Whispers Forum

The concern on the economic front calls for lateral thinking. Attention needs to be paid to imported items of superior technology for mass consumption on a sustained basis. Since we boast of the biggest pool of scientific and technological talent, it sounds bizarre to import these items now. We export or rather drain away all the talent because we refuse to use it for industrialisation in the country. Just take out the list of any surgery procedure and it would reveal that more than 98% items are “imported”. On the one hand we are preparing to send a manned mission to the Moon and on the other we keep importing almost every medical aid from abroad. It reminds us of the days when the country needed to import even wheat from abroad. While it sounds nice to say that government has no business to remain in business, we also must produce talent for real business e.g. for indigenous production of these medical devices. Can doctors of national repute and integrity be encouraged to set up production units? Thinking that lateral entry of outsiders into the government at JS/Secretary level is reform is really humour unlimited unless we ensure similar entry for talent from government (make 6A universal) in private businesses which are happy to kill the public sector and rob all its assets including human resources and produce third rate goods and services. Only those people who suffer private health care, cars, scooters, water geysers, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, TV sets, mobile etc. would know the pain. The jobs in millions can be created on a sustained basis, revenues increased and personal income tax bid a farewell. On the one hand the country runs a National Blindness Control Programme and on the other cheapest quality glasses/lens are sold in millions to the people (imported glasses cost above 12000 onwards) and on the economy front we toy with the idea of Universal income but run dozens of variants of MNNREG schemes. The ID(D&R) Act is not completely useless nor is the Industrial Policy Resolution. Replace it by a better document and policy if you can. Take it as a challenge for the next 55 months!
M L Gupta
Sinha deserves top post in PMO !
P K Sinha is a humble person with farsighted vision and rightly deserve for the elevation to the top post in PMO. I had got an opportunity to work with him when he was Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and learned a lot from his straight forward working style calmly.
R S Meena