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Arjun wrote:It all depends on how the rule is framed...in the US, the 5% reservation in GOTUS contracts is for minority-owned businesses ie they have to be 51% owned by women or minorities.....If the Indian rules are similar, hiring a Dalit alone won't cut it, they have to make him 51% owner.
Regardless -- the more difficult the rules are to comply with, the more it is discriminatory to smaller businesses that lack the connections and money to "manage around" them.
India is full of circumstances that favor large companies over small ones. Unreliable electricity means the need for expensive backup power that most small businesses can't afford. Poor roads mean slow and unreliable transportation of goods that favor larger companies which can better absorb the losses. Even the poor quality of educational institutions favors large companies that can run their own in-house training programs.
The fact that we still have so many small businesses is because most people cannot find employment in the organized sector, and will continue to run a subsistence small business -- without no startup-like scaling -- their entire lives.
On top of all this, it's infuriating that the government continues to put even more barriers in the path of entrepreneurial small business -- the real wealth generator in any economy.
I forget the exact quote (I think it may been Ayn Rand), but it is very relevant. "Any rational government that seeks to perpetuate its power will make so many laws that it is impossible to comply with all of them, and then selectively enforce them against whoever it deems inconvenient."
- In no modern economy is a small business able to compete head to head with a Large one. The economies of scale, resources, access to cheaper credit, etc all work to ensure that large companies prevail. In fact on BRF we are particularly incensed that the GOI prevents industries like Textiles, Toys, etc from consolidating so them can take on the export market with the scale to compete with Pandaland.
- Most wealth in a modern economy is also create by the large organized sector for all the reasons given earlier. There was a report earlier that about 2% of Indians engaged in large organized labor generate 60% of India's income that everyone else is dependent on. A TATA with about 150,000 employees generates about $40 Billion in wealth every year. More than many entire states. A Exxon with 80,000 Employees generates about $200 Billion in wealth every year. More than many countries. The story is similar with Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Reliance, Info-Sys, etc. In the modern world NOTHING beats a large well run enterprise for sheer wealth creation or for that matter destruction.
- Small business on the other hand are extremely nimble and able to find all sorts of niches and small spaces to exploit around the big giants. Small business are very good at job creation as their primary focus is rarely absolute efficiency. Per unit of productivity big companies employ far fewer employees.
- India is a special case. Our big companies refuse to hire because of clearly punitive labor laws for the crime of giving jobs to people. Even then large companies are unlikely to hire more than 10%-20% of the population. The rest will have to be absorbed by Government & small enterprises. Both sectors need to be strong. Regulation is not something small enterprises can compete on.
- Yes corruption against small companies is pervasive in India. This is because the people involved are deeply corrupt. Even if all regulations are removed they will find a reason to receive/pay hafta. You can take this entire Hazare, Kejriwal and followers and put them in a position of absolute power and they too will be corrupted in no time. Attacking the laws is focusing on the wrong source.
- Finally Ayn Rand is a fairly empty headed polemicist who had no understanding/interest in how the world works. Remember her experience is of Soviet Russia. Don't get seduced by her left wing extremist foolishness. In this way does not lie salvation for India.
>> "Any rational government that seeks to perpetuate its power will make so many laws that it is impossible to comply with all of them, and then selectively enforce them against whoever it deems inconvenient."
This is actually a very good description of how the secular mafia in India works.
- Most wealth in a modern economy is also create by the large organized sector for all the reasons given earlier. There was a report earlier that about 2% of Indians engaged in large organized labor generate 60% of India's income that everyone else is dependent on. A TATA with about 150,000 employees generates about $40 Billion in wealth every year. More than many entire states. A Exxon with 80,000 Employees generates about $200 Billion in wealth every year. More than many countries. The story is similar with Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Reliance, Info-Sys, etc. In the modern world NOTHING beats a large well run enterprise for sheer wealth creation or for that matter destruction.
Just want to have some ideas cleared. But is it not that world's top most wealth creating companies are Oil/gas/automated( defense machines/IT), banking(of big companies), etc? In other words either mineral related or banking/IT/machines related.
This is exactly why the companies that compete internationally should be given tax breaks. It is easy to pay taxes if you are selling oil that is to be bought. But for those who compete internationally and deal with anything and everything such as lenient taxing of Chinese companies to country-specific restrictions. In fact the Govt. should give incentives to all these and also small scale Industries and such local companies/shops. Just my 2 dinars.
Yes corruption against small companies is pervasive in India. This is because the people involved are deeply corrupt. Even if all regulations are removed they will find a reason to receive/pay hafta. You can take this entire Hazare, Kejriwal and followers and put them in a position of absolute power and they too will be corrupted in no time. Attacking the laws is focusing on the wrong source.
After salaries of 6th pay commission, the Govt employees have no excuses for shoddy job.
As also, there are states where corruption is reducing and people are getting a bit more wealthy overall, Gujarat/Bihar are but just two examples.
The consensus is that she is leftist. There is even a school of thought that she was a Soviet plant in the West, at least unconsciously. Conservative/Right-wing always privileges organization and team-work over heroic individualism. Which make the wing-nut groups in the US so weird but that is another story. Ayn Rand's shill is to destroy large organized activity so human endeavor can be reduced to its cheapest, basest most low cost activity. No Pyramids, Dams, Giant Factories or Mega-Cities but cheap cardboard buildings, heroic starvation level income, a good life for the 'selected' for 'talent' few, while the ordinary proles get thrown into a dust-bin. Conservative thought is that 30,000 organized regular SDRE Egyptians built the Pyramids, no heroes required. Ayn Rand/Leftist thought is that Imhotep built the Pyramids, no garbage SDRE Egyptian workers required.
Part of the weirdness of Ayn Rand is that she seduced the rational to think irrationally. She was pretty much required reading at college and I found here pretty execrable even then, very empty headed.
WRT that throw away line about government it is superficially true but deeply flawed by its nature. It assumes the following untruths...
- The Government is separate from the people and run by Robots.
- Governance is about perfection.
- There is a form of perfect rule out there.
- Governance is not satisfied with Substantial Compliance.
- Yet Government is perfect enough to know who is inconvenient.
- And perfect enough to perfectly hound them.
I'm not in love with Ayn Rand's ideas -- I only said that I think the quote is from her, not that I agree with or even know her ideas. So no tarring me as some sort of misguided socialist/libertarian/anything in between, please.
The quote, however, does apply pretty well to India -- too many laws means you are at the mercy of someone choosing to enforce them against you at any time. Ignore the source.
Theo, of course large businesses have many natural advantages -- I've written several times in the past about the foolishness of not allowing large retailers to operate more freely in India. The problem is when the government also piles on lots of unnatural advantages on top of the natural advantages, that make it unnecessarily complex to run -- and scale -- a small business. That scaling is what builds the Reliances and Tatas of tomorrow. So while you may be smug that the large businesses are generating most of the wealth today, so we don't have to be concerned about laws that the Reliances can work around, those same laws prevent small businesses from growing larger to compete with Reliance tomorrow.
This seems pretty obvious to me. Simpler laws = a more level playing field = more opportunity for startups to challenge large incumbents = a more productive economy. I'm not quite sure what about this is worth several argumentative posts.
Please also understand that there is a difference between scalable small businesses ("startups") and subsistence/lifestyle small businesses (kirana stores, hairdressers, the water delivery guy). India has far too many of the latter and far too few of the former, and overly complex government regulation, while not the only factor, is one of the factors that has caused this.
Theo_Fidel wrote:WRT that throw away line about government it is superficially true but deeply flawed by its nature. It assumes the following untruths...
- The Government is separate from the people and run by Robots.
- Governance is about perfection.
- There is a form of perfect rule out there.
- Governance is not satisfied with Substantial Compliance.
- Yet Government is perfect enough to know who is inconvenient.
- And perfect enough to perfectly hound them.
This makes no sense. There is no "capital G Government", there are only corrupt officials.
The way it works in practice is:
- You come into contact with the government for some reason
- The government official asks for a bribe
- If you don't pay, they will "throw the book" at you -- find some law that you are in violation of, and shut you down or make it very inconvenient for you to do business.
Again, this is simplicity itself. Why all the elaborate, airy arguments about "government is perfect enough to know who is inconvenient" etc? What does that even mean, seriously?
You are the one who brought up the conspiracy bit. If you had said that it was a simple matter of bribe giving and bribe taking there would be no conversation. You are the one who said "...and then selectively enforce them against whoever it deems inconvenient." Where is this selection, who does it and how. When this is pointed out to you you claim ignorance. Think before posting next time. GOI may make life difficult for SME but this is not a conspiracy as you alleged.
Theo_Fidel wrote:You are the one who brought up the conspiracy bit. If you had said that it was a simple matter of bribe giving and bribe taking there would be no conversation. You are the one who said "...and then selectively enforce them against whoever it deems inconvenient." Where is this selection, who does it and how. When this is pointed out to you you claim ignorance. Think before posting next time. GOI may make life difficult for SME but this is not a conspiracy as you alleged.
I think the conspiracy bit is your interpretation -- perhaps due to spending too much time in the various strategy threads on BR.
The laws are indeed selectively enforced, against whoever government officials find inconvenient -- because they are slow at giving bribes. But the selection can be done at the level of a single official -- that's elementary logic. Where does the conspiracy bit come in again?
I'm as confused as when I read your long list of meaningless statements above about "perfect Government", "run by robots" etc. That piece is classic -- it gets better the more I read it. In fact, I'm going to copy it here just because it's so unintentionally funny.
- The Government is separate from the people and run by Robots.
- Governance is about perfection.
- There is a form of perfect rule out there.
- Governance is not satisfied with Substantial Compliance.
- Yet Government is perfect enough to know who is inconvenient.
- And perfect enough to perfectly hound them.
You could well take your own advice about thinking before posting. Getting rid of that "jump to conclusions" mat would work too.
Last edited by Abhijeet on 19 Sep 2011 09:43, edited 1 time in total.
This argument, by the way, exemplifies too well the typical way of conducting arguments on BR:
- Attacking the person rather than the argument ("Ayn Rand was a leftist, ignore her" / "you should think before posting")
- Jumping to silly conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat
I notice you will not respond to the questions I put forth.
The list was to show how meaningless and unreal your statement was. You have taken it to mean the exact opposite as being a description of reality. But peace... ..it is obvious we are not communicating... ..my last comment.
Yawn.. The Pink Toi-Let Paper , the E-Con-O-mic TOI(let) says that this year, they are going to do an equal-equal in term of no of 1000 Rs and 500 Rs notes printed. The printing presses are running full steam, the RBI does it's best to put it's foot down on a run away inflation and is standing on the brakes at the maximum in desperation, but the bull in a china shop govt has gone simply berserk with fiscal irresponsibility. Atleast UPA-1 had the mill stone of the commie ding-dongs around their necks as an excuse, I wonder what does UPA-II have for the excuse ?
With this NREGA business, how about actually getting the NREGA types to build schools and hospitals and other pressing public works in the rural areas , instead of digging a hole and filling a hole!
When I visited Rajasthan, I was told that the beginnings of the Rajasthan canal (later extended into the Indira Gandhi canal) and the Umaid Bhawan palace were built by the Maharajas to provide relief to their population and gainful employment during severe droughts over 3 consecutive years. Those are pretty skilled works. Why cant NREGA build rural schools and hospitals and a part of that be directed towards basic skill building in welding, lathe, electrical, plumbing, masonry and stuff like that, along with trainging for midwives, first aid, emergency response, driving and stuff like that ,rather than this idiotic fill a hole kind of thing.
I visited a construction site yesterday. Sunday is usually a day off for them, but yesterday, there was a big pooja going on at the site. A asked those folks and they said it was "Vishwakarma" pooja. All the folks seemed to be from the eastern part of the country (my guess, Odissha) all tribal looking (like you get to see in the photos and not the coastal odissha types), legs thin as stick, some kids around .. Obviously they have been shipped in all the way from there for construction work. The site had neat pre fab housing for workers (am not sure, if these folks lived there or on houses close by, but no tents/tin shacks kind of shanty in that site and no kids working). Think of it, these guys must be paying a stiff premium over the NREGA to get those folks all the way from there.
What it means is that there is next to no casual / low paid labor close by in any of the southern/ western/central/northern indian states a (not one Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam speaking kinds and the Hindi they speak is no the Hindi of the UP or the Bihari Hindi , but more a Hindi Patois ), even in most apts today the only place you can find locals are in the plumber /electrican kinds (if at all ) or it is again mostly Oriya.
I wonder how much would those migrants benefit if they could move up the skill ladder and be crane operators,iron workers , concrete pourers and electricians kind of work .. (Another site I saw in an upcoming mall had a TFTA Putzmeister concrete pump no less, pumping up concrete, the day of women carrying concrete on the head , like in building the pyramids is gone, even in small home construction, they rig up a small lift which jacks up a decent sized ladle of concrete which is then wheeled and poured out ) .
This kind of labor mobility I think is unprecedented. How many such kind of labor class folks from outside S. india were in Bangalore even 10-15 years ago? Zilch. I am sure the story is similar in Chennai as well. All the Mallus are in Gelf anyway, doing that kind of work, so I assume the same is true in Kerala as well! All for the good I suppose. The country is seeing some deep changes, churning and mobility, I do hope that industry moves to these depressed places (N. Karnataka, Bihar, Orissa, easter UP, MP, large swathes of central india) in massive droves in search of labor and productivity differences and there is all round development.
s
Trouble brews for tea industry: MNREGS ‘triggers’ absenteeism
The problem has become so big that the industry is even willing to call it a “rampant misuse” of MNREGS, and that it has also led to an “abnormal spurt”
“We are grateful to the weather god for His merciful bounty. I am hopeful, at this rate, we would be able attain a crop of around 990 million kgs in 2011, and may even reach the magic figure of 1000 million kgs. But absenteeism, thanks to misuse of MNREGS, infrastructural problems and increased land revenue rates have caused serious concern,” Maheswari said.
The jhollawallas are giving temporary doles for temporary votes for a while, while the empty tea plantations can invite pious for the long haul. The jhollawaalas deserve neither votes nor authority to offer doles.
vina wrote:
With this NREGA business, how about actually getting the NREGA types to build schools and hospitals and other pressing public works in the rural areas , instead of digging a hole and filling a hole!
When I visited Rajasthan, I was told that the beginnings of the Rajasthan canal (later extended into the Indira Gandhi canal) and the Umaid Bhawan palace were built by the Maharajas to provide relief to their population and gainful employment during severe droughts over 3 consecutive years. Those are pretty skilled works. Why cant NREGA build rural schools and hospitals and a part of that be directed towards basic skill building in welding, lathe, electrical, plumbing, masonry and stuff like that, along with trainging for midwives, first aid, emergency response, driving and stuff like that ,rather than this idiotic fill a hole kind of thing.
vina ji,
if schools/dams are built, the general infrastructure increases and there will be no future dependency on dole - i.e. no votes. NREGA was structured precisely for votes, everything else be damned.
The answer, in one line, is simple. India’s inflation is driven by populist spending and wrong economic choices – both dictated by the need to create an entitlement-based economy, presumably to help elect Rahul Gandhi as the next prime minister in 2014.
In short, what we are seeing now is Rahul-flation, not conventional inflation.
Two interviews last week, one with Indian Oil Chairman Ranbir Singh Butola, and another with the Finance Ministry’s Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu, sum up the economic mess created by the UPA government in pursuit of its political goals.
This is the fundamental dilemma the UPA has faced for the past few years, and it has consistently flunked the economics test of political policies. It is unlikely that Manmohan Singh or P Chidambaram or Pranab Mukherjee did not grasp the need for sound fuel pricing or limiting subsidies. The only explanation can be that economic policy is being driven by the economically-illiterate political caucus around Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
In fact, all the policies of the UPA have focused on entitlements and the redistribution of wealth – from the farm loan waivers to subsidised fuel to the (forthcoming) Food Security Bill to the Right to Education Act and the Land Acquisition and Mining Bills. These are going to impact both costs and demand. Inflation is thus driven, and will continue to be driven, from both ends – higher costs and higher demand.
This is the fundamental dilemma the UPA has faced for the past few years, and it has consistently flunked the economics test of political policies. It is unlikely that Manmohan Singh or P Chidambaram or Pranab Mukherjee did not grasp the need for sound fuel pricing or limiting subsidies. The only explanation can be that economic policy is being driven by the economically-illiterate political caucus around Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
In fact, all the policies of the UPA have focused on entitlements and the redistribution of wealth – from the farm loan waivers to subsidised fuel to the (forthcoming) Food Security Bill to the Right to Education Act and the Land Acquisition and Mining Bills. These are going to impact both costs and demand. Inflation is thus driven, and will continue to be driven, from both ends – higher costs and higher demand.
Reworking the Land Acquisition Bill to ensure transparency and fair prices, but not mandating a huge increase in cost for housing and manufacturing. Mining and environmental laws need to be transparent rather than just obstructionist.
Reworking labour laws, which will allow industry to recruit more. Without the right to fire (without prejudicing the worker’s right to justice) no one will hire.
Restricting the Food Security coverage to households below the poverty line. Once the Unique Identity (UID) scheme becomes universal, food security should become a cash transfer scheme for the very poor. Moving foodgrain from Punjab to Kerala and from Andhra to Assam is hugely expensive and inflationary.
Raising agricultural productivity, including horticultural and dairy and poultry production. Today, food inflation is not driven by rice, wheat and coarse grains, but by higher protein-based consumption of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, poultry and meat.
Opening up the education and retail sectors to foreign players. The former will improve the availability of quality higher education, freeing the government to use its resources for improving quality and quality at the primary and secondary schooling levels. Opening up the retail sector will improve efficiencies in farm-to-fork logistics and create urban jobs in the supply chain and the new Wal-Marts of India.
vijayk wrote:Opening up the education and retail sectors to foreign players. The former will improve the availability of quality higher education, freeing the government to use its resources for improving quality and quality at the primary and secondary schooling levels. Opening up the retail sector will improve efficiencies in farm-to-fork logistics and create urban jobs in the supply chain and the new Wal-Marts of India.
This must be a lifafa article paid for by evil foreign companies! I bet the writer is a pseudo-secular racist commie plant.
India might become the world's third largest economy in 2011 by overtaking Japan in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) measured according to the domestic purchasing power of the rupee, otherwise called purchasing power parity.
India is now the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China and Japan. Numbers from 2010 show that the Japanese economy was worth $4.31 trillion, with India snapping at its heels at $4.06 trillion. But after March's devastating tsunami and earthquakes, Japan's economy is widely expected to contract while India's economy will grow between 7% and 8% this fiscal. "India should overtake Japan in 2011 to become the third-largest economy in the world at purchasing power parity," said Sunil Sinha, head of research and senior economist at Crisil.
IMF forecasts show India and Japan neck-to-neck in 2011, but the disaster in Japan has brought the event forward. "Were it not for the earthquake and tsunami, India would have overtaken Japan in around 2013-14," said Sinha.
The purchasing power parity (PPP) method measures the size of an economy by levelling price differences between countries that occur in the process of conversion to a single currency.
Under this method, a dollar should be able to buy the same amount of goods anywhere in the world and exchange rates should adjust accordingly.
The Economist's Big Mac Index, which takes the price of a Big Mac burger across 120 countries to calculate the 'real' price of its currency, is a crude way to measure PPP. India was included in the index recently. It showed that the Indian rupee was undervalued by 53% against the US dollar in August.
Earlier, a report by consultant PwC suggested that the Indian economy would surpass the Japanese economy in 2012. The IMF expects the Japanese economy to contract 0.7% this year while India is expected to grow 8.2%. A bigger economy could also give the government additional clout and bargaining power overseas.
"A bigger economy would also mean more clout in international forums," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at ratings firm Care.
India, once a recipient nation for foreign aid, could now come together with Brazil, Russia and China to form a fund to stabilise tottering economies in the Eurozone.
Globally, companies have their eyes set on India as a rapidly growing nation that is full of opportunities. The sheer scale of development needed could drive growth for many years. "India has the advantage of size. The scope of growth and excess capacity present in terms of resources would drive growth in the future," said Sabnavis.
Economists say that while the change in the rank of a country does not mean much, it points to broad trends in the growth trajectories of nations.
"It's a long process of development, but this shows that the markets are expanding and there is robust demand within the economy," said Siddhartha Sanyal, chief economist, Barclays Capital.
According to the University of Pennsylvania PPP world tables, India has already moved ahead of Japan in 2010. The size of the Indian economy is expected to reach almost $5 trillion by the end of 2011.
So its past Japan in 2011! How is the time table holding?
I posted the same thing back in April: link. Back in 2010 PWC estimated this would happen in 2012 or 2013, and before that, the projections were for 2015. Part of the reason we're overtaking them so fast is of course the tragic Tohoku earthquake/tsunami.
rather than Japan I want to see is in dollar term cross over italy, canada and such who still are enjoying the status of top10 economies. we are even well behind brazil there
WIKI GDP data is 2009..We were at 1.75 trillion previous fiscal @ exchange of 44.. projected to be 2+ trillion by march 12 @ 44
but if congress remains for another 10 years we might as well start competing with pakistan or somalia..
gakakkad wrote:WIKI GDP data is 2009..We were at 1.75 trillion previous fiscal @ exchange of 44.. projected to be 2+ trillion by march 12 @ 44
but if congress remains for another 10 years we might as well start competing with pakistan or somalia..
Saar, your wishes might just come true since NAC has reactivated after Bharat-mata returned from unknown foreign jaunt :
The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), which went into hibernation in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson's absence, has been reactivated.
On September 14, it despatched its recommendations on strengthening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to the government; it wants the scheme to move from its “relief work mode” to one that will blend “natural resources and labour to build productive assets.”
The suggestions come in the wake of criticism from many quarters — including within the government — that the gargantuan MGNREGS has been a drain on the exchequer, with vast sums of money being spent on unproductive works. With the MGNREGS having been a vote spinner – along with the farm loan waiver scheme, in the general elections of 2009 – the need to revamp the employment scheme became an imperative.
In the run–up to finalising its recommendations, the NAC had set up a working group under Deep Joshi to suggest ways and means of strengthening the capacity of panchayats to implement the scheme more effectively. At a workshop in April, conducted by Mr. Joshi, representatives of the Central and State governments, as well as NGOs, reviewed the MGNREGS. What emerged was that the annual budget of Rs.40,000 crore could be better utilised with more effective planning. Even though Schedule One of the MGNREG Act refers to conservation of natural resources such as rainwater, land, forests, this was not reflected in the works floated for the scheme, the panchayats, barring those in Karnataka — and, to some extent, in West Bengal, thanks to the long years of Left rule — had “no experience at all in planning large-scale programmes.”
Rubbishing Gujarat is both unwarranted and self-defeating. Instead, the State's growth model should become a case study that can be replicated across the country.
In my capacity as a US Congressional Fellow in the late 1960s, attached to Congresspersons and Congressional Committees of the US Congress, I had, on numerous occasions, come into close touch with the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
It is peopled with some of the best experts and analysts in every field, enabling it to place before the House of Representatives and the Senate, critical and authoritative analyses of policy issues bearing on domestic and foreign affairs.
I have known, at close quarters, the high quality of the services it renders to legislators, including the drafting of Bills, assistance during Committee hearings and debates in the Congress, and watching over the implementation of the laws enacted. Drawing on my experience then and since, I can personally vouch for its independence, thoroughness, accuracy, objectivity, balance, and non-partisanship.
Indeed, CRS reports are counted among the “10 most wanted Government documents” in the US.
Sections of the political class in India have been rattled by the laudatory references in the latest CRS report of September 1, titled “India: Domestic Issues, Strategic Dynamics, and US Relations” to the achievements of Gujarat under the leadership of the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, in respect of both development and governance.
SOLE PURPOSE
Mr Manish Tewari of the Congress has brusquely dismissed the report as of no consequence, dubbing it as just one of the many that US think-tanks keep producing, often coming to diametrically opposite conclusions.
And, another Congress leader, Mr Digvijay Singh, has churlishly implied in a public statement, that it is possible to have such reports fabricated in the US for a consideration. No doubt, he could not shed the complex engendered in him by the state of affairs he sees around him!
Remember, the sole purpose of the reports of the CRS is to make available to the US Congresspersons the best possible inputs and insights for framing legislative proposals, embodying sound and practicable policies and therefore, there is simply no question of its being forced to indulge in any hanky-panky.
Whatever Mr Modi's detractors may say, they cannot fool the people who are close to the ground. It is not just the people.
Seasoned and worldly-wise foreign observers, with an in-depth and comparative knowledge of performance records of governments in development and governance-related fields, as also India's Planning Commission, have highly commended the Gujarat model of growth, which had been consistently double-digit, and is expected to touch 11.2 per cent in 2011-12.
For instance, on June 1, Ms Karin Hulshof, Representative of the UNICEF in India, was unstinted in her praise of the outstanding progress Gujarat has made in the education, health, nutrition and human development sectors, adding that it has almost achieved the UNICEF target of Human Development Index set for 2015.
UNWARRANTED
A World Bank-supported study, based on an analysis of 40,000 km-long state roads, including 16,000 km of state highways and 20,000 km of district main roads, has said that Gujarat has adhered to international best practices in roads management, and “excelled” in bringing about a very close collaboration between the government and private sector.
At the time of discussions on the Plan allocations for Gujarat for both 2010-11 and 2011-12, the Vice-Chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, paid glowing tributes to the Gujarat model of development, its mobilisation and deployment of resources, financial discipline, growth rates of GDP and per capita investment and income, and many innovative projects such as a 3000-acre solar park, expansion of underground sewerage and skills development schemes.
The CRS report has only confirmed these findings when it talks of Gujarat being “India's best example of impressive development successes (and) effective governance” where “… Modi has streamlined economic processes, removing red tape and curtailing corruption in ways that have made the State a key driver of national economic growth”.
Rubbishing it is both unwarranted and self-defeating. Instead, the Governments at the States and the Centre should make a case study of the Gujarat's growth model so that it can be replicated all over the country.
Millions of Indians live below the poverty line
Continue reading the main story
Half a dollar a day is "adequate" for an Indian villager to spend on food, education and health, the country's main planning body has said.
Critics say that the amount fixed by the Planning Commission is extremely low and aimed at "artificially" reducing the number of poor who are entitled to state benefits.
There are various estimates of the exact number of poor in India.
Officially, 37% of India's 1.21bn people live below the poverty line.
But one estimate suggests the true figure could be as high as 77%.
The Planning Commission has told India's Supreme Court that an individual income of 25 rupees (52 cents) a day would help provide for adequate "private expenditure on food, education and health" in the villages.
In the cities, it said, individual earnings of 32 rupees a day (66 cents) were adequate.
RamaY wrote:Till now we have seen the world bodies define the poverty line. Now our own Planning Commission is defining our own line
India has always defined its own poverty line. I think there are around 2-3 official poverty lines of India - for different departments and one line has always been from Planning Commission, which is actually taken as the most authentic.
Millions of Indians live below the poverty line
Continue reading the main story
Half a dollar a day is "adequate" for an Indian villager to spend on food, education and health, the country's main planning body has said.
Critics say that the amount fixed by the Planning Commission is extremely low and aimed at "artificially" reducing the number of poor who are entitled to state benefits.
There are various estimates of the exact number of poor in India.
Officially, 37% of India's 1.21bn people live below the poverty line.
But one estimate suggests the true figure could be as high as 77%.
The Planning Commission has told India's Supreme Court that an individual income of 25 rupees (52 cents) a day would help provide for adequate "private expenditure on food, education and health" in the villages.
In the cities, it said, individual earnings of 32 rupees a day (66 cents) were adequate.
Back in 2004, for 120 rupees a month, my Uncle in Sankarankoil, a town in South TN, was getting packed vegetarian food 2 times a day in a steel "carrier". He was a priest so he wouldn't eat in the morning. Its not some subsistence mean, it had rice, sambar, rasam, curry and buttermilk and was quite good and filling made by a local Brahmin Mami. Not sure of today's prices but it should be now around the rupees 200 mark. Keep in mind, that its for a full month. First time I learnt about it, this city Abdul was shocked!!
It is 2100 calorie per person per day , which Planning commission thinks can be procured in Rs 35. Data is based on NSSO and Sengupta Committee recommendations
RamaY wrote:We are talking about food, cloaths, shade, education and basic health care...
Food - 30 x 2 x 20 = 1200
claoths - 1 pair = 100
house/shade - 1 room with toilet = 200
education = 250
Health insurance = 250
Total = 2000 that is ~Rs 70 per day
Correct, so if we look at it for an entire family it actually comes down even further. House, food to a certain extent and even health insurance can be shared. The costs come down even more in village/rural areas. The list above is essentially a lower middle class kind of living which matches up to the nation as a whole wherein by the per capita at PPP, we are a lower middle income country.
health insurance? the vast majority of poor have no health insurance. they get some basic medicines and consultation either free or cheap at govt hospitals and pay for rest of serious medicines or hospitalization.
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