Thought for the day
“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because
they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.”
-
Niccolo
Machiavelli (Italian, 1429-1527)
Word for the day
Beget (v)
(especially of a male parent) to procreate or generate
(offspring).
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Teaser for the day
If someone can be insulted by ordinary people like me, let
me assure you such person was never reputable.
Means are equally important
Swami Jagadatmananda in
his famous work “Learn to Live” extolled the readers - the sincerity and honesty of the means to
achieve a goal is equally important as the goal itself.
More popularly, in blockbuster Hindi movie DDLJ the hero
Shahrukh Khan articulated this thought in a conversation with the mother of his
beloved. When for the fear of her husband’s retribution, the mother advises the
two lovers to elope – the hero tells her that the path suggested by her appears
easy but it would lead to nowhere. He would rather prefer the path of courage,
honesty and integrity which though arduous definitely leads to the desired
goal.
I am reminded of these instances by the latest discussion
regarding likely economic and fiscal policy stance of the new government.
Both PM and FM have indicated, on more than one occasion, that
some tough measures would be needed to bring the economy back on the
sustainable growth path. The media speculations suggest that the government
might consider tighter fiscal discipline by way lower non-plan expenditure,
lesser subsidies, and somewhat higher taxes.
However, I am yet to hear from any non-government stakeholder
that they are willing to cooperate and cooperate. To the contrary almost all
stakeholders have presented their lists of SoS concessions.
This presents the government with classic dilemma – whether to
expediently yield to popular pressure for ad hoc relief or institute structural
reforms that would afford the economy fiscal & financial stability and
capability to grow sustainably faster.
In my view, two tasks need to be accomplish expeditiously –
(a) Bridging the
multitude of deficits prevalent in the country, especially trust deficit,
governance deficit, compliance deficit, skill deficit, social and physical
infrastructure deficit, and capital deficit.
(b) Bringing India
into a state of equilibrium by removing social, and regional, economic
imbalances.
To this end, it is imperative that all of us contribute to the
endeavors of the government. In particular, industries and businesses who have
thrived historical on government largesse and not necessarily on the
enterprising abilities of promoters would be willing to give back to society by
way higher taxes, higher voluntary CSR spending, technology upgrade for better
resource utilization, etc.
On household citizens’ part
the minimum we could do is to commit ourselves to (a) most efficient use of
energy; (b) totally avoiding food wastage, and (c) high standard of quality
& conduct in our respective professions, social and civil life.
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