I mostly agree with the views of Rajeev Srinivasan, but in this I will have to disagree.
The economic slowdown is not because of Marxists or corruption but rather has its origin in last year's lacklustre performance in agriculture.
The real story is not that the GDP growth rate is low at 6.2%, but rather high despite a drought. In the good old days, such a drought would have led to negative growth and high inflation.
I am no fan of Congress and much less the "marxists", but I think the economic team of the Singhs and Chidambaram has done a decent job.
In fact, Mr. Srinivasan has neglected to mention one of the more impressive areas of economic achievement: the continued buoyancy in merchandise and service exports under their watch.
I fully expect the economy to accelerate in the coming months. Although current economic team has not done anything spectacular, like true doctors, they have done no harm to the patient either.
RE:RE: India dimming
by Siby on Aug 06, 2005 08:33 PM Permalink
And what about the matter of the giant differences on the rural landscape between Kerala and the other states? Why have you not responded to Shri Babu Nair on this issue? Ignorance? Never could manage to widen your perspective to glimpse what are, to the casual and dispassionate observer, realities that are so striking? The obvious differences in terms of the extent of poverty, in terms of social advancement like almost fully evolved egalitarianism in Kerala against barely concealed feudalism by default in most of the rest of India, empowered lower middle and poor classes through measures such as much more effective land reforms, glaring differences in effective reach of investments in Primary health care and primary education sectors,etc.? Could it be that you 1. Have never seen anything in your life remotely similiar to Kerala\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s state of development that the latter is too difficult to imagine to be true ? 2. Have never heard of Kerala\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s development ? 3. Believe ardently that Kerala is an example of economic failure due to the relative absence of successful entrepreneurship and industry, thus betraying your ignorance about the larger interests of the biggest slice, the poor.
