Sunday, April 08, 2007
Sunday Morning Blues!
Has the Indian Foreign Ministry started to get their act together? I don't know. But here is a piece of news that pleased me quite a lot.
Indians are stubborn, arrogant: Pak officials
After fomenting trouble in Kashmir since 1988 that led to the death of at least 60000 people and eviction of "Kashmiri Pandits" from their homeland, Pakistanis should have expected a bit of strong arm tactics if not downright hostility. Am I not right? What about the Punjab militancy problem, also supported by Pakistan, in the 1980s? Once upon a time, Pakistan used to go into raptures with the dreams of dismembering India with "thousand cuts". India, it seems, being a diverse nation, was too complex to exist as a single nation. Pakistan, the nation of Islam under one God, had more reasons to survive as a single entity. How the tables have turned?
Let us not celebrate India's resurgence prematurely. As an Indian, I know that we have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot whenever the going gets smooth. It seems we have a propensity for "death wish". As a nation, we long for difficult times in order to prove that the whole world is an illusion. Congress (I) led UPA is slowly destroying the dynamic economy with their retrograde policies. GoI has no clue about how to contain the inflation and sustain the momentum of growth of the economy simultaneously. Many economists have already started firing the warning shots after looking at the latest numbers of the economic indicators. In the past two years, GoI has not managed to reform one single sector of the government properly. No new policies have been implemented that streamlines the bureaucratic processes. The reform process has come to a standstill. Instead we have measures that look like "Band-Aid" to cover the gaping wounds in the body.
We have antiquated labor laws and land acquisition laws that lead to advent of policies promoting aberrations like Special Economic Zones (SEZs). In India, one has to create areas within a country that have different set of incentives from the others in order to attract the investors. If these incentives are so good to create jobs, why can't they be implemented throughout the nation? What is the need for Special Economic Zones (SEZs)? The biggest hurdle to changing the laws and policies of our country is the left. It seems that the left opposes the changes in order to save the poor from the evil capitalists. After the violence at Nandigram, it is quite clear that all left cares about is how to keep the poor people in their place and deny them their right to pursue happiness.
¶ 6:13 AM Indians are stubborn, arrogant: Pak officials
After fomenting trouble in Kashmir since 1988 that led to the death of at least 60000 people and eviction of "Kashmiri Pandits" from their homeland, Pakistanis should have expected a bit of strong arm tactics if not downright hostility. Am I not right? What about the Punjab militancy problem, also supported by Pakistan, in the 1980s? Once upon a time, Pakistan used to go into raptures with the dreams of dismembering India with "thousand cuts". India, it seems, being a diverse nation, was too complex to exist as a single nation. Pakistan, the nation of Islam under one God, had more reasons to survive as a single entity. How the tables have turned?
Let us not celebrate India's resurgence prematurely. As an Indian, I know that we have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot whenever the going gets smooth. It seems we have a propensity for "death wish". As a nation, we long for difficult times in order to prove that the whole world is an illusion. Congress (I) led UPA is slowly destroying the dynamic economy with their retrograde policies. GoI has no clue about how to contain the inflation and sustain the momentum of growth of the economy simultaneously. Many economists have already started firing the warning shots after looking at the latest numbers of the economic indicators. In the past two years, GoI has not managed to reform one single sector of the government properly. No new policies have been implemented that streamlines the bureaucratic processes. The reform process has come to a standstill. Instead we have measures that look like "Band-Aid" to cover the gaping wounds in the body.
We have antiquated labor laws and land acquisition laws that lead to advent of policies promoting aberrations like Special Economic Zones (SEZs). In India, one has to create areas within a country that have different set of incentives from the others in order to attract the investors. If these incentives are so good to create jobs, why can't they be implemented throughout the nation? What is the need for Special Economic Zones (SEZs)? The biggest hurdle to changing the laws and policies of our country is the left. It seems that the left opposes the changes in order to save the poor from the evil capitalists. After the violence at Nandigram, it is quite clear that all left cares about is how to keep the poor people in their place and deny them their right to pursue happiness.
