Category: Rajendra Pratap Gupta

January 22, 2017

De-bureaucratization, the next big move

http://businessworld.in/article/De-Bureaucratisation-Next-Surgical-Strike-An-Open-Letter-To-PM-Modi/20-01-2017-111803/#.WIRQb4rRa8c.facebook

Hon’ble Prime Minister Modi,

Namaste Sir,

Your time is very valuable and hence instead of seeking a personal appointment, I am writing this letter to you.

Peter Huntsman, CEO, Huntsman Corporation, US, said at the recently concluded ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summit, which was inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi, that “Mr. PM, you visited our country in June and there are many of us who wished you would have stayed and taken over leadership of our country”.

This is the first time in history that any head of state would have received such a compliment and it is not easy to come by, and that too, for a developing country! This speaks volumes of how much the world believes in your exemplary leadership and seeks your guidance as a Vishwa Guru! I have always said that you have brought a lot of trust and respect to our country in the short span that you have been at the helm, and I am sure, what we have seen till now, is just 10 per cent of what you can do, and that you will totally transform the country over the next 10 years.

The earlier governments kept singing the slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ for decades, but, actually, they neither had the will nor the vision to do so. You have clearly shown that your focus is clear and you have clearly articulated the path to Garibi Hatao by your vision to provide water, electricity, house (with toilet) and access to every Indian by 2022. Moreover, the last budget set the direction for empowered citizens and developed India by focusing on rural development, agriculture and infrastructure. Rather than promising to people, you have decided to work hard and deliver, and this had been missing in the country and because of which, the people have lost confidence in politics and politicians both. You have a big responsibility of not just running the country as our most revered Prime Minister but a bigger goal to bring back the trust in politics and politicians

We have recently seen that you stand for your principles. Demonetization and the surgical strikes have proven that you will not hesitate to take tough decisions in the interest of the poor and to safeguard the nation. A few in the opposition have talked against demonetization. Post demonetization, we are clear about where the money is! Else, the so called world class economists talked about double digit growth and fooled us for years without even knowing how much money was in the system and where! Now other countries are considering to implement demonetization.

While you have initiated some big changes and more are likely to follow post the budget and the assembly elections, it would be pertinent here to state that the biggest drag on Rajiv Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh Government was the same bureaucracy that we have inherited and which failed them, and it will fail this government as well if we don’t get rid of this imperial legacy – bureaucracy. We are beholden to bureaucracy as if, without them, the government cannot function, but the history proves that bureaucracy has ensured a status quo for this nation and worked on the principle of ‘I, me and myself’. Actually, the current bureaucratic set up is a bottleneck for fostering innovation and enterprise.

Let me quote;

“Rajiv wanted to revolutionize the bureaucracy and make things more efficient”. –Mark Tully in an interview

“You have sought a change in the manner in which this country is run and reform of administration to improve the quality of services will be our immediate priority”. Dr. Manmohan Singh, June 2004

Some of these leaders identified the real problem in India for implementing reforms as the failure of the bureaucracy to implement, and which let them down. I have written about the need and the path to transform the bureaucracy.

Also, am submitting the following for your kind consideration;

* ACR system be changed to CPR (Comprehensive Performance Review, wherein, 50 % of the appraisal depends on the individual performance, 25 % on the department’s / Ministry’s performance and 25% on the overall government’s performance).

* All posts, starting with the Joint Secretary, to be on a 5-year contract, based on annual comprehensive performance review, linked to implementation of the budget announcements and yearly plans. No bureaucrat be appointed as Secretary who has less than a year to retire & a bureaucrat at the level of Secretary have a fixed tenure based on yearly comprehensive assessment

* Start the lateral entry and compare the performance of career bureaucrats and professionals inducted in the government

* Sack the non-performing secretaries to send a strong message.

* This reform cannot be left to bureaucrats, as they will never let it happen. Also, if this is not done, it will be the biggest setback to the Modi Administration and will cost dearly.

In the USA, key officials come with the incoming President and are aligned to his vision. Also, the USA, U.K. and New Zealand governments have transformed bureaucracy to make their nations innovative and growth oriented.

Jairam Ramesh was bang on when he said, ‘the responsibility for bringing in reforms and change cannot be outsourced to bureaucrats and technocrats, as reforms, in essence, is a political enterprise”.
In the past, the political leadership could never deliver on getting rid of bureaucracy, despite the identification of the problem and only made statements from time to time to reform the bureaucracy. We are hopeful that, with a leader like Modi at the helm, we can now see this major reform becoming a reality, which will unlock the true potential of every Indian, and if this happens, in 2019, you can plan the mission of 400 plus for Lok Sabha.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Disclaimer: The views expressed are based on facts and experience and personal

October 6, 2016

How to reform the Bureaucracy

Kill bureaucracy to convert Red tape toRed Carpet

On May 28^th, I wrote the article in the ET; ‘Bureaucrat Mukt Bharat (http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/steel-frame-of-bureaucracy-is-an-obstacle-to-development-its-time-to-rehaul-it/).

On Independence day, we heard the Hon’ble PM saying that his Government’s motto is to reform, perform and transform. Also, on 01st September, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote, “India’s economy has grown rapidly in recent years, but the country’s bureaucratic quality is widely perceived to be either stagnant or in decline”. A former PM had once said about the Indian Civil Service (ICS) , the earlier avatar of IAS; “as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service.”

I think it is time to re-look at overhauling the bureaucracy, if we wish to realize the vision of Modi’s idea of India

We need speed, we need efficiency and we need effectiveness in our entire chain of command. This is the pre-requisite in realizing the vision of the greatest statesman – Modi.

We have had a mixed bag of experience with the bureaucracy in implementing some of the key announcements from the Hon’ble Prime Minister, and the commitment on budget announcements and schemes. I have the following suggestions;

The reason our bureaucracy fails is because of the following;

Unlike the politician, who have to go to the electorate every five years seeking ‘votes’ as his ‘appraisal’ for the performance, bureaucrats come with a ‘seniority based promotion’ and a defined retirement age and hence, they are least bothered for their performance reviews and also that these ACRs (Annual Confidential Reports) for performance reviews can be ‘managed’.
Also, since bureaucrats make the ACRs of these bureaucrats, the norm is ‘do no harm’, and they are generally rated between 8-10 in the ACRs and the chain continues year after year, badge after badge. Actually, now there is no merit in looking at these ACRs. Even the most corrupt and inefficient officers had the best of ACRs
Most of the bureaucrats are there for ‘authority’ and ‘administration’, and not development. Their approach is to ‘control’ and ‘Govern’ and not – ‘work as a team’ for ‘development’.
Also, if one gauges the real working of majority of these bureaucrats, they don’t work for anyone, but they work for themselves, and then, there are ego’s, differences, grudges and dislikes for other bureaucrats. So there is never a ‘team approach’ in whatever they do and this drags the performance of the Government.
Bureaucrats are more ‘procedure driven’ than ‘Outcome driven’. They focus more on following procedures and not necessarily on the outcome or performance, and that is why files take months to travel from one desk to another. Famously, one of the best performing Minister, Sh. Nitin Gadkari said on 09^thMay 2016, that it took him a 9-month wait for an approval for an automated parking. This is when Sh. Nitin Gadkari ji is known for being really fast in getting things done within the bureaucracy, and hence we can imagine what other ministers must be facing!

So, the time has come when we think out of the box and overhaul this system. Else, in 2019, our biggest failure will be because of the inefficient and unaccountable bureaucracy who will fail to implement Government’s key schemes.

We need to focus on the team approach; ‘One India, One team, one Goal’, that touches and transforms life till the last man standing in the line.

Re-defining the Appraisal System: As of now, we have an appraisal system that looks at ACRs, which only counts for an individual’s performance. If the performance and payment of the bureaucrat was based besides his individual performance (50% weightage) , the performance of his department / ministry (25%weightage) and the overall performance of the Government (25% weightage) , then the bureaucrats would work as a team and give up the siloed approach . So the first change is;

Move from ACR to CPR (Comprehensive Performance Review), which includes

Individual Performance Review (IPR). Based on the yearly goals/ deliverables assigned

A) Secretary’s goal should be decided by the Minister of the department
B) Deliverables of the Joint Secretary and above decided by the Secretary of the department and the chain follows down

Department’s Performance Review (DPR). Overall departmental review be based on the goals set for the year for the department / Ministry
Government Performance Review (GPR). This is the overall performance rating of the Government based on the

a) facts / data based self assessment by the Ministry / department (10 % weightage)
b) Annual online survey taken by the citizens, for all the departments / ministries at the central level (15 % weightage)

Weightage for each level of review for the Comprehensive Performance Review (CPR) :

Individual Performance Review (IPR) should have 50 percent weightage
Department’s Performance Review (DPR) should have 25 percent weightage
Government Performance Review (GPR) should have 25 percent weightage

Increments, variable pay/ incentives and promotions of officials should be based on CPR

Implementation: Can be in a phased manner ;

Option 1: We could start the IPR (Individual Performance Review) & DPR (Department’s Performance Review) from 2017 at the Joint Secretary level, and the CPR (which includes the overall Government review) can start from 2018
Option 2: CPR (Comprehensive Performance Review) can start at the Secretary level from 2017
Move to the Joint Secretary level from 2018
From 2019, the same can applied to employees holding the post of director rank in the government – Central
Option 3: Have CPR only for Secretaries in 2017, and rest can be in a phased manner

Parameters for IPR could be picked up from what is already defined under ACR, but it must be more specific like;

For Defining / planning time bound quantifiable and measurable deliverables for the year (20 % weightage)
Completion of targets within the time frame (20 % weightage)
Completion of targets without increase in budgets (15 % weightage)
Utilization of funds (15 % weightage)
Disposal of files & Grievances (15 % weightage)
Innovations (15 % weightage)

For any of the misses, the weightage be objectively apportioned.

Department’s Performance Review (DPR)

Every department must define / plan its key yearly deliverables / priorities. This must be done by the TEAM – Minister in-charge and officers up to the rank of Joint Secretary (20 % weightage)
Completion of targets within the time frame (25 % weightage)
Completion of targets without increase in budgets (20 % weightage)
Utilization of funds (20 % weightage)
Disposal of grievances (15 % weightage)

For any of the misses, the weightage be objectively apportioned.

Government Performance Review (GPR)

A part for the GPR be based on actual data / facts, and must be done by an independent government agency (40 percent weightage) and the rest must be based on public perception (60%) ; or it can be made (50 %) of actual assessment by an independent agency and (50 %) by public voting ;

Implementation of key schemes goals Vs. achievements (10 % weightage)
Meeting the Inflation target (5 % weightage)
Fiscal deficit (5 % weightage)
GDP Growth (5 % weightage)
Utilization of funds (5 % weightage)
Disposal of grievances (10 % weightage)

The government works for the citizens, and finally it is the citizens who are the best judge of its performance. Parameters 1-6 above can be objectively judged with data / facts, and others can be subjectively judged by the citizens under Jan Bhagidhari Assessment (JBA) through online voting.

At the end, it is the Government ‘for the people’, so the people must rate the Government on overall performance through public voting, after Government presents its self- appraisals on the points mentioned from 1-6 above.

The voting should be open for 30 days for the public to vote by a missed call from their registered mobile number on a toll free number; (60 % weightage should be assigned to public perception / judgment on performance) and 40 % on self appraisal / independent assessment by the Government.

Major change in bureaucracy is about making it a ‘performance based contractual service’: Also, one reaches the rank of Joint Secretary after a minimum service of 17 years. Joint Secretary is the actual ‘official’ who runs the show for the Government on a day-to-day basis, but if one sees the performance of the Joint Secretary, in a real sense, s/he does not feel accountable to anyone. The reality is, that now they are more driven by authority and administration and less by duty and development.

The biggest bane of bureaucracy is their job security and on one can demote them or remove them. When politicians have to go every five years for their performance review and renewing their term before the electorate, why should the top officials not undergo a review and renew based on their performance? Let us give them job security, but for performers. The Government is serious about a ‘Big Change’, and has to go and seek appraisal from the voters in 2019, but most of the bureaucrats are not as serious. They have been used to seeing government after government for decades. For them, this is all routine office work but for the Government, it is an implementation emergency. This is the only way to bridge the divide and bring about a cultural change for performance, accountability and rewards. Today, only the politicians are accountable but not bureaucrats! And it is time to change and fix the accountability based transparent review process / system.

All officers of the rank of Joint Secretary and above must be put on a 5-year contract, based on their performance review, with a performance based financial incentive for their outstanding work. So, the salary structure should have a fixed pay and a variable component . If they fail to live up to the performance standards (IPR) below 80 % for three years (out of five year term), they must be relieved. Let us not forget that the ‘Best are first to be hired and last to be fired’. So no worry for the best performers, rest should worry about themselves.

Even, Nirmal Kumar Mukarji, the last serving Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer in India who retired as Cabinet Secretary in 1980, as chief guest at the Indian Administrative Service’s 50th Anniversary celebrations 1997, had called for an end to the all-India tenured services.

Also, PS to the Minister is considered an important bureaucrat but he is a junior IAS. (below the rank of Joint Secretary), and hence s/he plays safe dealing with his seniors, as one day he might have to work under them, and the loser in this case always is the Minister. So, we need to consider that the PS to the Minister be a Special Secretary rank .

eOffice & eFile – Files are taking months to move from one table to another . e-Office / eFile concept must be implemented. No file should take more than three weeks and pass more than three levels. If there is a delay of more than a week, the note should be made on the file justifying the reasons for delay

Modi has the intent, the will and the vision and he is working really hard. Will his administrative system be able to catch up? There is a big difference in how the minister and the common man are handled by the bureaucrats. So the first impression here, should not be the last impression! Bureaucracy is slowly putting red tape to the red carpet !

Modi rightly said recently, “We cannot march through the twenty first century with the administrative systems of the nineteenth century”. If we see, we still have ‘Collectors’ in post British India, and this itself shows that the bureaucracy is still in 19^th Century! A senior IAS wrote to me, ‘Modi is ahead of time’ and I said ‘ Yes, Modi is definitely ahead of time but unfortunately, the bureaucracy is still in the 19^th century’. When Modi was thinking of Planning Commission, he made a profound statement, “Sometime it is better to build a new house than to repair the old one”. May be the same approach is needed for the ‘institution’ called bureaucracy. Do we repair the old house or / and build another one. The transition is critical and we have no time to lose. It needs to start soon and there should be a time bound plan to implement it

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

October 6, 2016

Kill Bureaucracy to save this country

How to reform Bureaucracy in India

May 29, 2016

Bureaucracy Mukt Bharat

Time to change ?

http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/steel-frame-of-bureaucracy-is-an-obstacle-to-development-its-time-to-rehaul-it/

Last year at the Economic Times Global Business Summit, finance minister Arun Jaitley had said that “the creeping acquisition of Rajya Sabha is on”. The thumping victory in Assam and an increased vote share across states show that the BJP government at the Centre is marching towards its goal. Also, the party seems closer to the goal of ‘Congress-Mukt Bharat’ after the latest assembly polls.

However, these results need introspection from all political parties. While the results have led to comments from party veterans like Digvijaya Singh’s observation that Congress needs “a major surgery” and Satyavrat Chaturvedi’s similar prognosis involving “a cardiac surgery”, the Narendra Modi government needs to conduct an open heart surgery for a ‘Bureaucrat-Mukt Bharat’. In 2014, India had voted in Modi to spearhead radical change, end corruption, execute citizen-friendly policies and administration, provide development with jobs, and lower prices.

The prime minister started well by meeting the secretaries and not his ministers. But somehow, the bureaucracy, after a while, started ignoring the ministers, as they had direct access to the PMO. I know of a minister who lost his portfolio because the secretary of the department made repeated complaints against this honest man who took a tough stand on irregularities happening in the ministry. Finally, the bureaucrat succeeded in ousting the minister.

I had a meeting with an additional secretary in the presence of a Cabinet minister. We discussed a few programmes that could be implemented on a priority basis. The additional secretary had a problem for every solution we proposed. He provided reasons as to why a major programme could not be implemented. And when we provided a workable solution for each one of his ‘problems’, he finally agreed on a timeline — without ever delivering. During the meeting, he kept flaunting that he had just returned from a meeting at the PMO.

Dragging the Nation Down
Then there was a senior technocrat in a ministry whom I met last month. He immediately told me to send him an email and promised that he would get the job done. The email was forwarded to his junior for action only after nine days! And this, despite clear instructions from the Cabinet minister a few days before. Most bureaucrats don’t seem to be bothered with the job at hand.

When people single out politicians for corruption and non-performance, I beg to differ. The bureaucracy runs the government. If the bureaucrats did their jobs well without fear or favour, we would not have straggled so far behind China. We have been terribly let down by the bureaucracy. There are always exceptions, of course. But they are far and few between.

Bureaucracy has still not got out of the officer culture that they have been used to for about 60 years of Congress rule. The role and orientation of the civil services has to change. Bureaucrats need to give up their role of ‘administrators’ and work on becoming ‘developers’.

I keep hearing that bureaucrats are afraid of taking decisions due to the fear of being hauled up by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Central Bureau of Investigation. But aren’t these institutions also in the hands of their fellow officers? Why on earth are bureaucrats afraid of bureaucrats?

It is time for the officer to learn a few lessons from the armed forces. Soldiers join the army knowing well that while working for the country, they can lose their lives. The working conditions for soldiers are not as comfortable as that of bureaucrats and neither do most of their pay scales match those of bureaucrats. And, bureaucrats are also soldiers for development and they should not worry about action against if they discharge their duty impartially and without fear or favour.

If people don’t have the passion and commitment for the country, or if they join the civil services for a job that gives them only authority as an administrator — or only for a safe job with a good retirement plan — don’t join the administrative services. Modi has a grand vision and is a man of action. So, either the bureaucrats rally behind the prime minister’s vision and implement his government’s idea of India by focusing on development with passion. Or we get rid of them.

Goodbye to Bureaucrats
Union road transportation minister Nitin Gadkari has got rid of bureaucrats in his ministry in key positions while having achieved a lot in a ministry considered tough to handle. Could Gadkari’s prowess as a minister have anything to do with the fact that his private secretary and key members of staff are from outside the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)?

So, we need to get rid of the British Raj-era kind of bureaucracy and its officer culture. Otherwise, the bureaucracy will be the biggest bottleneck for implementing the vision of the Modi government with the country paying a price it cannot afford. Fortunately, the prime minister has three years left in his current tenure. So, the next goal for the government should be a ‘Bureaucrat-Mukt Bharat’.

The writer is a public policy expert

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author’s own.

Published in The Economic Times on 28th May, 2016

March 22, 2016

Packaging sells and also kills !

We heard the famous marketing quote that , ‘ packaging sells’, but the story for most of the India’s middle class, who eat on roadside eateries is somewhat different , and the new message is ‘packaging kills’ , and more so, when food gets garnished with lead and other hazardous chemicals !

India is a foodie nation, and with the rising middle class, our eating habits are changing. There is an increasing tendency to eat food outside, and India, predominantly being a middle class nation, our preference is for road side eateries and small or mid size restaurants. But what goes unnoticed is; the newspapers used in packing food items, or the printed material on tea bags, and the potential dangers associated with them.

It is a fact, that the newspapers are printed with ink that is dissolved on it with the help of chemical solvents. Studies have shown that printing ink from newspapers can easily gets into foods wrapped or served in them and this is dangerous for health. The solvents used in ink are potentially carcinogenic.

Also, newspapers and cardboard boxes used for packaged foods are made of recycled paper, which may be contaminated with harmful chemicals like di-isobutyl phthalate and di-n-butyl phthalate that can cause digestive problems and also lead to severe toxicity.

It is a fact that the recycled paper used has printing ink residues. These un-cleaned residues have found to contain hormone disruptors like benzophenones and mineral oils which can interfere with reproductive cycle of women.

Through the print based packaging, there is an exposure to organic chemicals called aryl amines, such as benzidine, Naphthylamine and 4-Aminobiphenyl, which are associated with high risks of bladder and lung cancer. Apart from these, printing inks also contain colorants, pigments, binders, additives and photo-initiators, which have harmful effects.
It is also believed, that the mineral oil-based printing inks for newspapers contain mineral oils, which consists of various types of hydrocarbon molecules that can exist as Mineral Oil Saturated Hydrocarbons (MOSH) and Mineral Oil Aromatic Hydrocarbons (MOAH). These hydrocarbons usually convert into gases by evaporation that eventually penetrates food items.
Newspapers are usually produced by a system called offset-web printing, which requires a certain consistency of the ink (it needs to be very thick) and a particular means of drying. For the former, mineral oils (petroleum-based) and solvents such as methanol, benzene and toluene are used; and for the latter, heavy metal (Cobalt)-based drying agents are used. None of these should be used in food packaging, as they are also classified as harmful and can be dangerous for health if consumed.
According to the FAO / WHO, Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, the safe upper limit for the MOSH in foodstuffs is 0.6mg/kg. Older people, teenagers, children and people with compromised vital organs and immune system are at a greater risk of acquiring cancer-related health complications.
Another problem lies in the plastic bags used in takeaways. These bags are made of polyethylene (polythene) and the principal potential ‘migrant’ agent is ethylene. There are a number of potential additives to polythene, such as anti-static agents, ultra-violet protection and flame-retardants. These additives can be very dangerous if they find way into the takeaway food, which usually happens.
According to an article in the British Medical Journal, ‘Food packaging and migration of food contact materials: will epidemiologists rise to the neotoxic challenge? J. Epidemiol’ by Muncke J, et al. (Feb 2014), scientists say that most food contact materials (FCMs) are not inert. Chemicals contained in the FCM, such as monomers, additives, processing aids or reaction by-products, can diffuse into foods and this chemical diffusion is accelerated by warm temperature, and in India, the temperatures can touch as high as 45 degrees Celsius.
The scientists believe that FCMs are a significant source of chemical food contamination. As a result, humans consuming packaged or processed foods are chronically exposed to synthetic chemicals throughout their lives.
Formaldehyde, another known carcinogen, is widely present at low levels in plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate. Other chemicals known to disrupt hormone production and used in food and drink packaging include; Bisphenol A, tributyltin, triclosan and phthalates.
There is an increase in the use of tea bags, and while using teabags, sometimes people squeeze the teabag using the label at the end of the loop. This can leak the ink from the label. I would recommend that the guidelines be framed and implemented to warn people of the same and prevent this practice
I also suggest that based on the facts available, it might be worthwhile banning the use of plastics, recycled materials and newspapers for food packing.

The FSSAI must act immediately and frame guidelines to control wrapping of fried foods in newspapers, banning the use of plastic bags for takeaways, and other practices that are harmful.
Further, it must mandate the use of ‘food packaging grade’ butter paper or aluminum foil for packaging food. We need to act on this without losing any further time
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHealthworld.com do not necessarily subscribe to it. ETHealthworld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

About Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Rajendra Pratap Gupta is a global healthcare leader and a revered public policy expert, and is the author of the Healthcare best selling book, ‘ Healthcare Reforms in India – Making up for the lost decades’ . @rajendragupta

April 10, 2014

One chance to change our fate and of our Nation – Vote for India , vote for BJP

Please read this before you think about whom to vote for ? We cannot afford to experiment with new parties or give another chance to a privately owned political party… We need a party with a proven track record of delivering results , and that is BJP ….

State of the Nation: – A Decade of Decay

Decade under the UPA I & II can rightly be summed in one line, the ‘Decade of Decay’, in which India had a free fall on all fronts – be it economic failure, diplomatic humiliation, failure of foreign policy, intrusions across borders, corruption & scams or crimes against women. There has been gross misuse & total denigration of government & constitutional institutions and this has eroded the office of the Prime Minister. The Government dithered by each passing day, casting gloom and doom on the country that was once under the NDA regime called the ‘Emerging Super Power’. In 2004, NDA left the Government with 8.1 % growth. The UPA could not even maintain that growth and mismanaged the country so badly, that the growth rate declined to 4.8 %, with the nation in a deep mess. We have lost a wonderful opportunity and have pushed the nation 20 years behind and rendered millions jobless and hopeless.

Economy mismanaged

CAD now exceeds even 1990-91 Level – India is revisiting the crisis of 1991.

Between 2001-02 and 2003-04, the nation had a pleasant experience on balance of payments, turning surplus for continuously three years, which was unprecedented after the post-independence period. All the gains of the NDA period have been frittered away in saving the dynasty rule through various election-financing schemes

Debt Trap – A result of Wrong policies

Total public debt on India is Rs 4,606,350 crore, and the debt per capita stands at about Rs 38,000

Rising NPAs – things are going from bad to worse

Economy is slowing down and the banks are under strain. Defaults have led to NPAs almost doubling from the 2009 levels. Rs. 2.43 lac Crore of estimated NPAs are in 40 listed banks as on December 2013. Rs.4.0 Lac crore is the amount of restructured loan under the CDR scheme.

Rupee Downfall

The Indian rupee, which was at par with the American currency at the time of Independence in 1947, has touched its historic record low of below 68.80 against the dollar under the UPA

Jobs – Shrinking job market

The employment generation actually decreased sharply between 2004-05 and 2009-10, especially when compared to the earlier five-year period.

In the five years from 1999-2000 – 2004-05, NDA created 60.7 million new jobs against the 2.76 million new jobs between the years 2004-05 to 2009-10 under the UPA. Now, India is going to lose more jobs in the coming years due to the wrong policies of the UPA

Poverty & illiteracy is the result of Congress misrule

416 million poor, 316 million illiterate & more than 600 million population without toilets sums up the outcome of the economic policies followed by Congress

India continues to be one of the hungriest nations in the world & accounts for 42 per cent of the world’s underweight children.

India’s Human Development Index rank has a negative trend for the time period 2007-12, which indicates deterioration in the indicators determining the Human Development Index.

Inflation: Price rise during the UPA years – Contrary to the Global Phenomenon

Whenever it came to low rate of growth, UPA justified that it was due to global economic situation, but the same cannot be justified for the increasing food prices in India. In November 2013, the Food Prices Index fell by 4.4 % globally, while in India, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was estimated to be close to 20 % in November 2013.

On one side, we have European Union’s inflation rate declining to a four-year low, and on the other side, UPA is groping in the dark for the past decade to find a solution for inflation and deficits. Country’s growth that reached near double-digit due to initiatives of the NDA government has come down to 4.5 %, that too remained because monsoons played a face saver and there was a high growth in agriculture ( 4 %). Year 2013 had an unusually good monsoon favoring a good agricultural yield, but had the monsoons been average, the growth would have been below 3 %. It was the agriculture & not the Government Policies that saved the nation from a collapse!

The State of the Education Sector in India declining

Health and education are defining sectors for equitable human development and sustainable and inclusive economic growth of India.

Despite levying a tax to fund education and enacting a law to ensure access to education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14, the government hasn’t succeeded in improving the learning outcomes in India’s schools, because the UPA thoroughly bungled the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan initiated by the NDA.The quality of learning has either shown no improvement or actually worsened in the nine years of the UPA’s rule

Recognized as a critical element for India’s growth, the UPA government had claimed way back in its first term, that 6% of the GDP would be spent on education, which is a bare minimum for an emerging economy like ours. Nonetheless, the sector still stands at around 4% of the GDP today.

It is unfortunate, but the UPA government and the Ministry of Human Resource Development have surely missed the focus on Education and Employment, and the Research & Development expenditure has stagnated under the UPA.

Health care – India’s ticking time bomb

Healthcare is still inaccessible and unaffordable to the masses. Out of pocket spending is still high at 78 %. Goals set forth under NRHM have not been achieved and the scheme has floundered. UPA has failed to deliver health, or healthcare, despite a huge spending.

Agriculture Sector – Farmers and Farming Neglected

Due to lack of investment (both public & private) in agriculture, the share of agriculture in GDP has dropped to less than 15%. UPA has failed to increase investment, productivity & profitability of agriculture, leading to farmer suicides, migration from agriculture and widening the urban-rural divide. The Nation is left at the mercy of rain Gods!

India’s Foreign Policy – Alien to India’s strategic interests!

The past decade has witnessed, a directionless Indian Foreign Policy under the UPA I & II; of alienation and antagonism in relations with South Asian neighbours, & of international humiliation. India has been miserably failing in accomplishing its national interest due to poor diplomacy

Global Competitiveness

India has slipped to 60th position in terms of its competitiveness globally. This is India’s lowest ever rank and also 31 place below its peer emerging market -China. With regards to GCI, India is placed at 60^th position out of 148 economies

India is ranked 134^th position out of 189 countries in terms of ease of doing business

Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2012 ranked India at 94, out of 176 nations

In the global happiness-ranking list, India stands at rank 111-much after Pakistan (rank: 81) and Bangladesh (108).

Downgrade to downfall !

International rating agencies have been warning that India’s Baa3 rating is in danger of a downgrade, which has vitiated the investment climate. Any further downgrade would club the economy with junk-grade countries.

The fiscal profligacy of the UPA government has put India into a tight corner when it comes to repayment of borrowings. Government bonds worth Rs 1567 billion (Rs 1,56,700 crore) is coming up for redemption in fiscal year 2014-15 & In the fiscal years 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, government bonds worth Rs 114600 crore, Rs 231200 crore, Rs 256700 crore and Rs 242400 crore are coming up for redemption, respectively.

Where is India headed ?

Erosion of moral and societal values and governance

Crimes & corruption are on the rise across the nation and scams have impacted all the sectors like Panchayat, Housing, Education, Health, Agriculture, Mining, telecom etc. No one is untouched from corruption in the UPA regime

Corruption has become a part of the daily life. There is hardly any day when we do not come across the cases of flourishing corrupt practices getting exposed in one form or another. The policies of UPA have resulted in fast degradation of moral, societal,and cultural values

Use your right to vote to seek a change for a better India

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

February 2, 2014

Was Jawahar Lal Nehru the biggest Murderer in the history of India ?

Murderer without guilt ?

Let us examine some reports about the number of people who died when Nehru was ‘celebrating’ ! Reasons can be any , but the outcome was only one : millions were turned refugees overnight , three million died and about a hundred thousand women were raped ! What did Nehru do to stop such acts, and , did he issue an apology or take blame for what destroyed millions of families ? How can Congress have the audacity to call Modi a murderer ? The real power hungry & lusty murderer India ever produced was none else than Jawahar Lal Nehru ! Congress has lost its right to be called secular, when it divided India on communal lines in 1947.

P.N.: Inference above is based on the data quoted below, which is taken from credible sources only, and so the views are not personal but based on the data reported publicly in Media over the past years .

The best figures available suggest that about 100,000 women were abducted, mainly in Punjab. How many more were raped and killed, or casually cast aside, God only knows. (http://expressindia.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19970801/21350223.html)

India’s Partition was uniquely tragic, no matter from which side of the border one looked at it. Consider the following facts. It is estimated that anything between two lakh and 30 lakh people were killed in Partition violence. Around 70,000 women were captured, abducted and raped. (http://www.deccanherald.com/content/270909/tragedy-partition.html)

Never before or since have so many people exchanged their homes. Slaughter sometimes accompanied and sometimes prompted their movement; many others died from malnutrition and contagious diseases. Estimates of the dead vary from 200,000 (the contemporary British figure) to two million (a later Indian estimate) but that somewhere around a million people died is now widely accepted. As always there was widespread sexual savagery: about 75,000 women are thought to have been abducted and raped by men of religions different from their own. Thousands of families were divided, homes destroyed, crops left to rot, villages abandoned. Astonishingly, and despite many warnings, the new governments of India and Pakistan were unprepared for the convulsion

As many as one million civilians died in the accompanying riots. ((http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml) )

Who divided India ?

Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs lived together in relative peace and harmony. Problems of India were not solved by Partition but aggravated !

The `history’ of Partition seemed to lie only in the political developments that had led up to it.(http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/butalia-silence.html)

It is possible that Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, simply wished to use the demand for a separate state as a bargaining chip to win greater power for Muslims within a loosely federated India. Certainly, the idea of ‘Pakistan’ was not thought of until the late 1930s. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml)

Nehru, whose arrogance and insistence on the top job had alienated Jinnah, has been slapped down in a realignment of the Congress leadership: Gandhi joining forces with anti-Nehru conservatives like Sardar Patel and Chakravarty Rajagopalachari (Rajaji). Nehru had been collaborating closely with Lord ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten, sent as viceroy by the new Labour government to “cut and run” as quickly as possible. But the Nehru-Mountbatten axis is seriously discredited by a scandal about Nehru’s affair with Lady Mountbatten, including insinuations that the bisexual ‘Dickie’ was a willing participant in a menage a trios.

The partnership of Clement Attlee, Lord Mountbatten and Nehru hadn’t rushed through a premature transfer of power to satisfy their own personal and ideological ambitions?

What turned this patriotic, pro-Congress Muslim into the sectarian separatist of the 1940s? Two of his recent biographers, Ayesha Jalal, a Pakistani-American academician, and Jaswant Singh, a former foreign minister of India, have converged on the same answer: the arrogance and intransigence of Congress leaders—Nehru in particular—and the pro-Nehru bias of the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. “Partition was the last thing Jinnah wanted,” says Jalal, and she agrees with Jaswant Singh that his demand for it was essentially a bargaining ploy.

Two of Nehru’s closest colleagues have laid the blame for this breakdown squarely at his door. Maulana Azad called Nehru’s statement “one of those unfortunate events which changed the course of history”, lamenting the fact that “he is at times apt to be carried away by his feelings”. Sardar Patel, too, criticised Nehru for acting “with childlike innocence, which puts us all in great difficulties quite unexpectedly”.

Nehru himself maintained that he had acted out of the conviction that partition was preferable to a loose federation. He wanted to be master in his own house, free to implement his socialist policies through centralised economic planning; and the Muslim League, in control of large, autonomous provinces, would have been an unwelcome brake on all this. Most important of all was Nehru’s visceral hatred of Jinnah, recorded with brutal candour in his diaries: “Jinnah…offers an obvious example of an utter lack of the civilised mind. With all his cleverness and ability, he produces an impression on me of utter ignorance and lack of understanding…. Instinctively I think it is better to [have] Pakistan or almost anything, if only to keep Jinnah far away (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?287314)

We must consider that till 1940’s there was no demand for Pakistan ! So , it is clear that Nehru was the culprit and today, his DNA is doing the same ….. speaking about secularism and dividing the nation …

Also, let us not forget what Rajiv Gandhi had said justifying the mass murder of Sikhs after ‘dictator’ Indira Gandhi’s death .’ Rajiv Gandhi justified the carnage by saying that “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mani-shankar-aiyar-on-former-prime-minister-rajiv-gandhi-regime-and-death/1/138765.html

We don’t need Gandhi family led Congress at all .. Time to act sane and not repeat the history again . And while you are reading this , Congress is planning to spend over Rs. 100 crores on 125th birth anniversary of this mass murderer – Nehru ! (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-plans-slew-of-programmes-to-mark-jawaharlal-nehrus-125th-birth-anniversary/articleshow/29781854.cms)

Let us throw out the Gandhi’s , India cannot afford to have them anymore