America is a friendly country for India
Yet, there are differences, cultural sensitivities and some strategic dimensions!
21 million Indians live in the USA. There is a strong Indian opinion and lobby. Yet, Indians back home resent America’s spying activities on Indian establishments.
One doesn’t know what our Prime Minister said to Obama or failed to say on these sensitive issues.
India has to develop its economy and industrial base on its own strategic vision.
This calls for new thinking and new decision-making.
India has to take lessons from China and Japan too! India is not even in the top dozen of the US trade partners! It is time some plain-speaking is required!
America under Obama’s second term is becoming a bit assertive over India! There is the powerful American lobby of the National Association of Manufacturing and its lobby is awesomely powerful. That association led a delegation to the US President on the eve of Indian Prime Minister’s visit and complained that India ease many of the restrictions that are imposed on American investors in India.
This is a very important area of great interest and impact for India.
He we like to make some casual remarks from some general quarters.
One, the Indian manufacturing sector first of all is weak. This everybody knows, right? Right here in India?
Yes, there is now a trend among the very many big Indian manufacturers, from Tatas to Birla’s to Eaasr and other who have gone abroad and invested in a variety of industries, from car plants to steel making to what have you.
The reason trotted by the captains of industry is that Indian government policies are very restrictive, very bureaucratic and Here our government also corruption-ridden. All these are any breaking news?
No not at all.
Then there is the recent economic slowdown that shows that for the past six quarters Indian manufacturing had lagged behind the trends. This failure to grow in the manufacturing needs to be discussed and debated. But who has the time? Who cares?
Yes, it is so discouraging for anyone who ventures into this subject.
On the contrary, we read almost daily the news about lack of decision making in allowing or resuming the iron ore mining activity so that our exports might look up.
Also, very seriously, some of the big time investment proposals, the huge investments by POSCO, Mittal, and Tatas were all given up in Karnataka, Odisha and elsewhere. The Vedanta aluminium in Odisha is also in trouble.
We have no manufacturing policy and yet we have so many NGOs and even private competitors who seek to stall the rivals’ projects and long-term investment.
Long term planning and long-term investments don’t come in a day right?
It requires lot of vision, losts of commitments from leader.
Given the sort of leader we have, we have chosen to have, what we have today is the reality. There is so much talk on populist policies, food security, land acquisition and that is all.
All populist policies don’t win elections; it seems Sonia Gandhi might not know!
That is the lesson we get from all the populist policies dictated elections.
So, there would be every two terms, maximum only two terms, if we look at the Centre an also the states that have allowed one government to run the government.
So, please for heaven’s sake don’t play populist politics and ruin the future of the country and its strong economic strengths.
We need a clear-cut manufacturing policy. We need also some clear-cut technology policy.
Our respected former President APJ Abdul Kalam can do a great service if he turns his attention to the new technology policy framework India needs at this juncture.
The new age technologies, IT and also electronics hardware and other innovative technologies that could give India its basic strengths, a powerful defence and security industry, autonomic energy, civil aviation policy and also high tech railways are very critical for India’s storing industrial base.
In fact, there is not much effort needed, we can simply look at what China has done and doing.
China railways stand out as the single most examples for India.
Here in India, as on date, we have a very antiquated railway system, to put it mildly.
If only the railway minister Mr.Mallikarjun Kharge had made one visit to China to inspect the China’s railway system, it would do an immense good for the long-suffering Indian railway users.
There is a railway industry revolution in that country.
As in civil aviation, so in China’s railways. Railway traffic in China is growing 28 per cent a year. China’s high speed trains will carry 54 million people, double the size now travel by civil aviation industry developments. Now, bullet trains are another novelty in China.
This type of trains too are now a necessity to Indian users.
It is widely admired and some say that China’s high speed trains have emerged as the new success story in China. China’s new Prime Minister, KiKe-qiang, publicly endorsed further expansion of the 59000 high speed rail networks this summer. He said China would invest 100 billion dollars per year in its train system! Anybody in India listening?
Industrial productivity gains are reported to be galloping in several unexpected ways. China has four times the population of America and the density of population is a big help, nay a big push for high speed train systems.
It is said that the world’s half the number of heavy-duty tunnelling machines are tunnelling the Chinese earth below the ground for speeding up the rail lines.
We have seen by our own eyes how the speed with which such big construction and tunnelling machines have transformed China.
So, in some simple ways we can just copy the Chinese and Japanese industrial expansion. American economy is of course the world’s largest. But India needs some basic strength.
Indian government can constitute a high power technology for self-reliance policy that should take care of our sovereignty, stregnths, human resources and also our geo-political location.
It is time we reverse the mad rush towards meaningless populism!
Image Source : indianexpress.com