Liberhan commission report and its impact on the BJP

It took the Liberhan commission 17 years, 100 witnesses, 399 sittings, 48 extensions and 9 crores to floor its report on the Babri Masjid demolition. It could not have come at a more worse time for BJP. Already under seizure and disarray for its electoral debacle, and under acute identity crisis seeking to re-define its fundamentals from a right wing hardcore Hindutva base to a more relevant pedestal, the findings could push them a little closer to tatters. As a part of its strategy, Congress would use this as its knock out punch for the down and beaten BJP. The list of accused include L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Sadhvi Rithambra, Ashok Singhal and more. Is this then the death of BJP?

I would view this knock out as a opportunity for BJP to clean up its tainted past, cut its umbilical cords with Hindutva and the Sangh, refresh its leadership completely, review its own partners and part ways with dubious ones and resurrect itself from its core. BJP has some good results to show in terms of its efforts for business and economic development (remember Vajpayee’s Golden Quadrilateal or Modi’s Gujarat) and it has to build these platforms to showcase its stand for progress, development and prosperity. This probably is the nadir in BJP’s political history. It runs the risk of disintegrating and collapsing totally or it can resurrect itself from the shadows of the past. I hope for the later. Politically, India needs BJP as an right wing moderate alternative against the Congress.

Ref:

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-it-time-for-bjp-and-left-to-rift.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/06/bjp-imploding-part-iii-lack-of.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/06/bjp-imploding-part-ii-lack-of-electoral.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/06/bjp-imploding-part-i-lack-of-coherent.html

Tongue in Cheek: The Chinese Green Dam Parody

Green Dam Software
The be-all and end-all of Chinese internet censorship effort, is the Green Dam software.Green Dam software is intended to stamp out Internet pornography, and computer companies had originally been told that from Wednesday they had to bundle "Green Dam" with all personal computers heading to stores for sale.

However, the seriousness of the effort was lost, when the Green Dam barred popular cartoon Garfield, Johny Depp and other innocent images. The reason was attributed to the deep orange colour of the images, which is screened by the software (Due to similarity with Nudes). Interestingly once the filter is turned off on the computer, graphic sexual images can also be downloaded.

It happens only in India

45000 out of an estimated 85000 registered as MCD (Municipal Commission Delhi) employees are fake/not traceable. The estimated numbers of the “missing” is still a riddle but the numbers could be double than present estimates. How or why could such a brazen act of corruption is best left to state investigations. But a correction and weeding out could lead to a saving of Rs.500 to 1000 crore annual saving on a Rs.207 crore monthly wage bill.

Elsewhere, the dalit poster girl, behen Mayawati has embarked on a Rs.2681 crore project to have herself, her mentor, Kanshiram, Baba Saheb Ambedkar sculpted in stone and beautify Lucknow city. The plan involves 45 red stone statues, 60 elephant statues and 413 acres of prime land in Lucknow. The annual cost of maintenance is expected to be Rs.270 crore. All this, when the largest population of people below the poverty line – 59 million belong to UP. This money could have wiped out poverty of thousands of people, provided education and amenties to more.

Food security bill, which is under discussion currently, and is expected to provide upto 25 kgs of grains per month to BPL households at a subsidized rate of Rs.3/kg has come up for some execution challenges. The planning commission’s stidy of 2005 shows that roughly 58% of grains issued from the RDS do not reach BPL families due to problems ranging from targeting errors to corruption all along the chain. Worse, there is a no standard in defining and identifying a BPL Family. Planning Commission puts the number of BPL families at 65.9 million, BPL cards issued by states is 107 million and a second and more recent estimate by the planning commission puts this number at 66 million.

So much for accountability and misuse of public funds in the country.

India: A worrisome fiscal situation

A very important part of populist measures of the incumbent government is to provide equal earning and job opportunities to all. Towards this, the National Rural Employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) is a tool for equitable employment and pay disbursals. However a bad monsoon can turn this tool into a fiscal nightmare. A bad monsoon will ensure that the number of people seeking jobs under NREGS will swell. Being an entitlement based programme, the government has to give employment to anyone who demands it. Recently it announced that a further Rs.9000 crore would be spent under NREGS, taking the total expected spending under it in fiscal 2009 to Rs.39000 crore. That was when the effect of Monsoons were not taken into consideration. With this new exigency in horizon, the NREGS spends may be spiraling out of control. A substantial portion of the fiscal deficit was due to budgeting of expenditures for farm loan waivers and expenditure under NREGS.

Already the economic slowdown and the threat of fiscal deficit hitting the double digits is likely to limit the UPA government from unleashing it full deck of “Aam Aadmi” agenda. Increasing the budgetary spending is only possible when the economy recovers on the path to 8 – 9% growth rate.

In February, the government had set a fiscal deficit target of 5.5% of GDP for 2009-10 but increased its borrowing target to Rs.3.62 trillion from Rs.3.05 trillion last year.
In the first month of the fiscal year, the government already achieved 16% of its fiscal deficit target. The reduction in excise tax by 6% as a part of stimulus package and the Food Security act (which provides food-grains @ Rs.3 per KG to below poverty line beneficiaries) is expected to hit the state coffers.With an expected shortfall of Rs.26000 crore in tax collections and an increased expenditure of Rs.24000 crores (Not counting in the impact of late Monsoons), the Fiscal deficit may be grim, very grim.

Tongue in Cheek: Plutonomy

Plutonomy: Coined by Ajay Kapur, Citigroup’s global strategist in 2006, the term denotes an economy that derives its strength from the assured consumption of the super rich.