15th Lok Sabha

[gbelday]

How to Fix India

[arjun2761]

Nice to see someone state the obvious. While the corrupt politicians are a bane at least they provide us with the blessings of a democracy. A corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy however serves no legitimate or useful purpose and is a relic of the British Raj (and oppressing the people of India is not a legitimate or useful purpose). The sooner it is dismantled (or rendered toothless) the better it will be for India.

[PKBasu]

I would have definitely preferred to have Montek Ahluwalia as Finance Minister, so that a technocratic eye could have been focused on pushing through the key economic reforms that India needs to reinvigorate the economy.

Pranab is a second-best option, but actually a reasonable one. Having met him on several occasions, I must say he is rather unimpressive -- but he has mastered the ways of Delhi, has a very good memory for facts and figures, can master a brief quickly, and has used his experience to build good relationships across the political spectrum. After all these years in politics, though, I am astonished that he has done nothing to improve his ability to communicate in either English or Hindi. It is entirely the case that he emerged on the national scene purely as a chamcha of Indira Gandhi, but he did briefly put his hand up to atleast be Interim PM when Indira was assassinated -- and was immediately sacked from the Congress for his audacity. (His daughter was a year junior to me at St. Stephen's college, Delhi, and he visited us for a talk less than a week after being sacked as FM in late-1984; what I was struck by was his grasp of obscure as well as important statistics about the economy -- none of it married to any real vision for where it should go).
Pranab was actually a reasonably good Finance Minister in 1982-84, initiating the first round of economic reforms (alongwith his predecessor R Venkatraman) that pushed India onto a higher growth path (5.5-6% annually in the 1980s) -- and away from what has been mislabelled the "Hindu rate of growth" (it should really have been the "Fabian rate of growth") of 3.6% annually between 1947 and 1980. Indira decided to jettison her flirtation with socialism when she returned to power in 1980 (on the slogan of a "government that works", with much play on the price of onions which had soared especially during the disastrous year of Charan Singh's stewardship of the economy amid the Iranian revolution and the second Oil price Shock). She took a US$5.6bn loan from the IMF (then the biggest the Fund had ever disbursed), and Pranab was labelled the world's best Finance Minister in 1984 by Euromoney magazine for having successfully repaid the entire loan several years early.
The new FM's early talk is reassuring. He has given a couple of interviews already, and appears to be suggesting that a new dose of economic reform (including some disinvestment of public enterprises, and reform of the insurance, pensions and retail sectors) is very much on the cards.

[PKBasu]

I am really pleased that Shashi Tharoor will apparently be Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office. That is a high-powered appointment, and will surely energize the PMO -- especially on matters relating to foreign policy. (Shashi has been a prolific writer since his school days, when he wrote for JS -- Junior Statesman -- an extremely popular children's magazine of the 1970s, edited from Calcutta by Desmond Doig; at St Stephen's he edited the two college magazines, created the Quiz Club, and was president of the debating society and the college union, apart from getting record marks in topping the history honours course; he went on to finish his PhD from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at the age of 22, writing a thesis on Indira Gandhi's foreign policy; wrote one superb novel, The Great Indian Novel -- based on the Mahabharata, but with the Kurukshetra battle being the 1977 election, Indira as Priya Duryodhani, Morarji as Yudhisthira, Subhas Bose as Pandu and Nehru as Dhritarashtra; and became under-secretary-general of the UN at the end of a very successful career at the UN). That such a man can be appointed a minister is a credit to Manmohan Singh. Although he should have been a full cabinet minister, not just an MoS, something is better than nothing...If allowed to function properly, he will inevitably become a star minister.

[prasen9]

Ok. Let's see what these guys do devoid of the shackles of the left.

[PKBasu]

It turns out Shashi Tharoor will be Minister of State for External Affairs, under the 77-year-old minister SM Krishna. He will struggle not to outshine his boss, but I'm glad his expertise will be fully utilized in the ministry he is best equipped for.