VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 249 Date: 17.09.2018
Contents:
1. Tall Claims & A 56" Chest
2. Common Logic About The Economy Turned On Its Head
3. Nirmala Sitharaman Needs To Tone Up On The Rafale Deal & Pursue Democratic
Principles
4. Modi's Gujarat Model At Work
Tall Claims & A 56" Chest
Narendra Modi and his government has been consistently losing credibility from the time they took office in 2014. Maybe that is the reason for some of his bombastic statements that are being made from time to time and which are increasing on the magnitude of the claim from one to the other. Like the latest one that India has become cleaner in the last 4 years than in the previous 65 years. If you look around you, you know that this is not true since you still find garbage strewn on the roads, animal poop dot our roads and open spaces, there is litter all around along with construction material. People still go out with their lotas or in the new avatar, plastic bottles in the morning to do their ablutions though it is claimed that the country is moving towards OD - Outdoor Defecation free status. These claims are in the nature of good sloganeering but bad in fact.
Similarly some time back it was claimed that all villages in India or some 90% of them have been provided with electricity. Very soon after that newspapers carried news of large swathes of the country mostly in the rural areas not having been provided connections for electricity.
The major credibility issue of Modi and his government is about economic indices and to show among them in an almost obsessive way that the GDP growth is close to 8%. For this since 2014 this BJP government changed the base years so that the GDP figures are given a more rosy hue. But unfortunately in the manner of a stalled engine for no apparent reason the GDP recently has not been able to go just a tad beyond 7%. It has also been lately put out in the public domain that the growth in both UPA 1 & 2 had been better than that of the BJP since 2014. This has brought about the need to be more raucous about any GDP growth that just crossed 7% like in the April-June 2018 quarter. This celebration was somewhat neutralised by proving that the previous year same quarter the figures were not so good for comparison and hence the present year's quarter tipping the 7% mark. It is not just the GDP figures but also the CPI, WPI, the IIP and every conceivable economic indice this government has fiddled with. The resultant effect is that no one believes the figures on the India economy that the government puts out. This has made any growth suspect like the IIP indicated a spurt in industrial production from a consistent straight fall in the last 5 quarters but it took a while for the country to digest it. The reaction was to wait and see another month to confirm the reality of this growth.
Even on jobs data, it is the same situation where 1 crore jobs were promised but lately when the issue came up that though this government has been talking about growth and even if it has been there it has not resulted in increase in jobs. The charge has been that it is jobless growth. To counter this charge the government came up with figures saying it has created lakhs of jobs mainly in government. While this data is again doubtful the government in its anxiety to prove its point has failed to realise that between a lakh and a crore there is a factor of 100. In fact that reflects the margin of claims versus achievement of this Modi government. Talk big, talk tall but comparable factual performance is minuscule and sometimes you need a magnifying glass to verify the government's claims.
There was also talk of a 56" chest a couple of years back, oft repeated since then, which also needs to be verified. It may not be true since rarely does rhyming reflect the fact of actual physical attributes. There has been also some time that has passed since the first claim which may have changed the 56" for better or for worse. Give or take a few inches. That's life, Mr Modi!
Common Logic About The Economy Turned On Its Head
Price indices for the common man used to be the market price of onions, potatoes and petrol/diesel. For the little educated, a booming stock market and a relatively strong Rupee meant 'all is well' with the economy. Now all this common wisdom has been turned on its head by the present BJP government. Prices for petrol/diesel are running amok. Not even when a few ears ago international prices of oil were US$ 100 a barrel, did the domestic prices of petrol touch Rs. 90 per litre as they are doing now in Mumbai, when International prices of oil are hovering between US$ 70-75 a barrel. The government is doing nothing about it but asking us to hold our breath and wait for the prices to fall. The same with the Rupee where we are told that the 'Rupee must find its true level'. In the meanwhile imports are becoming costlier creating an inflationary situation in the economy. This trend is being compounded with the rising fuel prices leading to a cost push for transportation which is already seeing a rise in prices of vegetables and other essential commodities. While all this is happening, as said earlier, the government is doing nothing but watching the fun as it were from the sidelines. In both cases that of fuel prices and the Rupee rate there was a need for intervention by using our reserves of foreign exchange which this government has refused to do or has not fathomed the need to do because of being inept or because of the Finance Minister being away or to put it simply - sheer cussedness. Prices a short while ago for oil were hovering at US$ 50 a barrel at which time we could have built a buffer stock with the foreign exchange reserves that we had. This would have held us in good stead at this time with the government at least able to think on the option at an attempt to control fuel prices. Without that the common man is being exposed to the double whammy of rising fuel prices and a weakening Rupee. And a minister in the Rajasthan cabinet tells # that we need to curb expenses so that we can pay for the rising fuel prices. The same thing with the Rupee where the RBI should have intervened effectively to hold the value and has been done in the past. It’s nothing new for the RBI but it looks like a game of attrition is being played out as to who would blink first between them and the government. These are the mind games being played between institutions like the RBI and the government and the economy is being allowed to drift aimlessly. It s time that Modi and his team screw their heads properly on their necks and looked at the betterment of the common man and the economy.
Nirmala Sitharaman Needs To Tone Up On The Rafale Deal
& Pursue Democratic Principles
Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister is acting with rank stupidity in trying to defend the procurement of the Rafale fighters from France. In her various statements lately she is tying herself in knots trying to defend the indefensible. She is probably out of her depth when she says that in the deal negotiated by the previous UPA government, the whole thing fell through since HAL refused to guarantee the aircraft that they were supposed to produce under a joint program with Dassault Aviation. Firstly, we need to recognise that this is not the first time that HAL are going into a joint program for manufacture of aircraft with a foreign Co. All the aircraft that the IAF uses have been produced by HAL. So one would have to believe that HAL knows what they are talking about when it comes to the guarantee. This BJP government seems to think that on any matter because it is new to them, it is also new to the country. That is not the fact. In contrast the Defence Minister is for the first time into her job and she has to learn a lot still. As for the guarantee in a joint program of manufacture involving localisation of high technology products like aircraft, it is normally a joint guarantee given by the local manufacturer and the foreign collaborator. Only when full localisation is achieved then only can a Co. like HAL give a guarantee for the aircraft that too with a back-to-back guarantee on the sub-systems that they will get from the foreign Co.
In another statement, Nirmala Sitharaman has said that she finds it not necessary to engage with the Opposition on the Rafale deal since they only tend to misconstrue the issue. This is highly irresponsible to first make a mess of a 'done' deal then when the Opposition raises issues to call them trouble-makers. The simple thing is that if there is nothing wrong with the deal then put out a White Paper on it. That will close the matter. In a democracy if you refuse to engage with stakeholders and clarify a matter that has come into the public domain, then it smacks of unilateralism. To also say that the people of India have no issue on the matter is trying to steamroll public opinion. You do not tell the people the prices at which the Rafale fighters are being bought and other details about the contract but claim that it is acceptable to them!
The Reliance deal for local offsets that can run up to 30% of the contract value, is being claimed by the Defence Minister that technically she is not aware of. According to her the foreign Co. is not contractually bound to tell the government with whom they will implement the offset arrangement. This is again something that just does not sound right. The government needs to know the credentials of the offset manufacturer since then they are reassured that the contract will be performed satisfactorily. Otherwise we will have what has happened now where the Anil Ambani Co. with no background and experience in aerospace gets the offset contract for the Rafale deal. As far as Nirmala Sitharaman's comment about ignorance of the offset manufacturer, all she had to do was pick up the phone and talk to Narendra Modi who surely knew all along about the identity of the offset manufacturer.
In another statement, Nirmala Sitharaman has said that she finds it not necessary to engage with the Opposition on the Rafale deal since they only tend to misconstrue the issue. This is highly irresponsible to first make a mess of a 'done' deal then when the Opposition raises issues to call them trouble-makers. The simple thing is that if there is nothing wrong with the deal then put out a White Paper on it. That will close the matter. In a democracy if you refuse to engage with stakeholders and clarify a matter that has come into the public domain, then it smacks of unilateralism. To also say that the people of India have no issue on the matter is trying to steamroll public opinion. You do not tell the people the prices at which the Rafale fighters are being bought and other details about the contract but claim that it is acceptable to them!
The Reliance deal for local offsets that can run up to 30% of the contract value, is being claimed by the Defence Minister that technically she is not aware of. According to her the foreign Co. is not contractually bound to tell the government with whom they will implement the offset arrangement. This is again something that just does not sound right. The government needs to know the credentials of the offset manufacturer since then they are reassured that the contract will be performed satisfactorily. Otherwise we will have what has happened now where the Anil Ambani Co. with no background and experience in aerospace gets the offset contract for the Rafale deal. As far as Nirmala Sitharaman's comment about ignorance of the offset manufacturer, all she had to do was pick up the phone and talk to Narendra Modi who surely knew all along about the identity of the offset manufacturer.
Modi's Gujarat Model At Work
We are seeing yet again the Gujarat model at work being put through by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the context of rising fuel prices. Just like in the 2002 Gujarat communal riots Modi did nothing in the first couple of days allowing the rioters to literally run riot across Gujarat, so also now fuel prices are being allowed to spiral beyond control with Modi not even lifting his little finger to allow some relief to the common man. We have seen this prevarication and indecision till almost the point of no return since 2014 many times starting with the intolerance Issue, then it was the polarisation of university students at JNU and Osmania University with the dubious intent of controlling the student's unions and thus the student voice, then it was the lynching of mostly Muslims & Dalits on various cow charges, then on the rape of the girl child and women across the country which in brutality in some cases was in excess of the Nirbhaya incident in 2012 at Delhi. On crimes against women the nation wondered that Modi who has at most times a voice preferred to remain mute except to make a lame statement late in the day that we need to respect women in our society though one must grant his government for having passed a stringent law against rapists that goes up to capital punishment for raping minors. Where in matters related to the common man and relief and sympathy to him Modi and his government have been remiss, they have with great alacrity and a sense of purpose put through measures like Demonetisation and GST which have loaded misery on the common man for no great economic gains or for showing this government's administrative ability to put through major reforms. In most matters related to the nation there is a tendency to blame the previous UPA regimes or the Congress party to a point where one needs to ask that after being almost 5 years in power what has the Modi government done? Have they achieved anything? Nothing tangible has been achieved except for shows of bluff and bluster.
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