This is the moment for India!
However, rural India is too big a sector!
So too the new problems thrown up by the fast changes in many areas.
No one person, however powerful, can hope to understand Indian issues and it requires time and much patience and also experience to grasp the basic. A country’s economic development has many issues that agitate the average citizen.
It needs both experts as well as political leaders to explain and articulate certain perspectives. In India we have had too many economists, in fact, a disproportionate number of economic experts who, lately, under Manmohan Singh, indulged in practical politics, as Prime Minister.
It is too early to say whether such roles for professional experts produced positive results. In the particular case under Singh, the end result was disastrous! The economy became mired in corruption and in many court cases. The 2014 Lok Sabha results proved it all!
Now, we have a new government and the experts stay apart. The PM and the FM are doing their jobs. They are doing fine.
You see a big economy like India’s can’t grow in isolation. There is a global economic slowdown, China and Japan, why even the US economy are also facing a slow down.Keeping this global phenomena in mind, we have to see how lucky we are positioned and how the Indian economy is looked upon as a sort of exception.
So, the Prime Minister’s optimism is somewhat justified and let us see things in a positive light. And for us in the rural India media what the PM and the FM say are particularly relevant and make sense. So, you can see the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, among others; have to say something or other on rural India, agriculture and rural distress etc.
The PM has said, more than once, that India is the fastest growing country and the economy is the most successful among other nations which, the PM notes, are all facing financial crisis. ‘India is progressing at a rapid pace, the PM says, he cites the World Bank and the IMF.’ The world is going through an economic crisis’. The Congress, caught in the midst of multiple challenges to its very survival, let alone its revival chances there is really no challenge to Modi’s many opportunities to turn around the economy on his own lines of further development and acceleration.
As it is, the Indian economy is almost back on an even track. Given the PM’s own claims we can agree with his own perspective of the present and the future course of development.
From all points of view there are many favourable factors to boost the PM’s optimism for the future of India.
His foreign policy perspective, for a country of India’s size and geopolitical strategic positions, India, may be for the foreseeable future has everything going for its good. China is friendly and so too other South Eastern Asian nations. Japan is really positioned as a strategic partner, the Japanese foreign aid, specially in a symbolic project like the bullet train project would certainly boost the confidence of the Indian people and so too China’s offer o speed up the fast trains project too.
As for the other big investments, the National Highways Project under the very dynamic leadership of Mr.Nitin Gadkari is certainly a sort of trendsetter, it seems. So too the high-speed railways projects all over India.
The visit of the French President to the Republic Day parade also saw a signing up of an agreement to upgrade the Delhi-Chandigarh line up to a speed of 250 kmph and so the other lines too are aimed at speeding up trains in the new century.
India is the only big Asian country with old slow-sped trains. Japan and China have overtaken us and it is time that this sector needs some serious attention. Now, the advanced French rail technology might come to India and that would really boost not just the economy, the very confidence of the Indian people and investors would also turn up. Let us all hope that the high visible bullet train at Rs.980 billion 505 kmph would trigger a new industrial revolution.
Why not? It is time for the Indian public to think big and dream big. Mr.Modi, let us concede, has really made this new Indian confidence boom nearer to us than ever before.
Finance Minister : As for the Finance Minister, what other chances he has than to come down to the ground reality? He says that the Budget has to be pro-poor. Is there any other way for the minister! The FM says further that the budget has to be a package with emphasis on solving the rural stress and also social security measures and changes in agriculture policy. These three issues are all very tricky ones that had defied many an expert and experienced leaders.
The story is simple and yet very complex.
Rural India is too big an umbrella under which anybody can take shelter for a brief while but not for long!
So, we would take the words of the high and mighty with a pinch of salt and here too we can see the whole of the Indian economy as contributing to the rural distress and at the same time suitable and dynamic policy changes by alert leaders at the helm can relieve distress and can help accelerate the economy.
One important aspect of leadership at sensitive ministries like agriculture, rural development, why even social justice and even health and family welfare is that these ministers and their officials must always be on their legs, they must be travelling almost all the time and must b seen on the scene so that lots of disconnected clogged channels can be cleared on the spot.
The ministers must familiarise themselves with the states special problems, the whims and fancies of the Chief Ministers concerned. There is huge wastage of precious resources, too many fanciful schemes, too much populism and too much injury to the public good by these freebies.
The government hospitals in the rural areas all can be linked to the Internet-based services, telemedicine projects can eliminate lots of pain and distress. The medical insurance schemes can go a great deal to eliminate much of the rural distress. Infants, and maternal care issues need lot of new thinking and lots of best practices, there are some really successful social security schemes operated by NGOs and even private hospitals. One immediate name comes to mind. Dr.Devi Shetty in Bangalore’s Narayan Hrudalaya is doing something revolution. He is what Kurian was to Amul.
So, please tap the best talents and deploy them for the greater good of the poor and vulnerable.
Economy and politics linked : You see the economy is closely linked to politics too! So, we have to cross the partisan political divides and reach out to ideas and strategies across the ideological lines.
Short-term political gains could distort long-term visions. But it is his long-term vision, the very basics of fundamental economic forces, capitalist economic growth path and also social equality, secularism, parliamentary democratic values that are very critical for the sustainability of the unity of the people. So, the PM must concentrate on the core values of his vision. PM must also turn an educator. That is the role envisaged for the Prime Minister under the Indian Constitution.