalam,

"Upakaram cheythillengilum, Upadrivikkathirunnal mathi"

A loose translation - If you can't help, at least try and not to do any harm.

Indian industry must be uttering this sentence a million times a day while thinking about the Central Government.

The Indian Governments led by Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh etc did their best to stiffle Private entrepreneurship for decades. They had a vice like grip over the Private Sector using the Licensing system and other draconian controls. In 1991, P V Narasimha Rao (the credit has to go to PVN and not to MMS) had no option other than to liberalize, privatize and globalize the economy. Whether out of compulsion or not, he was imaginative enough and bold enough to dismantle the existing non performing, constrain creating system. This one act provided the filip for our private sector to unleash their entrepreneurial skills. They fully grabbed the opportunity and took Indian economy to greater heights. It is to A B Vajpayees credit that he understood that the role of Government in the future is to be one of facilitator to the industry, than an owner or controller of the industry. He was clear about the need for infrastructure development and connectivity. Though Rajiv Gandhi ushered in the Telecom revolution, ABV's initiatives saw greater broad band and mobile connectivity, which has created a revolution in the corporate and personal lives. Apart from this Vajpayee kick started the National Highways project - the Golden Quadrilateral and the N-S & E-W Corridors. It is to the eternal shame of UPA Government that they have dragged their feet on the project which should have been completed in 2007, but is not likely to be completed in this decade. He also wanted to connect the rivers, but this too has not seen the light of the day under the new government.

Despite the UPA government putting every conceivable road blocks in the way of economic growth - rising interest rates, credit squeeze, dragging feet on second generation reforms, diversion of funds to non productive social schemes like NREGA (which has resulted in lack of funds for infrastructure development projects), poor fiscal discipline, rising revenue and fiscal deficits, double digit inflation, approvals being denied, labour law amendment defered, agriculture being ignored ............ the list is endless- the economy has grown at around 7-8%. And this during a global recessinary period.

This is not an anamoly. Our economy is growing DESPITE the Government, or rather INSPITE OF the Government. The growth is driver purely by Private Sector initiative, who are fighting a losing battle of late, what with government totally apathetic to their basic needs of providing funds at competitive interest rates, and making basic investments in the right infrastructure projects (while it is welcome that our Airports are being upgraded, that should be the least of our priorities. The priority has to be to upgrade the Road, Rail and Ports that facilitate movement of goods). And the Government has not made much investments in the next generation Internet Connectivity. While our current connectivity might be sufficient for data transmission, the future needs of the IT sector for higher bandwidth is not being talked about at all. This will result in our country losing its competitive edge in IT in the long run.

While one can cite Ambanis, Tatas, Mittals, Dhoots etc as people who have benefitted from Government support, the fact remains that only a chosen few have got the support from the UPA Government, for obvious reasons. The facilitation for the industry by the Government has to be broad based and all encompassing.

Of late, the Government, which is clue less on inflation, is taking retrogative steps by increasing bank rates steadily, raising tax rates to cover up its poor fiscal performance, not making investments in infrastructure and generally dragging its feet on all policy matters.

Is it any wonder the industry is asking it to leave things as it is, and not worsen it?

MMS saved by the bell

Dr.Manmohan Singh's patron saint, the US, has come to his aide inadvertently.

MMS and his government has been reeling under the accusations of numerous scams, lack of governance, inaction, mismanagement of the economy, spiralling inflation and the real prospect of a drastic drop in GDP growth. They were struggling to explain to the country the reasons behind this (to be fair to them, they have no clue as to this themselves) and with parliament session on, would have been in deep trouble answering an aggressive opposition.

But with USA economy in shambles, Eurozone crumbling, US credit rating reduced to AA+ leading to fear of double dip depression worldwide, MMS can heave a sigh of relief.

For a while now he has run out of excuses as to what is going wrong with th economy. He has blamed terrorism, rural people eating more because they are earning more under NREGS (which is a joke as more and more people are dropping below the poverty line and malnutrition figures are on the rise), supply side constraints (whatever that means!! Well it means that we are not producing enough to meet our demand. And what do we do to increase supply - not only nothing, but we further take steps to reduce supply by increasing the interest rates!!!!) and so on.

Now he is safe. With US ruled by a bigger Asshole than our PM (What a wimp Obama has turned out to be. He rode to power promising change. But US citizens never that it would be a change for the worse. Under Obama, US has lost its Military No.1 position, Moral No.1 position and now Economic No.1 position), and US economy likely to be in doldrums for a couple of years at least, MMS is safe. He can blame the US led global recession for all his economic ills.

Some people are born lucky - like our PM. He has become a PM for 7 years when he has not won even a municipal election in his life, he is being hailed as father of reforms when actually the only thing he did was to follow the orders of Narasimha Rao (MMS actually baulked at implementing reforms in his draft  first budget which was thrown at his face by Narasimha Rao who then read the riot act to him to prepare a budget which changed the Indian economic scenario), and he is hailed as one of the best Prime Ministers of India(sic) when to all effect, he has been the worst.

P.S: Though everyone seems to be worried about the Stock Market crashing (which doesnt mean much anyway for most of the people other than a handful), the real worry is the rise in our Revenue Deficit from about 1% + in 2008 to 3.4% currently, and the Fiscal Deficit from 1.5% + in 2008 to 4% + now.

Slight redesigning of the blog

Have done some work on the fonts and the width of the reading area, to make the blog easy on the eye and look professional. The design templates in the background is being retained, though I was tempted to go for a bland look. Then thought it would differentiate the blog from a standard newspaper blog.

Enjoy your visits to this blog.

Want better governance?

Want better governance? Implement the following,

No security for anyone, including the Prime Minister - Remove the black cats and Z-level security for all, and just see how the internal security of the country, the police and the intelligence community are made to work professionally by the powers that be. The much needed reforms in the Police will be implemented like lightning when the politicians become afraid of their lives. As of now, they live in ivory towers, without a care in the world as to how many common people are killed by terrorists. Have we heard anything on who was responsible for the latest Mumbai blasts?

Do not provide accommodation to the Ministers, politicians and Government Servants - Let them hunt for houses, enter into rental agreements and pay rent like you and me. They will then appreciate the plight of ordinary people.

Withdraw privileges on Travel - Let them all travel cattle class by Air India or by Indian Railways or by State Road Transport Corporations. I dont have to elaborate on this.

No overseas medical treatment - Not even in super speciality hospitals in India. Why should Sonia have her surgery in US? She can get herself treated in any of the Government Hospitals in India, and being alloted a bed in the General Ward or in the Paid room. Then she will appreciate what a common man has to undergo to get treatment and the quality of it.

I can go on and on. But I presume you get the drift. Our politicians, ministers and their party chiefs are so away from the reality, have lost touch with the common man, and lead such an elite life that they dont know and can't understand their plight. Gandhiji was sent on a bharath darshan by Lokamanya Tilak, which opened his eyes to what the real India is (Quite unlike the promo tours of Rahul Gandhi). And that was the foundation for his National Leadership. It is time we insisted our 'leaders' undergo some of the hardships that you and me undergo.

Debt Trap

The interest rates have gone up steadily. The manufacturing sector has slowed down. Grains are rotting, despite bountiful rains and it is still pre-harvest period. The Government is rudderless. There is a capital flight from the country. Despite all this, the GDP is growing at 7%.

This appears to be paradox. But is it?

The GDP is growing despite the Government. Post liberalization, the industry is less reliant on the Government, and the Government policies have little impact on the economy in the medium term. Or let us say it has only marginal impact. The industrial and services sector are self sufficient which leads to them contributing a bit to the GDP growth.

There is another reason. I had written about this before. Despite the real income coming down over the past couple of years, people are buying more because of the credit facility available -either as Bank loans or through Credit Cards. In effect, they are paying from the future income anticipated. Thus the money supply is much more than what it should be. It is a debt driven growth, which cannot be sustained. One has to just look at USA to know where we will end up.

In the  past the debt entrapped only the Central and the State Governments. Now it is extended to you and me. Still doubtful? Try preparing a Balance Sheet on your personal Assets and Liabilities, and see where you stand.