Yet, there is no full-time Finance Minister!
To explain and reassure the common man!
Inflation to fall to a record low, to 0.44% is a sign of many bad things for the economy. Experts will tell you what all those other bad signs are and what they predict for the economy as a whole.
Industrial production fell to 0.5%.Exports fell in the last five months to a record down of 12.21 %.Budget deficit; another indicator of the health of the economy is an unacceptable level of 8%.Budget deficit targeted is 2.5 %.
This means the government may have to borrow 3.6 trillion next year. All serious numbers and they need some serious-minded leader who is also a public figure to explain and reassure the public and the common man.
The elite, the educated classes too can’t keep mum for long.
The voters in the next month election might also feel the impact in their voting choices.
The Congress can’t take the voters for granted.
Already the allies are in a dishonest mood and mode as well!
So, how the Congress led government does hopes to win over the trust of the common people which it endearingly calls as aam aadmi!
The common man is left wondering what is happening to his life and his chances in this environment.
There is no public face for this government and yet there is so much wrangling for election tickets and the leaders are all by definition, the ones who can manage tickets for themselves and their dynastic ambitions!
Is this all to politics and elections?
What the rationale for the incumbent Prime Minister to lead such a team? Is he in charge of some portfolios? He has to honestly advise Sonia Gandhi to have someone appointed as the full-time Finance Minister.
It is sheer cruelty and mental torture for Mr.Pranab Mukerjee to carry on in this fashion. Is Mr.Mukerjee so meek and submissive, all for the sake of some future hope of getting the plum job at the South Block?
No, this is neither politics nor decency.
A country of India’s size and an economy that is rated as the second biggest in terms of people and area, next to China and has such a vital space in the world economic forums is left to have a minister who is doubling as both foreign minister and the finance minister. Whose wisdom is this, this solution to the country’s many problems?
Can one individual honestly do justice to his portfolio?
The world economy is widely predicted to go through one more year of deeper recession, if any. So, there is every indication and reason to hope for a very vigorous approach to meet the economic challenges. There is a perceptible decline in production in all vital sectors, perceptible reduction in key industries; we saw the latest statistics to show that we can’t take the complacent attitude that marks the establishment.
Are there no qualified men and women in the country to take up the responsibility to run the economy, to pull back the critical sectors back to some working normalcy? There is any number.
There is a very serious drawback in the attitude of Mrs.Sonia Gandhi. She is either calculative or she is simply incompetent. Her failure to live up to the expectations of the vast sections of the Indian people is shown in the way she gives directions to the unfortunate lot that surround the Prime Minister and other hapless ministers.
One can be sure they are all blaming their bad luck, they can’t neither perform nor they are allowed to perform.
The devil is somewhere; the allies are all started giving the headache to Mrs.Gandhi. They must have found out her limitations and that is why they had dared to ignore her claims to lead the country, she is plainly feeling unsure of her own future. That is one reason or that must the one reason why she is unwilling to fill up the portfolios and even where some portfolios are by people, they are simply not up to the mark. Sports and Law are two examples. Why these two portfolios are filled by the people who are there. They haven’t done much nor do they seem to care for. For they knew they enjoy the prtonage.That is all.
Why burden other poor chaps, the juniors in the foreign ministry who double up as the minister for information and broadcasting. Why not appoint someone in charge?
So too the many other ministries.
Some ministries like the surface transport are now a big scandal. No targets are reached it seems. Nor likely in the near future.
How long and how far we would be only submissive to this sort of a government that holds the hapless sections, farmers, labour and the ones in all the industries that are hit by the recession?
Why there is no stimulus package for some of these industries hit by the recession?
Why not someone with a public face explains and reassures the public about the next step in tackling the recession blues?
It is a great pity that in India we are all so narrow-minded.
The Opposition party, namely, the BJP led by the redoubtable L.K.Advani, has some of the bright faces; Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh have been both foreign ministers as well as finance ministers. Surely, they must be knowing lots of the intricacies in these two key ministries.
It is their public duty to give the Indian public their own inputs as to what can be done in these difficult circumstances.
They are the ones who are also likely to get back to such key portfolios once the BJP is in a position to form the next government. Even otherwise, they are both seniors and also wisemen and have a more moderate face.
So, they should step out into the public realm and speak to the people as what is being done by the government and what imp [act the likely policies in operation would have on the economy.
Even otherwise, there are many others both inside the parties as well as outside.
They all owe a duty to the people to speak out.
What is the point of having so many economists in the government? They are all tied to the official line. The official line is simply burden the incumbent ministers who are over-burdened already and they can’t really do much.