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| Good news for the economy | | | Arun Nehru | 7/6/2009 11:05:46 PM |
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Arun Nehru
After more than a week of gloomy and dire predictions about scanty rains, drought, and water and power shortages, we find that the monsoons have finally arrived, although a week late (which is nothing unusual), in 95 per cent of the country. However, it cannot be denied that the reality of the situation is that a one-week delay pushed us to the brink of chaos with acute water and power shortages and these will continue to plague us in the future as the infrastructure gap has widened due to our high GDP growth over the past decade. We have to heavily invest in infrastructure development if we are to sustain a GDP growth in excess of six per cent. Nonetheless, I have little doubt that the overall economy will do well in the foreseeable future. But will we be able to achieve our political objective of narrowing the gap between the rich, the middle classes and the weaker sections of our society?
We need to generate and distribute real wealth for which we need a GDP growth close to eight or nine per cent. Events over the past three years and the global economic crisis have only accelerated the change in the international power structure. As a result, today, at every step we have to face and react to new challenges. Infrastructure development is not limited to power and water, roads and bridges, air and rail travel, but extends to virtually every field of activity. In that respect, it is good to see that the Ministries of Home Affairs, Human Resource Development, Environment, Rural Development and Health are attracting the best ministerial talents available in the system. This marks a departure from the past.
Budget allocations will indicate the direction we take in the future. It is sad that the Opposition in Parliament is in complete disarray, for, the system of checks and balances in a democracy can never be taken for granted. It is always a mistake to interpret a verdict for good governance as an endorsement of an individual or a party. We have a classic example today in Uttar Pradesh where BSP supremo Mayawati is determined to lose the next election in her State through her wasteful expenditure on parks and statues!
Security issues, both external and internal, must get preferential treatment and the new regional NSG commando hubs coming up in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata are commendable. Cutting across party lines, senior leaders must agree to release trained NSG personnel currently engaged in VIP duty. Many of the parliamentarians in the previous Government were given ‘Z’ category security due to the compulsions of coalition politics. But fortunately, those compulsions no longer exist. Security is never easy to withdraw from political VIPs and perhaps as a start the report on threat perception can be shared with Opposition leaders before a decision is taken.
Our resources have been experiencing severe stress on account of the Maoist insurgency cutting across several States. While Government cannot discuss security issues in the media or tell all to the people, there can be no doubt that the threat from Maoism represents the greatest challenge to our economic progress. We wish our neighbours well but the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan — or, for that matter, in Nepal — is far from normal. In addition, we have to deal with the threat from terrorist sleeper cells embedded in our soil.
That all is not well is indicated by detailed media reports about a Union Minister exerting pressure on Justice R Reghupathy of the Madras High Court who then went on to mention this in open court. The judge said that two calls were made to him, instructing that anticipatory bail be granted to C Krishna Moorthy and his son S Kiruba Sridhar, both of whom are facing CBI charges for malpractices in medical college examinations in Pondicherry University. Similar political goondaism was also on display in the case of the Congress MP from Kurnool, Mr Jagganathan Reddy, who physically assaulted a bank manager — TV channels have shown the shameful act in minute detail. This is not the first time that a politician has thrown his weight around, but the difference today is that the media has been able to provide irrefutable evidence of the same and political parties cannot afford this embarrassment.
In the Madras High Court case, the suspected DMK Minister has been named on several occasions and details of his ‘business dealings’ have been made public in great detail. But the matter has been ignored in view of the importance of the DMK in the UPA coalition. Former Supreme Court judges and eminent lawyers have all made their point in the matter and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with a verdict for good governance to support him, must take a decision.
Political honeymoons are brief and can be rather violent. In most cases public trust and goodwill is often lost by acts of political arrogance where the VIP syndrome prevails over public good. Media makes justice possible in some cases and we have seen this in the Jessica Lall, Nitish Katara and the Priyadarshini Mattoo cases along with the Sanjiv Nanda BMW hit-and-run case. But the Government must also act independently of media pressure if it wants to enhance its image.
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