Lunatic

swooning all over the place.. lungs charred and burning.. music soothes.. nothing else does that.. smoke swirls on and on.. feeling cold.. feeling burnt.. feeling lonely.. feeling depressed... have to stop myself from buying another packet of that slow poison.. let's stay focused this time.. no more... more... more...

What is the job of Indian Government?

India is a country which has so many problems that it's hard to decide where to start with. There are competing avenues of improvement each equally important, corruption, population, and illiteracy to name only a few of them. Such a multitude of choices can perplex anyone not least me who can't even decide what to eat from a menu. There are two easy alternatives in such a case - to give up or to randomly do the needful in different areas to show you are doing something. Life at IIM is a stark testimony to this fact. Well there are other equally inefficient alternatives such as to prioritize tasks according to vote banks. But I think I have hit something new this time and although it might not be new I would still hopefully be providing a new prospective to look at.

A capitalistic economy is said to lead to a fair distribution of wealth and reasonable growth rate of the economy as a whole. It is widely recognized that the job of the Government is to ensure that the economy stays efficient all the time. For example, it is the job of the environment ministry to ensure that environment is not compromised in the mad rush to jack growth rates up, which Mr. Ramesh has been doing pretty well I think. Similarly, it's the job of Government to punish malpractices such as those of Raju Ramalingam and Harshad Mehta. But these are all superficial aspects of the fundamental problems that lie deeper. The act of governance is not supposed to be a reactive one wherein it takes a wrong deed that comes into light in the media to set the wheels in the government turning. It is supposed to be a proactive role wherein the inefficiencies of the system are systematically analyzed. Wherein the risks arising from different trends are assessed and possible contingency plans be made. It is supposed to be an intellectual task which we can't accept the entire cabinet to indulge in but there are committees under all the ministries which see to it. I can not comment on the effectiveness of these committees owing to my limited knowledge but I think they are capable people under incapable puppeteers. I have still not come to the main point.

There is another job that the Government must do other than smoothening out the inefficiencies of the market. That is to ensure fairness. Preventing corruption, ensuring education, building roads, all these are merely manifestations of this one task. They however are not the focal problem. The focal problem remains one - inaccessibility of masses to the growing economy of India. One must look at the root causes of all the impediments to ensuring fairness to the poor masses. Government must prepare a check list of these impediments priority wise and set timelines to work on them and work fast. This I think is the most important task of the government that is faced with the task of ensuring inclusive growth. Inclusive growth is not the right word because it sometimes sounds like it's government's job to feed, provide medical aid, teach, and every other thing to our people. This is not the Government's job. Government's job is to ensure that no one can prevent access to such facilities by the poorest of the poor.

To me, the unfairness of losing your land to the companies which grow at the expense of these poor is the problem. To me, the unfairness of having to pay a bribe on par with what rich people have to pay is a problem. I think bribe is the single-most evil India faces. There should be a different ministry, a different judiciary, different police officials to check it. I think what I am saying is overly simplistic but all I mean to do is to do something.