INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: INDIAN BUDGETS NOTHING BUT A SHOWOFF OF VERBOSITY ...: Indian masses have seen budgets being presented and passed every year and it is always the same old story of high sounding words with little of any substance being meant. The government and the treasury benches are always gaga over whatever is presented and the nation has witnessed it every year. The opposition concentrates on mud slinging. We have seen these slanging matches time and again, year after year and surprisingly the goons and buffoons of Indian polity have been successful in maintaining their status of rulers in spite of their failing to change the lot of the common man or the country.

The railway budget presented in the Indian Parliament today seemed to be a mere exercise of audit of accounts of the year that has gone by and projections of expenditure for the coming year. It is a well known fact, known to every individual citizen of the country including most of the politicians that infrastructure is the most important next gen growth engine of Indian economy but still somehow or the other no real push was given to the railway 

INDIAN BUDGET 2013 : WHAT COUNTRY NEEDS ??

Annual budget is a yearly exercise of the government to take stock of the financial activity of the government for the year gone by and present what the nation should expect in the coming year. All these years it had been more or less an administrative effort in accountancy without any coherent and rationalized approach to the future of the country and its citizenry. It has always been  an exercise of reducing and increasing some taxes or in other words a simple balancing of collections and expenditure. The directions will depend upon the whims and fancies of the government, the urge to please one sector of industry or the other or the necessity to fool common man for his only asset 'the vote'.

The country in general and the common man in particular has waited patiently for umpteen number of years for some magic to happen because of the so called all sincere efforts of the rulers of the country but alas we are neither moving towards the status of a global superpower nor towards the often repeated slogan of poverty alleviation. At best India's journey all these years can be described as a journey towards some degree of industrialization, that too in patches and in fits and starts which has failed to impact the lives of the poor in any significant manner. In fact it appears that the economy is simply directionless as far as Indian chance of becoming a global superpower is concerned. India has all the where with all in terms of all natural resources including a huge human resource, managerial, technical, skilled and unskilled with favourable demographic mix coupled with a fairly large economy. Still if India fails to get its rightful place in the next decade or two, it will be because of the absence/lack of wisdom, vision, far sight and statesmanship in the polity.

The country's economy is in a spin and is riddled with the problem of high inflation and dwindling GDP growth rates accompanied with continuous rupee devaluation vis a vis other currencies. Everyday one hears about the wish list of expectations of various groups from Indian budget 2013. The stock market guys want some measures to improve the feel good factor, different industry sectors want sops and concessions to their own sectors, the middle class expects some concessions in direct taxes and fuels, while a vast majority of Indian polity which survives and thrives only on its ability to dole out freebies, subsidies and sops to the poor have nots out of the public exchequer is gunning for this vote catching rhetoric. There are no quick fixes to  the problem of high inflation, rupee devaluation and slowing down of growth. In a scenario where the economy needs solution to the problems of high inflation, current account and fiscal deficits:  

• The first and fore most concern of the finance minister ought to be bringing down inflation considerably as a matter of fact much below the so called tolerable limit of the economists of the country. By now the ineffectiveness of monetary actions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the huge slowing down of economic growth rate thereof should set the polity thinking on an integrated approach to  ECONOMICS, GOVERNANCE AND INFLATION IN INDIA
• Current Account deficit should be the next priority of the government and a temporary fix might be achieved somehow or the other but a long term and  permanent solution will emerge only when a solution to the thorn of oil economics in the Indian growth story  along with reducing gold imports which thrive on the black money availability, is found out.
• Topmost priority to the next gen growth engines, like

1. Corruption Mitigation and Good Governance - The Biggest Growth Engines for Indian Economy:  Whole of India is aware of the corruption and the resulting black money. In fact if by any sincere means the government can mitigate it and bring back major amount of parallel economy to the mainstream economy, the Indian growth story can be hastened up tremendously along with wiping out the demon of fiscal deficit.

2. Infrastructure and Human Resource Development: Next Gen Growth Engines of Indian Economy : The right mix of rail, road and waterways for transportation of men and material has a multifaceted beneficial effect on the economy in terms of job creation, increasing demand of steel and cement, efficient, low cost and timely movement of industrial goods and agricultural produce, and above all cutting down of oil and fuel costs. Priorities in human resource development to increase the earning capacity of an individual alongwith increase in productivity will go a long way in poverty alleviation and growth rate sustainability.

3. Indian Energy security - the next gen growth engine : Nothing can be achieved with shortage of electricity in the growth story of the country and the aim of providing a comfortable and meaningful life to a common man.

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: JUDICIAL CASES' PENDENCY IN INDIA : APATHY OR COMP...:
While inaugurating the golden jubilee celebrations of bar council of India, the prime minister showed concern to the huge pendency of cases in Indian courts and urged the legal fraternity to devise ways and means of solving the problem. While on one hand it was heartening to note that the chief executive of the country is aware of the problem but equally painful was the fact that instead of the government finding a solution to such a major problem, a problem which nullifies all efforts of the government in fighting corruption and criminality. In fact it is the biggest thorn in improving the citizenry satisfaction index of governance and government.

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: INDIAN RULERS - ALL SAINTS:

Every day, the Indian scene is jolted by one scam or the other and surprisingly the polity and rulers of the country will appear on the media to convince the gullible Indian citizenry that there is nothing wrong in the country and the whole matter is nothing but an attempt of casting aspersions on Indian rulers who are all saints. These shameless guys pretend to be unaware of the reality of Indian nation when every hapless common citizen of the country is aware of the fact that nothing, I dare say nothing, including getting an audience with an officer to getting payments for the jobs done or material supplied to the government fructifies without resorting to a bribe in cash or kind.

There was a time when one could think that India being bestowed the epithet of A Land of Scams was perhaps a little too harsh but today with more and more scams emerging and the couldn't care less attitude of the rulers one is left with no option but to accept this harsh reality. India is perhaps the only country on this globe where being corrupt is an asset for success in life in any sphere and politics being no exception. If it weren't so, India will not have 40% Parliamentarians and legislators with not only dubious and shady records but criminal and economic offence cases pending against them. The others are guilty of camouflaging/ ignoring such malicious activities of their esteemed colleagues for the attaining and retaining 

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING:
Re-energising Europe. Putting the EU on Track for...: Re-energising Europe. Putting the EU on Track for 100% Renewable Energy (2013) Submitted by  Raquel Ponte Costa  on February 14, ...

ON GROUND REALITIES OF INDIAN ECONOMIC HEALTH

The polity and the rulers of India, both at the union government or the states are only bothered for their respective thrones and constantly strive to outdo each other in their public fooling pseudo good politics for their short term gains and much against the long term interests of the nation and its citizenry. It is not that they do not understand the implications of what they call as good politics but in their quest to attain and retain power they ignore even the basics of managing a good household budget and running a family. They know it for certain that 'Good politics without good economics and good governance is surely a complete disaster for the nation' but they forget even the basic principles of running a country i.e. 'Good Economics and Good Governance is Ideal, Bad Economics and Good Governance is A Compromise, Good Economics and Bad Governance is Undesirable, Bad Economics and Bad/Corrupt Governance is A Disaster. The polity has willingly chosen the path of of self destruction combining good politics with bad economics and bad governance. Let us understand the importance of the wisdom contained in this Chinese proverbs/sayings “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” and this is the way to take the country and its citizenry forward and " Look in each man two working hands and not a mouth to be fed".

India is tangled in the problems of high inflation, high current account and fiscal deficits resulting out of passivity and lethargy of the government because of its single point concentration on vote bank politics and and no worthwhile efforts to improve upon the governance. In fact the Indian government is a government sans governance and whatever governance is there it comes from courts and Reserve Bank of India. Now that the water has crossed all dangerous levels, there has been some effort on the part of union government to bite the bullet for taking small steps towards good economics much to the chagrin of majority of Indian polity which describes these measures as against the interests of the common man. Let India as a nation understand that blaming the world economy scenario for our woes is self defeating in the sense that other nations will not help India in getting  out of the economic mess it is in. Once their economies start looking up and they are out of the slump and recession like conditions they will strive with double the force to achieve greater prosperity for their nations. India will be left to make use of the crumbs left on the platter by these sincere, honest and wily leaders of the developed west.

Monetary steps and controls could not bring down inflation to the so called tolerable limits of Indian economists and has resulted in the much feared slow down of the economy. Inflation in India is a direct result of bad economics and lack of governance for no amount of monetary measures can address the problem of inflation in the long run. Now the government has started talking about large current account and fiscal deficits. It is not understood why these economists of international repute could not adopt an integrated approach to the problems pertaining to inflation and economic growth. Even now while there is an effort of reducing the fiscal deficit to within limits, the methods employed are highly questionable. Selling of government assets in the form of disinvestment is never a good option for you never sell your silverware for consumption in the form of subsidies, doles and freebies. All other measures seem to be guided only for keeping the stock markets cheerful, buoyant and perked up for realising maximum money from disinvestment for some reduction in fiscal deficit and flow of funds through Foreign Institutional Investors (FII's) for some reduction in current account deficit. FII's are by and large traders and any short term gains through this route are dangerous.  Earlier on we had Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parikh resorting to such activity which ended up as big stock market scams and the gullible Indian investors incurred huge losses in the market. God bless the country when the government resorts to such activity. Investments through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are always welcome because of their long term impact on economy. 

There is little effort to address the problem of high current account deficit wherein the two major culprits are Oil and gold imports along with slowing down of imports. India has to have a some out of the box solution to its energy requirements or else oil economics will  be the eternal bane of Indian growth story  in a global scenario of escalating oil prices with each passing year as the demand increase and resources get depleted. To reduce gold imports the country has to think in terms of mitigation of corruption and black money generation in the economy. The lure and lust for yellow metal among people with white money is on the decrease but enjoys the most favoured investment status along with real estate among corrupt and tax evaders.

Lastly, the government has talked about reductions in government spending in some sectors but strangely it has never talked about austerity measures.

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: INDIAN WOES : HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT: Infrastructure and human resource development is certainly the next gen growth engine of Indian economy   and surprisingly precious little...