When Manmohan Singh took over from Atalji as the Prime Minister of the country, there was widespread euphoria of speedier economic reforms and speedy economic growth. After all Singh was the very pioneer of the liberalization.
However, the political naiveté and rubber stamp status of the PM has only been re-confirmed in the past few months. While the nuclear deal and the Left holding the Govt. ransom is the recent most manifestation of the PM’s weakness, this government has been an underperformer from the beginning of its tenure.
Arjun Singh pursuing his own casteist agenda through reservations, the repeat of Mandal days at AIIMS (where the meritorious students had to face water cannons), the back track on privatisation of Navratna PSU’s, the slowing down of Golden Quadrangle Project, and inaction towards the teething lack of infrastructure – the UPA’s track record is filled with inaction and ineptitude.
There are a few streaks of positive one of them being year's budget which laid appropriate emphasis on Education and Agricultural growth; however it stopped short of including population control measures in its agenda. Policy initiatives for encouraging setting up of Fabs (micoelectronics hardware chips etc research and manufacture plants) by the then IT minister Dayanidhi Maran was another good move only to be incapacitated by Karunanidhi asking Maran to step down.
However, these are, I am afraid not enough to ensure a political victory in the next (probably impending) general elections. Mr. Singh, needs to come out of his image of being a rubber stamp and show courage to take some bold decisions for the nation, challenge his allies and then and only then will he become a worthy successor to Indira or Atalji.
Arjun Singh pursuing his own casteist agenda through reservations, the repeat of Mandal days at AIIMS (where the meritorious students had to face water cannons), the back track on privatisation of Navratna PSU’s, the slowing down of Golden Quadrangle Project, and inaction towards the teething lack of infrastructure – the UPA’s track record is filled with inaction and ineptitude.
There are a few streaks of positive one of them being year's budget which laid appropriate emphasis on Education and Agricultural growth; however it stopped short of including population control measures in its agenda. Policy initiatives for encouraging setting up of Fabs (micoelectronics hardware chips etc research and manufacture plants) by the then IT minister Dayanidhi Maran was another good move only to be incapacitated by Karunanidhi asking Maran to step down.
However, these are, I am afraid not enough to ensure a political victory in the next (probably impending) general elections. Mr. Singh, needs to come out of his image of being a rubber stamp and show courage to take some bold decisions for the nation, challenge his allies and then and only then will he become a worthy successor to Indira or Atalji.
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