The Economic Divide

Poverty is both a cause and effect.
In a democracy, illiteracy would be the sole cause for poverty. Since it would be expected of a govt to offer schemes to reduce poverty, and advertise these schemes all over the countryside, only those who are unable to exploit these schemes would miss the bus. Communication and transportation channels could reduce the penetration of the message, but even if the message is received for people to recognise the opportunity and expliot it they need to be literate.

It seems to be that one strong influence to reaching out is the location of the govt. machinery. The proximity of govt. offices to areas where poverty thrives is inversely proportional to the chances of reduction of poverty. While splitting up states, and adding more districts would create more govt. centers it would only add more areas of ambiguous govt expenditure since greasing the govt machinery would consume resources which could rather be spent on poverty alleviation.

A more simpler and more powerful approach involves having a floating office. Rather than spend bulk of the time rooted in Delhi, the PM should spend time roaming the countryside. As a PM it is far easier to create media frenzy in areas where ignorance and poverty exist by merely visiting them. And a single visit is more than enough, since the final effort has to come from the populace who would like to gain freedom from poverty. 

A spoonfed population is not a healthy one. And even poverty alleviation schemes should achieve more than offering the poor alms at their doorsteps.

A rough plan of action would be :
1. Floating PMO finalised. There would be many issues that need to be sorted out before a PMO can be "floated" - communication and security being foremost.
2. PMO's visit preceded by creation of infrastructure. It is a norm, that if a PM wishes to visit a location, the roads get redone overnight. So just creating a schedule of visits will lead to increased spending on road infrastructure to centers of poverty.
3. PMO's visit to center of poverty, well media documented. Trust the media to dig up stories that the local govt would prefer to leave in the dark.

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The focus of the State

The state only needs to be involved in those areas of society where private participation is either not economically viable or not trustworthy.
The legal framework is one area which requires state involvement. Frankly this is the department that should have the highest govt employees. If a government sets rules, the legal department should be adequately staffed to ensure that every violation of the rules is recorded and appropriate action taken.
The easiest way to ensure a strong legal department is to increase workforce of the local Police. A bit more difficult is to increase the number of judges. If judges cannot be increased rapidly, there has to be a mechanism that allows arbitration, presided by someone who one need not be legally proficient. No person should have to spend more than a month as an undertrial, and no case should take more than a year to go from the lowest court to the Supreme court.

With close to 10 lac cases still awaiting judgement, and a similar amount of undertials put up in jails for lack of financial resource or legal knowledge to get bail, the present system is pathetic.

There is an urgent need to divert present govt employees wasting precious time in irrelevant departments like the Doordarshan and Indian Airlines and put them to manning these arbitration courts to see that pending cases are quickly disposed. In the mean time, the number of courts, and judges needs to be increased, and the salary to judicial officers increased to attract a larger pool of people.

As one of the pillars of democracy, the legal department is responsible for ensuring that citizens do not lose trust in the system.

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India and Sports

A country where there exists a single citizen who is unable to afford the basic amenities of life should not consider financially supporting sportspersons - not sports.
When a govt considers sponsoring individuals, there arises a need to question the preferential order - should a person who has to beg to feed himself be supported or the person who wants  run or play football. As a democratic government, it is obvious where the priorities lay.

A distinction between sports and sportspersons is critical to this discussion. A govt has to support sports because a healthy population is always an advantage. But, the method of supporting sports does not involve supporting sportspersons, since the need is to create more open spaces or grounds where people can do all the activity they please. Many people do not become physically active because they do not have easy access to open areas. Having large open spaces spread in regular intervals, say a football field among every 1000 citizens, is lure enough for people to take a walk, atleast. It is important for the govt to create rules that ensure that this distribution of open space is adhered to.

Supporting sportspersons is an entirely different ball game. There has to be some logic behind sending people to "represent the country" to sporting events like the Olys, at great cost to the taxpayer, if there is little that the general public benefits from it.  In the same illogical vein is the popular step to felicitating those who excel in sports, by either rewarding them with cash and freebies or, worse, giving them a coveted govt job. The latter seriously undermines the functioning of the govt machinery - if the bronze medal winning wrestler can be made an asst. manager in the Railways for that reason alone, it begs the question: how is the Railways staying on track? And if indeed that particular job is a superfluous one, since the wrestler will anyway be out practicing rather than attending office most of the time, why can't any unemployed be given that post? In India we have the practice of awarding excellent sportspersons a national award, that besides cash comes with freebies, like subsidised travel. There is an entire Sports ministry staffed with secretaries and the usual admin support staff that is dedicated to encouraging sportspersons. Do I need to say that this itself is a huge waste of tax payer's money?  What is more relevant would be for the infrastructure minister to ensure that open spaces are a critical part of every city and town and new complex that comes up.

There is a need to rethink this wasteful expenditure, and rather than encourage individuals, ensure that avenues for the entire population to take up sports are readily available.

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Short Sighted FM

This is a great time to be alive.
A ring side view of the unfolding financial crisis is a great opportunity to study reactions to unbridled human greed gone too far.
Anyway, the latest idea of the financial authorities to increase foreign investment limits in Indian markets is the topic here.
I remember a few days back someone coming to the conclusion that inspite of innate strength, the Indian markets were bleeding because FIIs (foreign institutional investors) had taken out their inverstments due to the losses suffered in their home markets. In this light, the new move seems to be an invitation to greater disaster the next time round.
What is needed is for some time to pass for things to get accustomed to the new realities. Already a lot of money is released into the system by reducing the parking requirements with the central bank, so why the hurry to allow greater FII intervention in local markets?

Those seeking solid investments are having a great time. With stock prices at their 2 year low, it is a great time to get a chunk of companies that are in the field of infrastructure, retail, consumer goods.

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The first traffic blockade

So, the leader of the opposition wants to visit the vicinity. And an entire 10 KM stretch of road, prime National Highway by the way, is shutdown for close to 90mins.

Well, it sucks.

I am sure every person whose right to freely move around was encroached upon by the politician will not vote for him in the next election. These people would easily outnumber the few thousand "supporters" that were hauled from the interiors to make up the audience, so I am not sure how the number game works here.

Note to self: take a chopper for every visit. For a few bucks more a lot of people's ire can be escaped.