Business is losing faith in Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reports BusinessWeek in an article in its latest issue. [
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In May the Indian Prime Minister endured a hail of criticism from the business community after he urged corporate chieftains to "eschew conspicuous consumption" or risk a backlash—a warning that left his audience wondering whether the sage economist was turning his back on reforms he himself had pioneered as finance minister 15 years ago.
But his government has been so embroiled in internal disputes that New Delhi has failed to capitalize on an extraordinary opportunity to cut farm and oil subsidies, abolish rent control laws, and change onerous labor regulations. These and other measures are essential if India is to keep growing at almost double digits and lower the poverty level from 25% of the population.
The business community's list of complaints is long. Privatization of state-run companies has been put on hold, on ideological grounds. A program to build Chinese-style special economic zones has foundered over how much to pay displaced farmers for their land. Official approvals, slow to come, are blocking badly needed commercial and residential construction.
India's poor don't have much to cheer about either. In 2004 the government launched a $2.8 billion annual plan to guarantee rural laborers 100 days of work at minimum wage—a bid to provide a livelihood to millions. But in most states, critics say the scheme has been wasteful and ineffective.
3 comments:
did they have faith in the first place ??
Why is MMS credited with launching the reforms? These reforms wouldn't have happened if not for the bold moves made by Chandrashekar, Subramaniam Swamy, and Yashwant Sinha a few months before Raogaaru took over. Even then it was Raogaaru who pushed the reforms through. MMS has never shaken off his puerile fascination with Fabian fads being a Cambridge 'educated' socialist. Amartya Sen, MMS, and a few other 'development' economists are cut from the same cloth. A touching a naive belief in the non-existent benefits of socialism, and a blindfolded approach to economic development. What did they expect from this guy and his equally hyped up nonperfomer PC? But worse still is the wholesale subversion of central administrative authority and the subversion of institutions that has been happening on MMS's watch. The handover of foreign policy decisions to regional parties like the commies' the DMK is too well know to repeat here. But what about the handover of educational policy making to a senile old fool like Arjun Singh and a punk like Anbumani Ramadoss?
Anonymous Bloop (that's me, felt the need to differentiate myself)
seeing many debacles and missed opportunities around, courtesy: spineless puppets of this kind,I strongly feel political leaders should come with expiry dates.they should be kicked out once the date starts hissing at them
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