Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
We must agree that the speech is well written with out missing a Single point that is troubling every Indian Thinking Brain since this Govt. sworn-in for the 2nd time. Talking / Setting High-goals is OK But where is the action to transform those Ideas into reality?
Dear Sir, You are worried that Media is labeling ur GOvt as the Most Corrupt Govt since Independence.
Dear Mr.PM, U definitely have seen many govts very closely than many of us have seen. Yet, U dare to claim that ur Govt is innocent & Not-Guilty of all Wrong-Doings. Please keep ur Hand on ur heart & Pls Re-Check. U may not be able to admit it Openly but from the bottom of ur heart u know better What actually the TRUTH is.
Mr.PM, U were saying that the amount of black money estimates are 1ly superstitious & Out-of-heaven figures & u r actually questioning the Base of such calculations.
Right! I Agree! U must know how the figures were arrived at.
FYI, Can U just go back in ur memory to the days when U were the Finance Minister in Mr.P.V.Narasimha Rao's Govt during 1991 - 1996??? You sure must have forgotten comfortably that u urself, along with ur then Finance Team drafted a draft (may be rough for ur senses) estimating the Black money reserves in INDIA.
Be it Media or Be it the Common man, we only calculated the Inflation effect on those figures & arrived at the current expected figures. Hope u now got the clarity.
Economists, All over the world, agreed that even in tight-plugged economies (Chance of) black money generation is about 20 - 25% of GDP.
In ur opening speech, u agreed that our black money reserves may be at par with EU or World average.
FYI, Our economy is not a tight-plugged economy & We r running least counter measures to track transactions as, we hav no set mechanisms to deal with all-cash-transactions, which is the biggest headache to any Govt.
Keeping all these loops in mind, are u really agreeing from ur bottom of ur heart that our BM percentage will be at par with world average?
From my point of View, It will be anything in the range of 40 - 50% of our GDP but definitely not less than that. A most common man, like me, can guess this. U, being in the Highest Chair, with all the data u have in hand, can't u guess this simple LOGIC?? OR are u trying to Fool the nation with half-facts or Lies so that u can easily sail through ur rest of the remaining days of ur term???
BIG THING:-
U (& Ur party) r bragging so loudly that u all are thinking about the common man (aam admi, the Mango People) & working hard enough to eliminate poverty.
FYI, in the past 6 years r so, u haven't hav the basic data of BPL population so far. Different sub-systems of ur Govt uses different estimates. 6 years of time was not enough for u & ur govt to come out with exact (r approx) figures on BPL population. So how much time do u needed to reach ur most boasted Goals??? Pls answer ..! The Nation wants to know ur side of the answer.
Dear Mr.PM, We need actions not just speeches. We dont want to Know what ur goals are as we, commoners, can't understand ur Harward Economic language.
Only thing we want & ask the govt. is to improve our Life-standards ..!
If its not possible for u, pls dont worsen our life conditions with all ur Beautifully made commonman-robbing policies.
Cant u see the sea of change in the societies?
There is a negative class shift going on very rapidly all through out the Country. Prices completely gone out of control. Absolutely Nobody in this world (that includes the greatest economic brains of world) can explain why prices raise in India?? and Why the Demand - Supply theory won't work when comes to prices in INDIA????
Mr.PM, As an economic Graduate, U know well that, hike in Oil prices will have its Ripple & Butterfly effects on Economies. Yet, ur govt hiked oil prices nearly 18 times in the past 6 years. We never know how many more are in store for us. As a result, Saving potential of every Common man (Sorry, I forgot the fact that In Indian Govt's View, Saving is a crime) has drastically gone down to a -ve percentages.
So how do u want the common middle class to survive?? Buy Borrowing money ???
Ok ....! But who will give loans to us??
U, with ur beautiful economic & banking policies, set our banks out-of-reach to the common man. Banks gives loans only to those who have loads of assets & surplus money.
Then who will loan money to our most common essentials like Roti-kapada-makan-Health ..??
So, Common man approaches the next door money lender & takes loans fom them at an interests that even Govt of India can not pay back. Yet, u hav no mechanism to control private money lenders.
And about the Micro-finance organizations -
U must be aware that how many suicides hav taken place in the past few years iout of the harassments of MF players. Let me tell u a fact here with this regard. ur govt estimates are actually 20 - 30% of what is actually happening on the grass root level. hav u thought of any mechanism Whip them all???
Mr.PM, About ur Health & Insurance Intellect: -
Some time back, U, urself exclaimed that "It took 200 years for USA to pass the Health & Insurance bill since its independence".
Very Good sir, U r right. It means that India has to wait another 140 years to see the light of the health & Insurance bill????
Do u know how many families are suffering with Debit burden just because of 1 family member's severe sickness??
Pls ask ur Research teams to conduct a survey. I am sure ur head will spin-off with that data.
My Request :
So Dear Mr.PM, by using all ur Intellect & All ur Knowledge from Harward & similar institutions, I request u to write a book "Common Man's Guide to Every Day Survival in INDIA".
So that we, Common man, can use it as BIBLE to lead our daily lives.
Thanks in advance.
- A Common Man
Here is the Full text of Prime Minister's Opening speech at Editors Conclave on 29th June 2011 held at New Delhi :-
(Original Text is available at this link : http://pmindia.nic.in/lspeech.asp?id=1070)
PM's opening remarks at the interaction with newspaper editors
June 29, 2011
New Delhi
I think that there is a growing perception that this government is in siege, that we have not been able to deliver on our agenda. An atmosphere has been created in the country - and this I say with all humility - the role of the media today in many cases has become that of the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge.
Now that way no Parliamentary democracy can function and I would like to tell you that if you are taking governmental decisions, particularly big macro decisions, we don't know all the facts and yet we have to take decisions. When I was a student at Cambridge, Sir Paul Chambers, who was then the Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, came and addressed us on who is a good manager, who will be considered by industry as a good manager.
He told our student group that, in an uncertain world in which we live in, if 5 out of 10 decisions that I take ex-ante turn out to be correct ex-post that would be considered as a job well done. If out of 10 decisions that I take, 7 turn out to be right ex-post that would be considered an excellent performance. But if you have a system which is required to perform 10 out of 10 cases I think no system can be effective and satisfy that onerous condition.
We live in a world of uncertainty and ex-post whether it is the Comptroller and Auditor General, whether it is a Parliamentary committee then they analyse post facto. They have a lot more facts which were not available to those who took the decision.
I am not saying that it is not possible that some people may deliberately do wrong things, but in many cases it would turn out in that sort of a scenario it is very difficult to operate. So we must create in this country an environment in which Governments, Ministers and civil servants will not be discouraged from taking decisions in the national interest when all facts are not known, they will never be known. We take decisions in a world of uncertainty and that's the perspective I think Parliament, our CAG and our media must adopt if this nation is to move forward.
Our basic task is to deal with poverty, ignorance and disease which still afflict millions and millions of our citizens and whatever the ideological moorings of different parties, there is nobody who would say that you can satisfy all these aspirations of the people except in the framework of a rapidly expanding economy which is able to create 10 to 12 million jobs. For this, we need skilled citizens and we need to put in place a system of skill formation in education which is going to create employable skills which alone can provide our people the security of jobs that they need.
We have put in place an entitlement system. Entitlements have a role, but quite frankly there is a limited role. In the institutions of social security that we are trying to build, there are a large number of leakages in health, in education, and the allocation of subsidies. Our challenge is to plug these leaks and we will do that.
Corruption is a big issue. It has caught the imagination of the people, and we will deal with it. Let me say that while the Lokpal is an essential and desirable legislation, we will honestly work to evolve a broad based national consensus so that we have a viable statute in place which will give us a strong Lokpal. We have differences, there will be differences, but there are mechanisms to resolves these differences.
I certainly respect members of the civil society. It is out of my respect for members of the civil society that whether it is Anna Hazare or Swami Ramdev, I myself took the trouble to interact with them. In February-March itself I had an hour long meeting with Anna Hazare, the Bhushans, both father and son, Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. They were all there and I assured them that we are committed to come with the bill in the Monsoon Session and it was not a commitment made under duress. I had mentioned it to them at that time itself. I said we will introduce a Bill in Parliament but then it is for Parliament to pass it or amend it and that right cannot be taken away.
In the same way people talk about black money. Black money exists, but if you look at all European countries also the average amount of black money which is talked about is at least 25 % of the economies of a large number of European countries. These are transactions that are not taxed and intended to avoid social security payments. But this is a reality. We can deal with corruption, we can deal with black money but quite frankly it is wrong for anyone to assume there is a magic wand which will lead to an instant solution of these difficult societal problems.
We need system reforms. If the project Nandan Nilankani has promised to design, if the UIDAI can give unique ID numbers to all our residents we would have discovered a new pathway to eliminate the scope for corruption and leakages in the management and distribution of various subsidies to which our people are entitled. But it will take time. It cannot be done instantly.
4 lakh crores or whatever the figures or black money being mentioned…… I do not know what is the basis of those calculations. Whatever is possible is being done. We are in the process of negotiating double taxation avoidance agreements, tax information agreements and we have fought hard in the Group of 20 to see that the secrecy of tax saving banking systems should be modified. This is not a one shot operation. We are doing all that is possible and we could accelerate it. We are committed to pursue all that is fiscally possible to deal with these problems of black money, problems of tax evading money and corruption.
But there are other instruments. Tax evasion is one important source of generation of black money. But there are other issues - narcotics, trafficking in human beings - all these illegal activities…. we need a strong mechanism to track down these criminal elements. But in all these my worry is to avoid a situation when we convert this vast country of over 1.2 billion people into a state where everybody is policing everybody else. We must not bring back the license permit raj which we sought to abolish in 1991.
I think our nation has prospered as a result of that. If you look at the list of top 100 firms today you will find a sea change in that list today. New entrepreneurs have come into the list. These are some of the gains of liberalization which we must cherish, we must nurse and we must develop.
We are committed to a growth rate of 9 to 10 % per annum. Our savings rate is about 34 to 35 % of our GDP with an investment rate of 36 to 37 %. And with a capital output ratio of 4:1 we can manage to have a growth rate of 9%. It requires strong commitment to development and modernization of our infrastructure; a strong commitment to modernizing and making our education system more relevant to the needs of our time; it requires strong commitment to work for a universal health care system. We are now engaged in looking at how insurance can be expanded to cover all elements of our population.
These are some of the priorities of our government. But frankly speaking in our country this constant sniping between government and opposition or if an atmosphere of cynicism is created all round I think the growth impulses, the entrepreneurial impulses of our people will not flourish and that is what worries me. We must do all that we can to revive the animal spirits of our businesses. And the fact that businessmen cut corners is partly a reflection of the loopholes in our regulatory system. We must therefore reform and strengthen the regulatory system where there is a need to do so. And when it comes to the management of natural resources we need a regulatory system but it must be transparent and it must be functional and that is the next step of our government.
Despite corruption in public procurement we are committed to work towards a public procurement law which will make procurement a transparent operation, and will eliminate to the extent possible the scope for corruption.
But in the situation that we are faced today, day in day out I think we are described as the most corrupt government. There have been aberrations. But quite frankly I have been a civil servant all my life, except the last 20 years. What surprises me is not that there are corrupt civil servants but that despite all the temptations, so many of our civil servants remain honest and lead frugal lives and this is the mainspring that we have to tap.
We must punish the wrong doers but we must not paint all civil servants as babus and contemptuously describe them as a despicable class.
These are the concerns that I have and I would like to hear from you what you think of them and what we should be doing.
And let me say on the international front I think the situation is not that positive. The international global recovery is fragile. Even the United States growth rate is faltering. In Europe it is the sovereign debt crisis, the problem of the Greek crisis and whether the Euro-zone will survive or not. If it will not survive it will be a major institutional collapse.
What is happening in the Middle East is of direct concern to us. Apart from the fact that we have 6 million Indians working in the Middle East nearly 70 % of our oil supplies come from the countries of the Gulf and North Africa. What turn these events will take nobody knows.
So we have to swim against this adverse tide and therefore India requires all the energy and all the cohesiveness of our polity to swim against these tides and come out victorious. We can do it. We showed that in 2008 when most people believed that our financial system would also be a victim of the global financial crisis. We put in place correctives and we managed to retain a growth rate of 7% and next year it was back to 8 to 8.5 %. We must have the vision, the ability and the determination to prosper even when the world environment is hostile.
And because nature has blessed us with a large common market, if we can put in place the goods and services tax legislation and if we can remove barriers to interstate commerce that itself will create new opportunities internally for accelerating the tempo of growth.
These are our top priorities, these are national priorities and I invite you as very influential members of our polity to help the government to deal with these problems with courage, with clarity and with determination.
- Prime Minister
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