Elections, Politiconomics and India
Its election time folks. One can feel it in the air through out India. I too can feel it.
It has been quite long since I blogged on my favorite India business blog or my education blog which are so dear to me because they are my personal blogs and in no way commercial.
The UPA government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh just presented its last budget for the current five years term and it can only be known after elections if people of India give them another chance or they vote for a change. Elections, whether local, regional or nationals are always the biggest events simply because India, the largest democracy in the world has a unique political system in the sense that hundreds of parties vie for election glory.
With elections, come populism. True, it is the norm for every government in the world to entice the electorate with popular measure on the eve of elections - but they pale in nature and magnitude when it comes to India. True to the style, the UPA government announced huge salary hike for its close to three million civil servants costing the exchequer nearly $8 billions. It also waived huge amount of agricultural loans to farmers costing around $15 bilions. On top of it the Mumbai horror caused the government to allocate more extra funds to the armed forces. In between came the global economic crisis that resulted in the government spending hundreds of billions to infuse the liquidity starved market with more cash.
But all these has not deterred political parties rulling different states of the country to announce populist measures ahead of the national election slated to be held form 2nd week of April. Just the other day, Uttar Pradesh government led by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Ms. Mayawati as Chief Minister announced employment of 26,000 teachers at a time when experts says $782 billion bail-out package of the USA government is not enough and 50 million people around the world are to loose jobs by end of 2009!!
Still, the Railway Minister of India, Mr. Lalu Prasad Jadav of Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) has announced slashing of Railway fares amidst falling revenue and increasing cost. Just couple of days back, few dozen people died of a major train crash caused due to crumbling infrastructure and ageing of signalalling systems. Instead of making out detailed plans to improve the railway security system, the wise minister announced fare cuts because it would appeal to voters more than making their future journeys safe.!
But I must accept that, Manmohan Singh government has shown great resilience and presence of mind when Satyam Scam surfaced and it has dealt with the fraud very efficiently by bringing all parties under investigation - even PriceWaterhouseCoopers will not be spared. There is a dawn on Indian corporate scene about corporate governance.
Despite all these factors, still India is moving on. According to the national budget for the Year 2009-2010, the economy is set two grow at 7.1 percent making it the second fastest growing economy in the world. The government will soon start its 3rd stimulous package, this time worht $10 billion. Fiscal deficit, after going down below 3 percent in 2007-08, it will again move above 7 percent due to record high of international fuel price, salary hike, agricultural loan relief and 3 huge economic packages to shore up the economy.
Lastly, but not the least, I am still confused what should I call Indian democracy-
Is it Politnomics or Populonomics or ????????
May be you could suggest me some.