UPA's spurious budgets

The Union Budget 2011-12 is a spurious statement. The titanic revenue foregone in the consecutive budgets of the UPA since 2005-06, as brought out by S Gurumurthy, is a deliberate fraud committed on the nation. As a result of the skewed budgets of the Manmohan Singh regime, the nation's economy is on the verge of disaster, waiting to delcare bankruptcy one day or another. The costs of healthcare, education and housing are becoming unbearable for the people, but the latest budget doesn't offer succor to the common man. Though the requisite good has not been done to the primary sector, we should thank the elections that come every five years that no proposal has been made in the budget that would decimate the farm sector unlike the UPA's notorious anti-agriculture policies. Instead of assuring the aam admi in these tempestuous times of food inflation and scams, the PM has patted Pranab and celebrated that the budget will pave way to insurance and banking reforms.

By Viswanath V
Published: The New Indian Express

Hillary's awful concerns

The WikiLeaks cable revealing Hillary Clinton's questions on Pranab's business relations, his views on Manmohan's economic agenda and 'who he seeks to help through his policies', is awful. That Ms. Clinton, an important figure in the US administration, is concerned about such matters is revelatory. She even wants to know why P Chidambaram or Montek Singh Ahluwalia was not chosen as the Finance Minister in her mail to the Indian Embassy in New Delhi. Only a naive person would now not see the UPA's policy-making establishment (read Dr. Singh and Ahluwalia) as having close links with America. It is clear from the cable that Washington is concerned about the penetration into Indian markets of US corporates - be it through more FDI, multi-brand retail or SEZs. Interestingly, the same are on the agenda of the PM-Deputy duo.

Not mere gossip

Some readers have expressed the view (Letters, March 19) that the diplomatic cables could be just ordinary gossip. The powers-that-be have stubbornly rubbished the WikiLeaks, particularly the cash-for-votes exposé, saying the cables are speculative, unverifiable, etc. Could a diplomat have imagined an MP telling him that a government was trying to buy MPs to save it during a crucial trust vote? Would a diplomat have scripted a concocted story and incorporated the names of MPs in his despatch to his bosses?

By Viswanath V
Published: The Hindu

Modi, Nitish's inadequate contributions

Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar did not deserve plaudits from a person like Anna Hazare. Nobody disputes that their economics has been pro-poor, but aside from the fact that the two celebrated Chief Ministers are personally clean and have shown the will to keep the administration corruption-free, they have not done much. Many candidates with criminal cases pending against them were given the ticket by Mr. Modi. Mr. Kumar's party too has its share of tainted legislators.

By Viswanath V
Published: The Hindu

Raja's criminal genius

Karunanidhi, expectedly, says that A. Raja is behind bars for helping the poor. But the Congress has gone a step ahead. Kapil Sibal and Montek Singh have argued that the undervaluation of 2G spectrum resulted in low call charges and empowered the aam aadmi! Fork-tongued that the grand old party is, it has choreographed a whitewash of the scam, even while criticising the NDA’s telecom ministers for putting an “improper” policy in place (implying that the bjp’s Mahajan-Shourie duo apparently bequeathed a ‘faulty’ policy which Raja’s criminal genius turned into a socialist boon) and making a virtue of Raja’s ouster.

By Viswanath V
Published: Outlook

Begal and India

They say Bengal is poverty-stricken and curse the comrades’ rule. But why don’t they talk about Manmohan’s India where poverty and hunger are rising? How does the irony of dismal agricultural growth in the India of neo-liberals escape their attention? Those celebrating the ouster of the Communists in Bengal are casually blind to the murder of the egalitarian dream; the rape of fertile lands through sezs; the murder of livelihoods and rape of indigenous systems; and the murder of, to quote Vandana Shiva, food democracy across India. Give Manmohan a free hand; he won’t take 34 long years to destroy India.

By Viswanath V
Published: Outlook

Azad's killers

The sudden and violent death of Maoist ideologue Azad, especially when he was talking peace, is shocking. P. Chidambaram apparently gave Swami Agnivesh a cold shoulder when he went to meet him to demand a probe into Azad’s killing by the AP police. The media must expose the Congress’s double game forthwith. On the one hand, its leaders in the upa establishment are unwilling for a judicial probe into the ‘encounter’; on the other, they are patting Mamata’s back for sympathising with the deceased Maoist. Did the home minister, caught up in his Op Green Hunt, have the peace-minded Azad—who was well-regarded even beyond Maoist circles—‘taken out’ lest he lose his case for a ruthless attack on the Maoists, who he and the media in cahoots with the capitalist class have lustily portrayed as India’s enemies?

By Viswanath V
Published: Outlook