Finance Minister Mukherjee In A Time Warp As India’s Success Story Wobbles
Author:
First published in Sanctuary Asia,
Vol. 31
No. 3,
March 2011
In a caring tone, but with words and a focus that smacked of the early 1980s when he was first finance minister, Mukherjee (left), 75, added: “The solar lantern enables our countrymen in far-flung villages to partake of developments in green technology".
The thoughts matched the emphasis of the speech on boosting agriculture and improving the food supply chain with a Rs14,700 crore ($3.3bn) allocation, but they displayed a time warp that ignored all that has happened - much good and some bad - in the 20 years since India's economic reforms of July 1991. The speech failed to tackle primary post-reforms problems of galloping corruption and appalling governance, both issues that are at the centre of major scandals and controversies. Read the full report here.
Source: by John Elliott, Riding the Elepphant, New Delhi.
