The Idea of Development - Western Perspective v/s Indian Perspective

On Sunday 8 June 2014, Narendra Modi said something to the effect - so far the development work done in the country was with a western perspective, and now he would like to work with an Indian perspective.

He was speaking on the occasion of the launch of the book - Getting India Back on track – An Action Agenda for Reform, and as always, he spoke with great conviction and displayed a very clear vision about the ideas are churning in his mind.

Amongst many of the thinks he said, this one particular line that caught my attention.

And I strongly believe this is the crux of the problem with the Indian development model. 

Most of the development policies of this country, especially, those formed during the last Congress-led regimes have been made by people who had studied the economics related topics from institutes in foreign countries.

It would be safe to assume that during the overseas education, these leaders learnt the benchmarks and scales that have been refined to measure the economic progress of those countries. When referring to  India, these very benchmarks and scales where applied to the Indian scenario without giving adequate consideration to the local variables or conditions.

So naturally when the issues raised were based on alien parameters the solutions were also bound to be based on those very perspectives and hence were not designed to suit or solve our problems as we see them. Though the country may appear to have progressed in financial numbers one notices that the masses are generally not happy with the so-called progress.

Narendra Modi spoke of this in one statement during his speech, I feel he must have thought about this a lot more.



Narendra Modi is a good orator with a great vision for where he would like to take this country in the next decade. I only hope and wish him the best so that his ideas and words are converted into actions and results.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh let me down!

I was elated when Dr. Manmohan Singh became Prime Minister of India. He had entered the high office with a reputation of integrity and honesty. I had felt that he will do something to address the core problems of the country. I really had very high expectations.

But, today I am disappointed. He has failed the nation - and failed badly.

Here are some his main failures - as I see them.

• The size of the financial irregularities (scams) in the government just makes the common man dizzy - and what does the government do - it tries to defend the accused. The scams of the present government are in thousands of crores. 
• Smaller scams to the tune of 10/20 crores have stopped surprising us.
• It took the Supreme Courts intervention to make the government do something in the Hasan Ali, 2G and CWG scams. No action has yet been taken against Sheila Dixit who has been named in the latest CAG report.
• The government has done nothing to find out the names of the account holders in Swiss Bank. One wonders what is the hidden motive for this inaction. I think the government will act after a year or so - once some significant people have withdrawn all their monies and closed their accounts. 
• He and his government have done little, almost nothing, to fight the menace of corruption. In fact, it supported corruption by taking stern action against those who have raised their voices against it. 
• The midnight by the police against Baba Ramdeo and his followers, which include women and children - is a shameful example of the extent to which the government can go.
• The most recent example is the action against the peaceful protest by Anna Hazare. The crusader against corruption is not being allowed to exercise his right to protest in the manner permitted by the constitution.
• To top it all, Dr. Manmohan Singh stood up in parliament on 17 August 2011 and tried to justify the arrest of social activist Anna Hazare. Is he so naive to believe that the common man will accept his argument.
• Dr. Manmohan Singh and his team has failed even on his home turf - economics. The top economist of the country has not been able to control inflation - the cost of living for the common man has gone up multifold during the regime of the current government. 
• He and his government talk of food for all, but in reality, but are they serious? If yes, then why is so much foodgrains not being distributed instead of being kept in the open to rot. 
• In the regime of the current goverment, the rich have become richer and the poor are getting all the freebies and facilities. 
• The common man has become the biggest sufferer.

It is not surprising that the common man has taken to the streets behind Anna Hazare. Anna has become the new symbol of hope.