Dr.Bamboo – Tall & impressive but hollow – Dr.Manmohan Singh


I think , Dr. Manmohan Singh is like a Bamboo . Tall & Impressive in stature , but hollow .

See what he is doing  ? All across, the country is failing but his image continues to be a hit !

China has decided to do a nuclear deal with our Pakistan ! India has failed to check it

America is not as friendly with India , as it is with Pakistan

Inflation is going up and the government is clueless

Naxalites control 1/6th of India

This government is a failed government and BJP is not reining in the government ! I fail to understand why BJP is not addressing the important issues !!

Dr. Manmohan Singh is the Bamboo Prime Minister !! Time to raise voice and get the right issues addressed

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email : office@rajendragupta.in

3 G & BWA Auctions – Things could have been done in a better way


Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi

Chairman

Public Accounts Committee

Government of India

6 , Raisena road , New Delhi 110001

Dear Dr.Joshi,

I am sure this finds you fine .It was really nice talking to you yesterday. I wish to submit the following for your kind consideration

Recently , the government has raised Rs. 1.06 Lac Crore from the 3 G & BWA auctions. Though it is a different issue that the government was expecting a modest Rs. 32000.00 Crore from the auction ! The following should be considered

  1. What was the basis of the government’s projections ? Was it a failure on the part of the government that the proceeds of the auctions exceeded by 3 times of the projections from the government ?  This clearly gives a reason to believe that there was a systemic failure on the part of the government and it shows up in government’s failure to arrest price rise ( inflation )
  2. Was the spectrum auction and sale the best option ?
  3. If the government went for a zero price or nominal booking price,  and allotted spectrum for the entire India as one circle with say a 25 % – 30 % of the recurring revenue share from the telecom providers, would it not be better in serving the interest of the government in the long term ? It would have eventually generated much higher return per year and every year rather than one a time high auction fee ! What was the basis of deciding one time auction fee with an expected collection of Rs.32000 crore ?  This money ( Rs.1.06 lac crore ) might give temporary sound bites to Pranab Da ( and the PM ) for no efforts of his or Mr. Raja . But the fact is that , it will put a strain on the telecom companies and will also suck the liquidity from the markets . This will also cause a long term loss to the government as it could have gained immensely , had it gone for a lower or zero initial fee and a larger share in the recurrent revenue from the telecom providers. This is a myopic policy of this government and a big loss to the exchequer
  4. What was the total loss in previous auctions done in arbitrary allocation of telecom spectrum, and what is the progress in the CBI investigation ? Why has the FIR lodged by the CBI not named anyone ? When the senior most minister or the bureaucrat should be named in the FIR , what has prompted the CBI to lodge the FIR against unnamed persons ?
  5. Since Rs.10.6 Lac Crore is already raised through the auctions, i suggest that the government allocates the 10 % the money raised in India Innovation and Entrepreneurship fund to promote innovation and entrepreneurship amongst youth of the nation

I am sure you will take up these matters in appropriate forums . We look at your leadership in addressing some important issues concerning the nation .

With best regards

Rajendra

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email: office@rajendragupta.in

Office.rajendra@gmail.com

High GDP but low GDP per capita – Time to give a public explanation – the Congress and the Opposition


If we see , India’s GDP is growing but the majority of the population is not prospering . Why ??

Let us consider this

The quarterly growth report card shows that Mining and Manufacturing contributed between 18-22 % of the GDP  in the Q 1 , 2010 numbers released last week.( Remember mining is concentrated in a few government PSU’s or some mining barons like Reddy’s of Karnataka etc )

Exports are roughly 13  % of the GDP

Agriculture contributes 20 % of the GDP  ( Supporting 60 + % of the population )

My view is that,  the decline in agriculture & growth in mining can be related directly to the growth of Naxalism , as one creates a naxalites and the other nurtures it !!

Rate of growth of yields per unit area in Agriculture  has fallen in:

Food grains from 3.39 % in 1992-93 to 1.39 % in 2001-02

Non-Food grains from 3.19 % to -0.57 %

According to the Economic survey between 1980-81- 2001-02 the capital formation in agriculture has fallen from 3.4 % to 1.3 %

FDI in Agriculture was never encouraged or focussed – Announcements does not matter Dr. Manmohan Singh ji ?

Between 2002-08, population growth has been 1.4 %  and the labour force has been growing at 1.9 %

According to the World Bank Development report

Between 1988 to 2008( 20 years ) as a percentage of GDP the :

Agriculture sector decreased from 30.5 % to 17.3 , whereas 65 % of the population depends on agriculture

Industry grew from 26.2 % to 28.8 % ( Population & people employable has been growing faster )

Manufacturing decreased from 16.2 % to 15.1 %

Services increased from 43.4 % to 54.6 % ( Private sector contributed to this )

Household final consumption expenditure decreased from 65.8 % to 54.1 %

Imports of goods and services increased  from 7.5 % to 28 %

Yesterday , in the Times of India , the Finance Ministry’s chief Economic Advisor said that GDP growth of 8.9 % in the Q 1 of 2010-11 was due to robust growth in capital goods and consumer good production

Does it not look like some Middle eastern countries , where the GDP is very high but GDP per capita is less,  as the high GDP is due to mineral oil wealth , and low GDP per capita is due to the fact that the oil wells are in the hands of a few royal families !! In India , Mining , Exports and trade is in a few hands and the focus , incentive and investment is maximum from the government !! For Agriculture , we all do not depend on the government but on the Rain Gods !!

BJP must act as a responsible opposition . The current state of affairs is not just a failure of the ruling front,  but of the entire opposition . Public demands an explanation from both !

What is government doing ? Bhopal Gas tragedy GOM’s is just an issue to divert the attention from real burning concerns of the public

Politicians are addressing 90 % urgent matters and 10 % important matters.

Time to act responsibly and explain or else both Congress and the opposition would be damned in the next election

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email: office@rajendragupta.in

India & China : New Super power and the next crisis state


India and China are headed for a new challenge . India has all the ingredients to qualify as the next super power . Unlike the US , Which has arrogated for itself the ‘Big brother’ status , and almost failed as a ‘Responsible super power’. China might have a big ‘Trade Surplus’ but has a huge  ‘Credibility deficit’. With no other credible alternative , it is for sure,  that India can work towards being the next ‘Responsible Super power’ by 2025

China is on the way to be become the victim of the ‘economic crisis’ that has already hit the USA & Europe, and for sure , now its China’s turn !!

Wait and watch

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email : office@rajendragupta.in

Pakistan , Pakistan Spy’s & Indian Fatwa’s


It is an established fact that,  Pakistan does not use funds that it seeks from US for the purpose that they are given. The funds are used for funding terror in India ,U.K. & the U.S.

It Is the right time that India asks for foreign observers ( Including and Indian representation ) to oversee and audit the use of any foreign fund in Pakistan

Also , we have seen two cases of Pakistan setting its strong hold in the Indian armed forces . We have just caught two of them ( Mrs. Gupta & Mr. Prasad ). I believe that there might be 100’s of such Pakistani moles within the Indian establishment and not just in forces and bureaucracy but also beyond . Time to act fast . Kargil , i believe , happened due to such a nexus !!

Also, over the last few weeks , i have see a lot of Fatwa’s issued by non-judicial entities . Why is our ‘Supreme’ court not taking a Suo moto action ?  It should be made a rule that no religious entity can issue any FATWA or order that goes against the fundamental rights enshrined in our constitution and the laws of the land . If anyone dares to do that , he or she must be tried for challenging the law of the land !!

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email : office@rajendragupta.in

Demystifying the Congress Report card


Clueless government

The 3G auction was expected to raise about Rs.32000.00 crore and it raised about Rs.69000.00 crore !! Normally , the statistical error is expected to be + or – 5 % , and that is the standard accepted level of error. If the government’s projections were left behind by a whopping 100 % , what do you call such a government ? Pranab da can rejoice , but not because of his colleagues or his planning !!

Same happens for inflation : Since the UPA government has taken over in May 2009, the inflation has touched double digits , Government talks like an astrologer that the inflation will come down in the next 6 months ( and this has been the talk for the last one year !! ). It does not tell why and how will the inflation come down ? Also, what is the government doing to bring the inflation down ? The government is heavily depending upon the divine intervention ( rain God’s ). When government launched the Maoist offensive , it was clueless that the entire battalion would be wiped off !! It just expressed its regrets !!

All this goof up when our PM is an Economist from Oxford, Home Minister from Harvard and Montek from World Bank  + we have a lot of professors from Cornell etc. ……………….All theory and no practicality !!

Education reforms : How many people in India actually use or even remember the knowledge of what they study from 10th class till their graduation ? I for sure , did not use my B.Sc degree ( except that for some weird reasons , since graduation was the basic requirement , i have done both the B.Sc and B.A. (Hon’s, Social Sciences ) and even M.A. Prev !! ). I talked to a good number of my ‘well placed’ friends, and they had the same response . That that qualifications did not matter or help them professionally . Majority of the Indian population study for the sake of getting degrees which finally , makes them either ‘highly qualified’ or ‘not with relevant experience’ category . We must look at mapping the ‘Knowledge gaps’ and ‘Skill gaps’ and then do the reforms in education . We are just manufacturing Degree holders and not creating any knowledge pool that has monetary value . Some degrees in graduation should be scrapped totally . We are wasting our time & killing our talent !! Time to understand what India needs ? In most of the company boards i sit , i find that my CEO / M.D. is not able to find the right ( competent ) talent at the lowest level for the job ? Because of this , all major companies lose out . On one side , we talk about unemployment and over a billion population , and on the other side , we are having acute shortage of skilled manpower ? Do we need educational reforms or ‘Skill development programs’ ? Countries like Finland , Israel etc with just a population between 5 to 7 million have more productivity per capita (PPC – sorry if you did not hear this word before !! I coined it in Indian  context ) than India . Unless , India addresses PPC in education reforms , churning out more degrees holders will just add to ‘Educated Naxalites’ in the next 5 years

Demystifying BPL or the Below Poverty line : According to Suresh Tendulkar committee report , poverty line for the rural areas is Rs. 15 and Rs. 19 in Urban areas. Whereas , according to Arjun Das Gupta , any one earning less than Rs. 20 per day falls below the poverty line ( Please correct me for my lack of knowledge ) What can you get in Rs. 20 per day per person ( Tea one cup Rs. 2 , Lunch Rs 10 , Tea evening Rs. 2 Dinner Rs. 10 ) This is the cheapest meal option ( Though ,i still have to find a stall that can serve you such cheap meals ).

Also , with this , i must highlight the following daily requirements:

1. Breakfast – 5 Rs.

2. Lunch – 10 Rs.

3. Evening tea and something to eat – 5 Rs.

4. Dinner – 10 Rs.

5. Clean water to drink , and taking care of the basic hygienic – 2 Rs.

6. Clothes to wear with washing Rs. 5 Per day ( atleast 1500 per year – two sets of an upper garment and an under garment and daily washing will need a minimum earning of Rs. 5 day )

7. Healthcare & Savings for unforeseen contingencies ( Rs. 5 per day )

8. Travel for going to take meals or get to work for earning the daily subsistence is not accounted for

9. Shelter to sleep, with bed sheet and seasonal clothing for winter and rain – 5 Rs / day

So, one needs atleast Rs. 37-50 per day to stay alive on the basics necessities of life On what basis the government calculates the PBL .

I think what C.K. Prahalad mentioned as the ‘Fortune at the bottom of pyramid ‘ , i will phrase it as ‘Unfortunate at the bottom of Pyramid’. The government’s basic responsibility is to create ‘Fortunate at the bottom of the pyramid, and than think of Fortunate and the fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid ‘

Our current Prime Minister is a typical case of good brand and poor performance !!

Time to think practically, and work more Dr.Singh  !!

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Email: office@rajendragupta.in

Pakistan is a Schizophrenic Nation


Via Email with CC to Rahul Gandhi , Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi & Sonia Gandhi

Dr. Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister

Government of India

New Delhi 110001

Dear Dr.Singh,

This has reference to your initiative of the talks with Pakistan

It is a good thing that the talks will resume . The bigger question is , if this is good for something or good for nothing ?

Put three pre-conditions for the talks to start

  1. 1. Handover Dawood Ibrahim
  2. 2. Maulana Masood Azhar, Jaish-e-Mohammad leader
  3. 3. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed (LeT)

If Pakistan is sincere , it will hand over these three terrorists or else , it will continue its talk , shoot & blame the Taliban policy . And one fine day , we will be shocked to see that Pak nukes will be used against India and we might be wiped out of the map !! Pakistan will just blame the same on Taliban  and express regrets . Above mentioned three Pakistan agents cum terrorists are the key to end Taliban and its activities, and anything less than these three terrorists being handed over to India is a compromise with the security of Indians and underplaying the nuisance value of  Pakistan in future

Please do not take Pakistan on face value . You cannot expect a habitual offender to reform with just a dialogue . Pakistan is a schizophrenic nation

Diplomacy does not work with Pakistan . History has repeated and defeated itself when it comes to Pakistan

Take Pakistan seriously to avoid more troubles . I hope that you might not like to defend another 26/11 in the times ahead .

With best regards

Rajendra

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

President

Countryfirst

Email:  President@countryfirst.org

view point


Talks with Pakistan resume

Recently , our economist turned Congress’s Prime Minister announced that the foreign minister level talks will resume with Pakistan . It is quite a shock knowing that Pakistan is not even sparing USA Why will it leave India ? I am worried that one day Pakistan will fire the nukes at India and express a sincere apology stating that Taliban did it and it was not a state sponsored / supported act .  It is high time that India asks Pakistan to hand over its most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and then starts any talks . This will be the best proof of Pakistan’s commitment to India

IPL :

All those who are looking forward to action on IPL scam are fooling themselves. This issue will die a natural death as lot many senior politicians of all major political parties are involved .

Loss of food grains due to poor storage

Sharad Pawar’s made a statement that India is wasting Rs.58000.00 worth food grains due to poor storage conditions . This is the second term as a Agriculture minister for congress led government . Have they not planned for the same ? Are we hinting something ? It is high time that opposition takes the government to task and arrests this wastage . The government must come clean on this loss to the exchequer and the resultant loss for the public

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

from CSR to ISR


Thanks  Paritosh,

Keep up your good work. I hope that the article is as per your request on the issue of Naxalites . Though , i have covered other issues as well.

Here is what i want to do next . Your newsletter reaches out to 2 lac people . Let’s bounce this to them and build upon this

For a prosperous India – Fixing accountability is the biggest challenge and how we can address it

All the money that we pay as taxes is frolicked by these politicians without any questioning or accountability

Consider  these examples :

  1. Air India & Indian airlines ( NACIL ) will lose this year Rs. 4500 crore . Does the public realise that we will pay for these loses from our pocket as increased taxes on our fuel , service tax , property tax etc ? The parliamentary committee has asked the Ministry to pay for these loses as they have resulted from a wrong decision to merge these two incompatible airlines . Should we not sell it off to avoid thousands of Crores as loses ?
  2. BSNL will lose a lot of money this year . While all private telecom players are making money and some are even open to acquiring foreign telecom companies . Why is BSNL losing money ? What has the government done to make it profitable ?
  3. Dr. Manmohan Singh , Our ‘honest but inefficient’ PM & his team delayed the auction of the 3G spectrum by almost two years which would fetch our nation some Rs.30,000.00 crore. This delay caused our nation a loss of atleast Rs.6000.00 Crores . Now imagine that it was just an action of air waves with no hard infrastructure to be built in ? This year 8 new services were added in the budget to raise another Rs.3000 crore . We as citizens will pay newer and more taxes for the inefficiency of these leaders ? Who is responsible for this loss to the citizens ?
  4. 7 out of 11 major projects announced by Mamta Banerjee have been given to West Bengal . This is when it will take another five years to connect the nation by railways ? No one asked her to justify the reasoning behind such an allocation !!
  5. Last year , in the budget ,  the health minister announced National Urban Health Mission and allocated money for the same . This year , the project was shelved . Why was this announced in the first place ?  No one has questioned why it was shelved
  6. Austerity drive for the bureaucrats & political leaders is over . Now they can travel business class.  On what basis has this decision been taken when we are falling short of budgeted revenue by thousands of Crores ? Public does not realise that it is our hard earned money that is being wasted. Domestic travel is on an average an 2 hours flight . Why should business class be offered at all. Infact, it should only be Economy class
  7. Mayawati is installing statues from the money that people like you and me pay as taxes.
  8. All ministers spend the largesse in their home constituency , while they represent the nation . They are biased .  Why are they not questioned and removed ?

Now the question is , do these politicians realise that it is not their personal money ?

Most importantly , do the people know that directly or indirectly we are paying for all this  from our hard earned money ? It is the money we pay as taxes that goes in such spending .

Every minute a politicians remains in office and every inch he or she moves , is funded by our money . Why do we not hold them accountable ?

I think , we need to form a tax payers association and ask these reckless spenders on everything they do that is a loss to us ?

We are paying more for food , fuels and more taxes with every year passing by, but there is no improvement in our lives . Nation is plagued by ‘Powerful announcement and powerless execution’

We cannot take all this with our eyes open and mouths closed.

Let us initiate the ‘Tax Payers Association’ and create education , awareness about all these and fix the accountability . Let’s fix this inefficient and corrupt national leadership  . it is time to change ‘CSR – Corporate social responsibility ‘ into ISR – ‘Individual’s social responsibility’

It is our people, our money and our nation . Let’s not sleep anymore

I had discussions with Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary , CAIT – largest traders body with 5000 Supporting organizations and he is keen to take this idea further.

Let’s do it

Best regards

Rajendra

Growth, Recession & Realities


Dear Blog Readers,
Thanks for your continuous feedback .
I am attempting to address the issues that you have talked about .
Over the last few months, i have been reading a lot about inflation , double digit growth and so on………………..
We need to understand the real issues a little deeper and better if we wish to do something worthwhile for this nation
Consider the following :

A few decades back , government thought that nationalization was in the best interest of this nation and it nationalised the airlines , banks etc…….Now after a few decades , privatization is considered in the best interest of the nation !!!
The government was cursing the huge population in 80”s and termed it as  ‘Population Explosion’ . Now the government is talking of the demographic dividend , because everyone across the world is  talking about the same ! We are having the government that does not have original ideas but have copy cat versions or China inspired & induced growth !
What is the government doing to convert ‘No productivity jobs into low productivity jobs and finally into high productivity jobs’ Every district should focus on productivity  . People do not reason the government and never questions the actions and government even does not know if it is doing the right things .
Look at these facts

Between 2010 and 2020, India will add 120 million people in the ‘working age population’ . It will also add 43 Million senior citizens to its population . Does the  government have a concrete plan to address this ?
If we do not plan for 120 million people that we are adding to the working age population , we will be provoking between 10-30 % of them into naxalites or anti-social elements . Imagine , 12-36 million gun wielding naxalites !!
If there is no growth , it does not lead to poverty . It either leads to ill health  & evil minds . Which is more disastrous than poverty   In the next 10 years , some parts of India will become more developed than they are today. We will become a more materialistic nation in places like Mumbai , Goregaon , Bangalore , Pune etc…………….. Media would have exposed this ‘Have not’s’ to this material world .This will lead to aspirations in youth for a better life style, and with no means to make it to this elite league with legitimate means , the criminal route to making money will lead to more extortion , more drug lords and criminals in politics – GDP growth can be 8.5 % or 10 % but criminal activity will growth much faster under such conditions . There is no doubt on this . India will become a naxalite factory and will surpass Pakistan in producing anti-social elements
GDP attributable to agriculture is de-growing , GDP attributable to services and industry is growing . Agriculture not only supports 57 % of the work force & has low productivity per capita but has to feed the 1.2 Billion population else , we know the triple digit inflation that will strike India by 2050.
Agricultural productivity can go up if we bring down the cost of logistics from the current of 16 %. Worldwide , it is around 9  % …………. Government must plan in detail how to boost the agricultural productivity
We are treading a difficult path and the “demographic dividend will become a ‘demographic disaster’ or the ‘Demographic bomb’.

People with many educational degrees ( Indian experts from USA  recruited by the government as advisors ) are working for people with no degrees (poor population ) . So they do not identify the real problem leave alone addressing the issues . Recently , i have heard about the food coupons being distributed to the BPL families . What a joke ? BPL people do not know how to read and write & also this is bound to be misused ( 10 paisa of every 10 rupees will reach the BPL families )
Few fundamentals have to change .

India has not to change , Indians have to change .

Made in India has to become made in ‘rural India’

We are talking of CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility ) but what we need is ISR –(Individual’s Social Responsibility )

We are all talking of divestment . The government is looking to raise Rs.40,000.00 crore through divestment but  why is government not looking at investing back 10 % of the divestment money to build another PSU that can yield returns disproportionate on its investments ? How about setting up the Solar Energy Corporation of India or the Hydro Power corporation of India ?  Build them now . Don’t just sell
Governments tax collection targets have been missed by around Rs. 40000 crore, i am sure that divestment target is also going to be missed !! Where will be the GDP deficit be in 2011-12 ?
Indian government has not just to create jobs ( employment ) but also create entrepreneurs . It has to think inside the box only ( forget out of box ). Imagine , if different cities with tourism potential start training tourist guides , taxi drivers and listing  them on a central website . People travelling to these towns can avail the services of the government approved guides at the pre-decided rates & can pay in advance through the website . The money can be transferred electronically directly to the service provider after a referral cut ( government can retail 20 % &  transfer 80 % money). Safety & savings for tourists and income for self employed people .
Back to my favourite recession & India :

Why did recession in the USA / Europe not affect India so much  Or you all believed that government was able to protect India from recession effectively ? Think about this report
Times of India , 17th March 2010. According to the WHO – UNICEF report ,58 % of all the people in the world who defecate in the open are in India . 638 Million people in India have no access to toilets . Will India, with such living conditions ever get effected by recession ? The same government could not control inflation . Imagine how they can control affects of recession – they faked the efforts and impacts and we all believed it like fools !
In 62 years after Independence , we have more than 60 % population having no access to ( toilets ) hygiene , 2/3rd of the population living in absolute poverty , 1/6th of the nation living in naxalites controlled areas . And we are already a “recession proof” India . Entire India has still not felt the impact of growth except a few urban towns , so recession hitting us is a joke ?
By the way , next few days will show India conquering the world as ‘ BHARTI is acquiring an African Telecom Giant’. Read all the headlines …………………………..
While you read these headlines , more than 50 % of India will go to sleep without a meal ………………………..
And also, according to the government , the austerity drive for Indian government  is over & our babu’s and politico’s can fly business class, so finally , India is out of recession & on a high growth phase
Rajendra Pratap Gupta
Email : Office@rajendragupta.org