Friday, February 25, 2011

India- the land of rising deficits?


Fiscal deficit, current account deficit, development deficit, education deficit, health deficit, governance deficit, ethical deficit- Has India become a land of rising deficits? It seems to be. Or else how do we explain these ever increasing deficits and non-existing surpluses? Wait. Who said non-existing surpluses? What about our surplus population (which is set to overtake China by 2050) and surplus poverty (don’t we have more poor than Africa)? Well, these are definitely not the surpluses that we can be proud of. What we require is development surplus which flows from better governance or governance surplus.
Sadly, our post-reform era hasn’t witnessed a greater commitment to either reducing or eliminating any of these deficits. This is evident from our low rankings in the Human Development Index (HDI) for the past few years. Furthermore, in terms of the improvement in the HDI index we have grown at a slower pace in the reform process that began in 1990 than in the decade prior to reforms.  
If India is to be counted as a performing and functioning democracy, and not merely a namesake democracy, then we need to draw inspiration from the ‘jasmine revolution’ and replicate it in our own land by overthrowing the politicians and bureaucrats who have caused or perpetuated these deficits. 

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