Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter:816
Palash Biswas
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United States of America rejected the corporate raj and the call for equity, inclusion and diversity finally defeated market, corporate America and zionism.Indian policy makers have not to learn any lesson from the American experience and the growth story continues. Social forces like women, youth, refugees and workers may upset the apple cart of capitalist corporate greed, the voting pattern in America proved that more emphatically.America is America not because of its aggressive capitalism, but recent US Presidential elections proved that it is for the empowerment of the woman. If Indian people have to change their destiny, these marginalised majority communities have to rise against system.The bahujan samaj emerged to sustain the American Dream, while we fail to address the majority demography indigenous just because it is excluded and excommunicated. How long have we to wait? The growth story continues unabated and the corporate manusmriti raj is absolute!We have an iron lady like Irom Sharmila at home, but we dare not to follow her!The vote for President Obama is widely seen as a vote for moderation and inclusion with the two candidates putting forward widely different visions of how best to revive the US economy, reduce debt and the role that government should play.US Presidential Elections also proved that orthodx Right has become irrelvant. Since we Indias are tempted too much to opt for the right as an alternative, this lesson is very very important. Mind you,Lal Krishna Advani, the man who propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from an also ran to power in Delhi in just over a decade, on Thursday celebrated his 85th birthday and finally announced that he was not in the race to become the Prime Minister of India. Zionism is defeated in America but it is quite a force in India as it is aliged with Sangh Pariwar and its branded Hindu Nationalist politics.Who would be the next Prime Minister face if Indian people chose to elect BJP, it should be quite a matter of concern!
The right wing has lost the election of 2012 in America. Should it win the Loksabha elections of 2014 in India?The total rout of the right's ideology, particularly its neoconservative brand, was visible in republican failed campaign. We see the blitz in India with anti corruption brand equity, invoked and provoked hindutva!Would the democracy survive the imminent aussult?In last couple of years we see South India increasingly becoming the new laboratories of right-wing Hindutva politics.We have seen how Assam did burn after Gujarat experience? We see the revival of communal riots in Uttar Prades. We also do witness the rise of RSS power in progressive West Bengal! Where is the Bahujan Samaj in India which may uproot the curse forever?
Economic growth rate for the second half of the fiscal year 2012/13 is expected to be better than that of the first half, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said on Thursday.Ahluwalia, who was speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in New Delhi, did not specify any new target for GDP growth.India's budgeted growth rate for 2012/13 was expected to be 7.6 percent. It achieved a growth rate of 5.5 percent in the first quarter ended June 30.
Does it reflect the ground reality in India? Widening income gaps and rising numbers of unskilled young people could derail India's economic growth, speakers at a high-profile economic conference warned on Thursday. Yes, it is the corporate version.While the middle class has ballooned as India has become one of the world's fastest-growing economies, more than 40 percent of its 1.2 billion population still survive on less than $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank. However, the real concern of corporate India is well exposed as India Inc. demanded simpler tax rules, faster project approvals and tougher rules on corruption at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Thursday, as companies challenged the government to push for deeper economic fixes than a handful of recent reforms.Tempers frayed between frustrated executives and defensive ministers, and social activists took officials to task on a lack of action from the government, despite a much-trumpeted set of initiatives in response to slowing economic growth.
At the most stimulating session of the World Economic Forum for India 2012 on the opening Wednesday, captains of the Indian and international industry and the Indian government agreed on the fundamental premise that faster economic growth was not just essential for the success of business but also to ensure distributive equity among India's people. The session titled 'rebooting India' comes at a time when the country's high growth rates of 8-9 per cent has been revised downwards to 5.5 per cent, an all-time low since 2004. More than 700 business leaders from as many as 43 countries are taking part in various deliberations at the meet being held in the National Capital Region of Gurgaon.
What they differed on is the pace of reforms, the frequency of reforms, whether reforms were being sacrificed for the sake of political expediency, whether the Centre has a weak government and if other institutions like the judiciary and the civil society were creeping into spaces reserved for executive decision.
While Union law minister Ashwini Kumar acknowledged that there was a constitutional imbalance which needed to be restored, he nonetheless said that policy initiatives and regulatory reforms would see average growth touch 8.2 per cent in the 12th five-year plan period. He said, "There is complete unanimity within the Congress party and the UPA government that faster, inclusive and sustainable growth was the way forward."
Ahead of the meeting of Congress top brass to take stock of the progress made in implementation of the 2009 election manifesto, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the achievements of the party-led coalition are "quite impressive".
How impressive, let us consider!Economic ethnic cleansing and unabated genocide culture, exclusion and excommunication seem to be the only achievement!
"You take a list of achievements, that is what we will reflect on tomorrow, I think achievements in three years and nine months are quite impressive," he told reporters here at the briefing on the Cabinet meeting.
Asked about pending bills on food security and land acquisition, Chidambaram said, "On both bills, work is in progress along with Lokyukta. Each one of them is in different stages of progress.
"I think the Lokayukta is pretty near completion and the Food Security Act also will be passed if not in the Winter Session (of Parliament), then in the Budget Session."
He preceded his remarks by saying that while taking the balance sheet of performance of the UPA-II, one should consider both the work done and work in progress.
Tomorrow's day-long meeting at Surajkund in Haryana will be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and all Cabinet ministers of the Congress, ministers of state with independent charge belonging to the party and Congress Working Committee members.
The party will take stock of the extent of implementation of the promises made in its manifesto for 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Mind you, mainstream financial newspaer like Economic Times have to write this edit. Please read it carefully:
US Presidential Elections 2012: Obama's re-election is good for US and for the interdependent world
ime was when it was enough to assess a US president's external policy and towards India in particular to decide whether he was good for India. The times have changed.
What happens within the US — in other words, a US president's domestic agenda — matters as much as his external policies, if not more. Primarily on this count, we welcome President Obama's re-election.
True, he has been louder in making protectionist noises against outsourcing. But outsourcing is an integral part of the dynamics of the global economy and no one can halt its onward march to encompass larger and larger areas of economic life, leave alone reverse it.
This is why President Obama has been pursuing a revamp of the US educational system, healthcare and information architecture, so as to raise the knowledge quotient of both US domestic activity and its workforce.
Innovation in the US is good for the US, but it is also good for the rest of the world, as computers, mobile phones and the internet, for example, demonstrate. Obama stands for inclusive growth, accommodation of immigrants and equality of opportunity, and Romney stood for the opposite.
The social values upheld by the Republicans are repugnant to women, decency and civil rights of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. It is welcome that these values have been rejected by US voters.
America's soft power ensures that its values and policies influence values and politics in other countries. The world is better off with the American people endorsing values of inclusion and respect for diversity.
Obama understands the need to improve financial regulation, even if his record shows modest success in this regard. Romney stood for lax regulation of the kind that precipitated the crisis of 2008.
Obama's victory means that the hope of disciplining global finance stays alive and that fiscal policies will be more responsible and supportive of near-term growth. That matters to the rest of the world.
Obama's foreign policy, too, is more nuanced and adaptive to the more dispersed nature of global power, unlike Romney's. Hope and progress, Obama's slogans, get a boost, the world over. That is welcome.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/obamas-re-election-is-good-for-us-and-for-the-interdependent-world/articleshow/17136874.cms
Ross Douthat offers a number of indictments of Mitt Romney's failure in today's New York Times, but this one particularly hits the nail on the head:
His party didn't particularly want to be reinvented, preferring to believe that the rhetoric and positioning of 1980 and 1984 could win again in the America of 2012. You could see this belief at work in the confidence with which many conservatives insisted that the Obama presidency was not only embattled but self-evidently disastrous.
As long as two years ago, Romney settled on strategic policy ambiguity. Romney and his campaign team thought President Barack Obama was such an obvious failure that they could beat him without advancing a substantive policy agenda of their own.
That's how Romney ended up running on a "five point plan" that was just a vague rehash of Bush administration economic policies. His campaign cannot have seriously thought this would inspire struggling middle-class voters. They were banking on voters feeling that any change would be better than the status quo.
This strategy probably would have worked if Obama really were a self-evident disaster. It's basically how Chris Christie beat the self-evident disaster known as Jon Corzine in 2009. But yesterday's median voter was ambivalent about the president's performance. He or she was open to the idea that Romney would do better for the economy, but needed at least a halfway convincing argument about why.
Romney was tempted into this error for a reason. What he needed to offer the median voter -- policies aimed at bringing down unemployment in the near term and raising median wages -- would have been unpopular with conservatives.
Romney couldn't easily run on fiscal stimulus (even from the tax side), monetary easing or housing debt forgiveness. Given the difficulty of getting specific about job creation without alienating the right, vagueness was appealing.
The one policy that served as a major exception is fossil fuel extraction, a job-creating issue that Romney flogged as hard as he could. But it wasn't enough, partly because Obama got so far to the right on the issue himself.
His lack of a fleshed-out middle-class jobs agenda was compounded by his 47 percent gaffe -- Romney didn't make a clear case that he would improve the lives of those who are struggling, and he gave them reason to believe he didn't care that they are struggling.
Romney's decision to punt on the economy was kind of a tragedy, in that Romney is actually a highly competent manager -- far more competent than Obama -- who could have been a great candidate and great president if only he had the right policy agenda.
Of course, "he had the wrong policy agenda" is an awfully large caveat to have to offer about a presidential candidate.
Why Romney Lost: A World Perspective
As Obama supporters awoke on Wednesday to a blissful post-election victory, many in the Romney camp must have wondered: "What the hell went wrong this year?"
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he and other Republican strategists "misunderstood what was happening in the country," Businessweek writes. Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots blamed Romney for being "a weak moderate candidate, hand-picked by the Beltway elites and country-club establishment wing of the Republican Party," the magazine adds.
Amid the post-election tumult in the United States, HuffPost World took a look at the explanations for Romney's loss cited abroad.
According to French newspaper Le Monde, Romney's loss in Florida should be a learning lesson for the Republican party. The Romney campaign's strategy of pounding the Sunshine State with negative ads clearly did not pay off, the newspaper writes, but points to the candidate's inability to embody a better future and seduce Hispanic voters.
Mitt's defeat already started during the primaries, the Italian daily La Stampa argued. The Republican candidate distanced himself from crucial moderate voters by making too many concessions to the religious right on social issues, the analysis says.
Spain's El Pais pointed to Obama's support among Hispanic voters to explain the Democratic win, and argued that Romney's op-ed in the New York Times 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt' and his 47 percent remarks significantly reduced the Republican's appeal.
Vincent Michelot, history professor in the Science Po university of Lyon, told French newspaper Liberation that he believed that if Romney had not succumbed to the Tea Party, the Republicans would have won a majority in both houses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/why-romney-lost_n_2089823.html
"India is at a crossroads," Rajat Nag, managing director-general at the Asian Development Bank, told the World Economic Forum on India in Gurgaon, a satellite city of New Delhi that is a mix of luxury malls, high-rises and slums.
"India is expected to become an economic powerhouse but the growth story may be become unhinged if marginalisation continues," he said at the meeting of business leaders, government officials and social activists.
Inequality in earnings has doubled over the past two decades, a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report said, with the top 10 percent of wage-earners making 12 times more than the bottom 10 percent.
In addition, India's statistics on health, malnutrition and infant mortality are worse than those for some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with the nation accounting for 20 percent of the world's infant deaths, experts noted.
"The risk of so many Indian children growing up physically and mentally stunted undermines the potential for growth," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children International,
Rising income disparities and India's inadequate education system are some of the most worrying challenges ahead.
India, which spends less than two percent of its gross domestic product on education, must "face up to the fact that if it wants to succeed in the world, it has got to invest more in education", said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Britain's former prime minister.
By the end of the decade, the average age of an Indian will be 29 -- representing what population experts call the "demographic dividend" of young workers that the government hopes will help power the economy.
Trade minister Anand Sharma said the nation now needs jobs for 12 to 14 million Indians who join the workforce annually -- but a yawning skills gap and a lack of vocational training and of teachers is a problem.
"India is full of young people -- but we don't have the trainers," said Shantanu Prakash, chairman of Educom Solutions India, the nation's largest private educator.
While India's literacy rate stands at 74 percent, census data shows, the school dropout rate is nearly 80 percent. Few job-seekers get any form of vocational training and even university leavers find their skills inadequate.
More than half of graduate engineers "are unemployed because of low-quality teachers", said Naresh Gupta, a senior executive of software firm Adobe Systems.
The prospect of a demographic disaster -- millions of ill-educated young people unable to find jobs -- is a danger that looms over the country, speakers said.
"The demographic dividend can become a nightmare," said Zia Mody, founding partner of law firm AZB and Partners.
"Suddenly because three laws have been passed everyone is extremely excited. This should be a daily routine affair of passing legislation and making reforms. We should be having hundreds of these a year."
India in September allowed foreign investors into the supermarket sector, increased overseas investment limits in airlines and raised diesel prices in a "big bang" push designed to perk up subdued business sentiment.
But executives said a long-delayed national taxation regime, a government body to fast-track infrastructure developments and a credible initiative to tackle widespread corruption would provide a far greater boost to the sluggish economy.
India's GDP growth in the current fiscal year that ends in March 2013 is expected to be the worst for a decade, with many corporates blaming a lack of action from a government hamstrung by graft allegations and a lack of political clout.
Hundreds of big ticket infrastructure projects have been hit by delays, hurting investor sentiment. The government has pledged to roll out a National Investment Board (NIB) to speed up implementation, but the initiative has hit opposition.
"The air in Delhi is thick with not just the smog but with the expectation that these things will be translated into action," Rajiv Lall, managing director of IDFC Ltd (IDFC.NS), said at the event in Gurgaon, a business hub next to New Delhi that was shrouded in thick, polluted fog.
NO PERFECT SOLUTIONS
In the absence of the prime minister or finance minister, both of whom had attended the forum in previous years, and with many attendees remarking on a lack of big-name policymakers, the subdued event sprang into life with a spat between a government minister and one of India's most outspoken corporate figures.
Rahul Bajaj, chairman of the Bajaj Group and a former lawmaker, told the law minister that his companies' success had come "in spite of the government, not because of the government".
"Yes, there are no perfect situations and no perfect solutions," minister Ashwani Kumar retorted. "However, if everything we are doing is wrong in terms of policies, how is it that Bajaj Auto is one of the most successful organisations over the last few years?"
Bajaj Auto is India's second-largest motorcycle manufacturer and world's largest three-wheeled vehicle manufacturer.
"Generally the perception of India has improved, we need to further improve this perception. We need to further take the reform process forward," Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Industries (GODI.NS), told Reuters.
Initiatives such as the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and a National Investment Board (NIB), seen as important steps to cut through bureaucratic red tape and boost business sentiment, appear to be stalled on desks and in committee rooms across the country's noisy democracy.
GST, intended to replace a myriad of state and central taxes, is seen reducing business costs and increasing government receipts. But some states are uneasy about a possible loss of fiscal autonomy.
"The most important reform for India, whether it is for our group or for India generally or for most businesses, would be the Goods and Services Tax. Because that would add about two percentage points ... to India's GDP growth," Godrej said.
Ashwini Kumar drew from the Congress core leadership's affirmation in last Sunday's Delhi rally that foreign investment was welcome in all sectors of Indian economy.
However, the industry honchos were not really convinced by the talk and called for action on the ground. Natarajan Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said comfort and confidence, the two prime requisites for business were at an abysmal low. "We have had high inflation, low growth and mounting fiscal deficit. And the government has failed to rein in inflation. Just keeping interest rates high does not stem inflation."
He spoke about the importance of executing projects and policy. Pointing out the success stories like Delhi Metro, Konkan Railway and Delhi Airport, he said the management and working skill was never in question. "It's a matter of will and evolving a follow-through plan on execution. The last few months have brought in some positive momentum but definitive timelines are required to ensure that a repeat of the last three and a half years does not occur."
Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle, Switzerland, however, said, there was no need of a reboot. "You need reboot when you crash. As I see it, India needs to fix some aspects and it will be back on track."
Bulcke said the gravity of India's past, its rich history, its size and complex politics made the country apprehensive of taking hasty decisions. "I look at society as a painting. The government provides the frame and nothing more. It's for the people, entrepreneurs to colour the canvas. However, the frame should not be so wide that it leaves very little space to paint. That kills entrepreneurial spirit. That has been India's problem."
He added, "Everybody knows what needs to be done. The point is to get it done." He also called for greater transparency and simplicity in processes.
Gita Gopinath, professor of economics at Harvard University, however, did not agree with most people. She did not think India's problems were about perception and marketing.
The World Bank rates India at 132 out of 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business. In terms of enforcement of contracts, it ranks 182 out of 183 and in terms of construction permit 181. But Gopinath went further deep, questioning whether the high growth actually was inclusive and if it benefitted most Indians.
"There is no consensus on reforms in the country. Each percentage growth of Indian economy has benefitted negligible proportion of poor people as compared to China or South Korea. India needs a strong manufacturing base which today accounts for just 16 per cent of the GDP. The progress from agriculture to service economy can't exclude the step of manufacturing. Manufacturing brings money to large sections of the society. What is also desperately needed are labour reforms," she said.
Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, was of the opinion that all stakeholders in the Indian growth story were responsible for the air of low confidence and pessimism. "What is good for the country is not important. Political opportunism is the truth. The Congress and the BJP largely agree on the economic policy measures. Yet, the ruling party takes populist measures, the Opposition disrupts the House for the sake of opposing," he said.
While pointing out that the land acquisition process and environmental clearance processes needed to be reworked, he said, "This atmosphere of no clearances, no investment, no labour market reforms can't continue. Corporate governance regulations, GST, Direct Tax Code are all the needs of the hour. But who will bell the cat," he asked.
The role of Indian media was also criticised by a lot of the panellists. However, they all agreed that reforms were imperative and that a consensus needed to be evolved among all stakeholders including the government, the Opposition, the businesses and the media, for a more clearer and less spasmic recourse to economic reforms.
Faster growth not leading to fast poverty reduction: Study
GANDHINAGAR: A recent study has taken strong exception to those who argue that Gujarat's poverty levels have gone down drastically, and the main reason for this is the "economic model" of chief minister Narendra Modi. Presented at a seminar sponsored by the Planning Commission of India, and slated to be part of a larger book on Gujarat growth story to be put out by the commission, the study, titled "Is Gujarat Growth Inclusive?", says that rate of reduction of poverty in Gujarat has been equal to all-India average, but Gujarat's ranking on incidence of poverty vis-a-vis other states has worsened, from 7th in 1993 to 9th in 2010.
Prepared by Prof Indira Hirway of Centre for Development Alternatives (CFDA) Ahmedabad, the study, based on the well-accepted methodology used by the Tendulkar Committee to calculate poverty, agrees that between 2004 and 2010, the annual percentage point in the decline in poverty in Gujarat was 1.7, about the same as all-India average of 1.5. But it underlines, "Several relatively slow growing states experienced much higher decline in poverty during this period."
The Tendulkar methodology uses consumption expenditure data to calculate poverty. Not confining to spending for minimum calorie intake, it takes into account expenditure on food, education, health, electricity, clothing and footwear.
Thus, in Gujarat the number of poor reduced from 31.6 to 23 per cent, a drop of 8.6 per cent. But in other states the drop was higher - by 13.4 per cent in Himachal Pradesh, 13.7 per cent in Maharashtra, 9.7 per cent in Karnataka, 11.9 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 20.2 per cent in Orissa, 9.6 per cent in Rajasthan, 12.3 per cent in Tamil Nadu, and 14.7 per cent in Uttarakhand. "This shows that the growth alone does not count for poverty reduction, and something more is needed to translate growth into poverty reduction," Prof Hirway argues.
Interestingly, Prof Hirway observes that the urban areas, growing faster in Gujarat than other states, are witnessing a much slower poverty reduction. During 2004-10, urban poverty in Gujarat went down from 20.1 per cent to 17.9 per cent, a drop of just 2.2 per cent as against all-India's 4.6 per cent. A dozen states - Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal - experienced a higher drop.
Relying on National Sample Survey (NSS) data, Prof Hirway's view on urban poverty is shared by well-known pro-Modi economist Prof Bibek Debroy, who in his latest book, "Gujarat: Governance for Growth and Development", says that the slow reduction in urban poverty has led to total number of urban poor having gone up. "Urban poverty figure was 4.3 million in 2004-05 and 4.5 million in 2009-10. While the percentage declined in urban Gujarat, the absolute number of below poverty line went up marginally," he admits, adding, poverty reduction in Gujarat is a largely rural phenomenon.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-26/ahmedabad/34748847_1_urban-poverty-tendulkar-committee-poverty-line
People's Democracy(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) | Vol. XXXVI No. 44 November 04, 2012 |
'Vibrant Gujarat'
Hegemonic Campaign of Hindutva's Capitalism
Archana Prasad
BEFORE the 2004 elections the BJP led coalition government led an ambitious and aggressive India shining campaign in the hope that it will get re-elected to power. The election results showed that it had failed to fool the common voters and hide its inability to govern.
Today, when Gujarat faces its third election after the genocide of 2002, Narendra Modi and his supporters have launched a hegemonic 'Vibrant Gujarat' campaign that projects the state as a role model for the rest of the country, especially with respect to effective governance and economic development. Thus Narendra Modi is not only the 'best CM' but also the best 'potential candidate for PM.' Surveys done by the corporate media not only seek to strengthen this position but also create a public consensus for the acceptance of Narendra Modi as a national leader, thereby implying that the communal and fascistic character of Gujarat's capitalist development should be forgotten. The unity of purpose between Modi's campaign and the media blitz that accompanies it is part of a larger game plan that is set to achieve not only Hindutva's victory but also the success of neo-liberal corporate capitalism that structures the entire economic and social structure of the state. Hence there is an urgency to carry out a vigorous campaign to demystify the 'vibrant Gujarat' image and show how the interests of Hindutva politics and corporate capitalism have converged in this state at the expense of its citizens.
COMBATING
THE GROWTH STORY
Narendra Modi started the 'Vibrant Gujarat' summits in 2003 as a way of making the state the most coveted destination for private corporate investments. By 2010 industry leaders claimed that that private participation had put the manufacturing sector of the state at the top of the investment ladder. Thus the CII and ASSOCHAM claimed that more that one fifth of the total investment in India was going into Gujarat. Modi was touted as a good manager and an able non-corrupt chief minister who could manage labour and industry.
Yet despite this created hype, the state was not able to meet the investment expectations. For example, in 2005, Modi claimed that he had attracted Rs 1.06 lakh crore in investments, but an RTI query revealed that the actual investment was only 74,000.1 crore. Of this, projects worth only Rs 24.12 crore became operational. Similarly, in 2007, the state government claimed that over Rs 4.6 lakh crore were invested in the state, but in actuality only projects worth Rs 1.22 lakh crore become operational in the state. Of all the investment in the state from 2003 to 2007, only 20.58 per cent of the projects were implemented in reality.
It is therefore quite clear that the corporate houses who invest in Gujarat are not making any productive contribution to its growth but are taking advantage of the open invitation to make unproductive investments there. Such unproductive investments are profitable as Gujarat promises to provide cheap land and soft loans to the corporate houses that are seeking to get high returns without reinvesting within the state. Hence the Gujarat pattern of investment is not based on a quid pro quo between Modi and the corporate houses who provide him political certificates and cover in return for the favours he grants them.
STAGNANT
EMPLOYMENT
Further, the limited expansion of industry is capital intensive and has an adverse impact on the employment situation. A study conducted by researchers from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and funded by the Institute of Development Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, shows that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of employment, for the period of 1993-94 to 2004-05, was only 2.69 per cent per annum whereas during 2004-05 to 2009-10 it came down to almost zero. Employment has fallen in the manufacturing and primary sector between 2005 and 2010, despite private investment, and the marginal growth in urban employment was largely casual in nature.
Further data on the employment structure for the marginalised social groups have shown a reverse trend where the gains of diversification of the 1990s have been lost and their dependence on commercial and contract farming has increased. However, this does not offer regular employment. Moreover, the scheduled tribes and religious minorities have only a marginal share in the opportunities of regular employment. What is significant is that this share has remained stagnant since 1993-94 when the scheduled tribes had seven per cent and the Muslims had 15 per cent of the opportunities of regular employment.
The much touted manufacturing sector too is characterised by low employment generation, slow growth in wages (1.5 per annum in the decade of 2000), and increasing use of contract workers whose share in employment increased from 19 to 34 per cent between 2001 and 2008.
This marginalisation of employment has adversely reflected on the condition of peasants and workers in the state. It is significant that the Economic Survey of 2011-12 identifies Gujarat as one of the states with the most number of lockouts and strikes, largely due to low wages and the non-payment of dues. Further, 16,000 farmers have committed suicide during Modi's tenure as a result of the dispossession which his land policies have caused.
THE IMPACT OF
MODI'S CAMPAIGN
The dark side of the state's growth story, indeed, lies its rising inequalities as reflected in the increasing numbers of the rural and urban poor. In 2011, about 31.8 per cent of India's poor lived in a state that claims to have some of the wealthiest people. The research done by scholars from JNU also shows that aggregate inequality has increased in the state in the last five years. The average monthly consumption expenditure in Gujarat during 2005-10, barely equalled the national average. And even though there was reduction in poverty between 2005 and 2010, the rate of this decline in Gujarat was much lower than in states with comparable growth rates. The study further shows that the head count ratio of poverty in the state 26.63 was higher than that in Maharashtra and Tamilnadu which have similar investment patterns and growth rates.
This is reflected in the poor health and education position of the state. In terms of the education and literacy the position of the state declined. The annual status report on education (Pratham, 2011) shows that the Gujarat figures even below Bihar in terms of educational status. Further, the state is known to have a fairly high level of malnutrition. The state ranked a lowly 10 in the rate of decline of infantile mortality, and its sex ratio has deteriorated from 921 to 918 between the Census 2001 and Census 2011. One of the main causes for such an abysmal performance is the negligence of the state government towards its social responsibility. In February 2007, the Reserve Bank of India evaluated Gujarat as ranking 17 among the 18 states which it evaluated on the scale of their social sector expenditures. The IDC-JNU study shows that the government expenditure on education as a proportion to total expenditure is lower in Gujarat than in all other states and it has been falling since 1999-2000 at a much faster rate than the combined figure for all the states. In regard to health too, the state's share of expenditure is less than the national average. Further, there is a very high reliance on the private sector in Gujarat --- both in the rural and the urban areas. This gets reflected in the fact that there is a decline in the use of government run health services across all the income groups, barring the lowest income group in rural areas. Thus the Gujarat model has failed to spread prosperity among its own citizens.
It is clear that Narendra Modi's aggressive media campaign is nothing but a way of camouflaging the failures of his government and maintaining the dominance of the unholy alliance between Hindutva and corporate capitalism which is harming the most deprived sections of Gujarat's population. It is essential to counter this campaign by using innovative cultural and political methods. A demystification of the 'Vibrant Gujarat' campaign is essential not only for the people of the state, but also for the people of the nation as the union government is carrying out similar structural adjustments with a vengeance. This season of elections presents for the democratic movement a good moment for such a broad based campaign and for starting a long term counter hegemonic process within the state.
http://pd.cpim.org/2012/1104_pd/11042012_11.html
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