Continued from:
MANMOHAN TRIES TO SOUND SINCERE BUT DOESN'T LIFT CONFIDENCE –
IT’S THE POLITICAL JAMBOREE CALLED INDIA
Its bad timing dear: One
thing that is clearly questionable in Manmohan’s move is his timing. Why this
hurry all of a sudden, and that too, when the government was finding itself on
the back-foot as the Coalgate revelations were naming many UPA members.
Why this long delay if the retail FDI decision was so imperative
for India
growth story?
Why didn’t he go to notify it earlier then?
Why now when the next General Elections are well in sight?
He says he is ready for any sacrifice for his proposed reforms.
Why this enlightenment now?
If it was so imperative, why he kept Indians bereft of such a
panacea for this long? Is he going to pay for it?
If it is really about reforms, why he then he became a party in derailing
the Lokpal legislation?
Yes it is bad timing from other angles too. A bad Monsoon has
created problems. Inflation and hence prices are to remain high. GDP rate is
coming down. Internal factors and external factors like Eurozone and China
slowdown are putting pressure on the Indian Economy. Rating agencies are
downgrading India
and investors’ confidence is low. S&P yesterday reduced India’s GDP
estimate from 6.5 to 5.5 per cent.
And this situation hasn’t arrived just in a month or so. Policy
paralysis of the UPA-2 has led it to get the monstrous shapes. The UPA
government ignored all the war-cries when the Economy parameters were
performing poorly, inflation was heading up and the Rupee was going down. Instead,
what we would have were empty eloquence of the UPA leaders including Manmohan
Singh and Pranab Mukherjee assuring us that everything was under control and
whatever little problem, if it was there, was mainly due to the external
factors. And now we have come to this.
It is not just S&P, almost every major agency has downgraded
India,
in terms of its credit-rating and GDP growth. Morgan Stanley reduced its GDP
estimates - 5.1 from 5.8 per cent, HSBC - 5.7 from 6.2 per cent, and Standard
Chartered - 5.4 from 6.2 per cent. These were indeed warning signs as the signs
tell us now. Instead, Manmohan’s government chose to blame them of showing India in poor
light, beating the bush that things were under control. By doing so, they let
the things go so volatile that it is threatening Indian’s Economy now, if we
use Manmohan’s words only, comparing the situation now with the 1991 crisis.
So, why, all of a sudden, such a hurry on reforms now? It
rightly raises questions? There might not be much reading into this but it is
spicy enough for the populist politics to make a groovy curry out of it.
Doublespeak: Isn’t it
doublespeak especially if personal integrity is concerned when Manmohan, too, had
opposed the retail FDI in a December 2002 letter to a trader body of Maharashtra? Manmohan was then leader of Opposition in the
Rajya Sabha. Mamata Banarjee has posted the correspondence on her Facebook page.
It isn’t unusual to change stand on an issue given the way the Indian
politics is behaving but should then Mr. Manmohan Singh try to miserably score the
brownie points in the name of his personal integrity whenever he takes the
microphone to speak?
Concurrence of the retail FDI decision with the Coalgate and the
compulsion to present a populist Budget next year bolster the theory that this
was nothing but a politically selfish move aimed at evading direct answers on
the involvement of the UPA members in the countless corruption cases. And to UPA’s solace, the Coalgate cry has
significantly dampened. After all, the opposing groups are all same Indian
politicians only, isn’t it?
Manmohan said on the ‘6 subsidized LPG cylinders cap’ in
his September 21 speech, “Almost half of our people, who need our help the
most, actually use only 6 cylinders or less”. Why then almost of the Congress
state governments had to raise the number of subsidized cylinders in their
states? Congress party’s spokesperson Janardan Dwivedi said on September 19, a
day after Mamata walked out, "Sonia Gandhi has asked Congress CMs that
now the government's decision of subsidizing six cylinders should be increased
to nine. Now nine cylinders will be given at subsidized prices".
Manmohan and many colleagues of his cabinet had slammed the
rating agencies on downgrades but Manmohan says in his most recent speech, “We
need a revival in investor confidence domestically and globally”.
The great doublespeak!
To continue..
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/