Mr. T. N. Ninan’s understated but damning critique actually, says it all. He says with characteristic understatement that the UPA government has underperformed in the first year. None of the Ministers he takes up for evaluation (barring, to some extent, Mr. Sibal) get overwhelming praise.
The numerical score from the industry is a predictable 6 out of 10. They cannot afford to be seen or heard giving anything lower than that. Worst ministers, according to the industry, occupy Telecom, Civil Aviation and Agriculture. One CEO has had the gall to say that corruption has graduated to a level of extortion under this government.
Surprisingly, Mr. Swaminathan Aiyar gives the government a B+ and he lists some factors that would have happened anyway, without any government involvement. Bibek Debroy is mostly dismissive of this government’s first year. It certainly isn’t a reformist government on economics. Bibek Debroy correctly defines economic reforms as greater reliance on market mechanisms. Chandan Mitra over at ‘Pioneer’ has a similar comment, focusing on inflation and national security and Congress party’s ambivalent stance on the latter. Reading John Elliott over at Financial Times would complete the picture. Or, if you wish, you could round off with this scorching comment from Surjit Bhalla in his Op-Ed on the inclusion of caste in the national census:
If the Congress accepts caste as part of the census, it will prove to all the doubters that it is a valueless party, a party now reaching its nadir. It is a party for sale to the highest bidder. How can they then claim that red blood does not flow in our veins?
Postscript:
Thanks to an email from good friend, Professor Mukul Asher, I discovered a magazine called ‘Inclusion‘. It is a quarterly and the first quarterly issue of 2010 is on the topic of India on a growth turnpike – a phrase first used by Mr. Vijay Kelkar when the NDA under Mr. Vajpayee was in office. I have not read the cover story but the column by Bibek Debroy is a great read. Do not miss it.
Very kind of Amol Agrawal to call this a superb blog. I find his ability to keep track of most things published in Finance and Economics simply too good and said so on his blog some months ago.