"When you publish a
book, it's the world's book. The world edits it."
— Phillip
Roth (American, 1933 - )
Word for the day
Excogitate (v)
To study intently
and carefully in order to grasp or comprehend fully.
Malice towards none
Why should I get my
dilapidated house repaired and renovated?
After all my grandfather was
born, lived and died in this house.
#IndianjailsforMalya
First random thought this morning
BJP needs some good economists in its political strategy and
marketing team. The party and its leadership needs to learn the law of
diminishing utility and negative returns.
If the popular reaction to the recent public statements and
speeches of the prime minister and other top BJP leaders is concerned, it is
clear that the impact of their rhetoric and tactics is diminishing and in some
cases the incremental impact is actually negative. They may want to pause,
reflect and perhaps change.
Four years of Modi rule - 7
I have done it before and would like to congratulate the incumbent
government again for continuing with and even materially improving the
execution of policies and programs initiated by the previous governments.
However, the government may not score very high on the originality and
innovation criteria.
Insofar as conceiving and implementing policies and programs that
may potentially put the economy on the path to faster and sustainable development
is concerned, I could find little that could be genuinely attributed to the
current government. Nonetheless, there are few things that have made
significant difference. For example—
(a) The hybrid annuity
model for developing physical infrastructure, supposedly a brainchild of Nitin
Gadkari, has helped in reviving the investment cycle in infrastructure sector.
The erstwhile PPP model suffered from material lacunae and led to humongous losses
to both the public and private sectors. The new model (HAM) addresses many of
the problems of PPP model and has (a) helped in reviving many of the existing
projects which were either stalled or were suffering huge losses leading to
accumulation of large scale NPAs; and (b) brought the private entrepreneurs
back to the investing in infrastructure sector. The new model seems acceptable
to all and appears sustainable.
(b) Another major policy
initiative of the incumbent government relates to the foreign policy. Many of
the previous governments had adopted a foreign policy that (a) tagged a
"big brother" image to India, especially in relations with smaller
countries; and (b) suffered from ambiguity and prejudices. The incumbent government has tremendously
increased its outreach to almost all the countries, irrespective of size and geopolitical positioning.
Moreover, it has been largely able to resolve many conflicts that impaired our
foreign policy since independence. For example, an open and equidistant
relationship with Arabs and Israel; US and Russia; Japan and China is
remarkable and will have far reaching impact on Indian economy and our global
strategic importance. The change in tactics in relation to Pakistan, by openly
admitting the aggression has also helped in altering world's opinion on the
role of Pakistan in global terror mechanism.
(c) The emphasis on
voluntary compliance has been another dimension added to the governance by the
prime minister. Insofar as I could figure out, late Lal Bahadur Shastri had
been the only prime minister which relied on appeal for voluntary compliance
during 1965 Indo-Pak war. The prime minister Modi has experimented with
surrender of LPG subsidy, cleanliness, and to some extent tax compliance. The
success so far may not be overwhelming. Nonetheless, it does provide a potent policy
tool to the subsequent governments, especially during the periods of emergency.
(d) Another significant
policy initiative in past four years is the change in social security paradigm.
Prior to 2014, the provision of social security was mostly responsibility
of the government. The bottom of the demographic pyramid had virtually no
social security. Almost three fourth of population depended entirely on the
government for health and education. Financial inclusion and insurance coverage
were abysmal.
The incumbent government initiated programs that led to public
awareness and participation towards social security. Though the execution of
some of these programs could be below par, but the policy intent is clear and
commendable. For example, contributory crop insurance, promotion of NPS,
proposed universal health insurance, accessibility to banking and financial
services etc. have created a strong platform for building of a sustainable
participatory social security regime.
(e) A strong commitment to
the fiscal discipline (so far!) despite political challenges has been another
positive contribution of the incumbent government.
(f) One of the major
contribution of the extant regime is to introduce a definite sense of
unpredictability in the entire governance and operating system. This has
unshackled the hitherto complacent bureaucracy and manipulative business class,
besides shocking the patron politicians.
Audacious moves like sudden cancellation of 86% of the currency
notes in circulation, open admission of cross border aggression, announcing
aggressive targets for completion of public projects without consulting various
implementing agencies have definitely improved the execution levels while
narrowing the scope for divergences and leakages.
The sustainability of this phenomenon though is debatable.
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