Is there a demographic dividend or demographic nightmare in India?

Posted by: "karmayog - tanya"

Extracts from

DNA: Reform by stealth, the original sin of 1991, has come back to haunt us:
August 06, 2012

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interview_reform-by-stealth-the-originalsin-of-199\
1-has-come-back-to-haunt-us_1724348-all

Reform by stealth, the originalsin of 1991, has come back to haunt us.... Vivek
Kaul

India badly needs a second generation of economic reforms. But that doesn't seem
to be happening. "What makes reforms more difficult now is what I call the
original sin of 1991. What happened from 1991 and thereon was reform by stealth.
Never was an attempt made to articulate to the Indian voter why we are doing
this. What is the sort of the intellectual or the real rationale for this? Why
is it that we must open up?" says Vivek Dehejia, economics professor at Carleton
University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also a regular economic commentator on India
Ink, The New York Times's "first-ever country-specific" online content offering.
In this interview, he speaks to Vivek Kaul.

Does the fiscal deficit of India worry you?

If you look at some shorter- to medium-term challenges, then things like fiscal
deficit and the current account deficit are things to worry about. Again, other
things like the weak rupee, the weak FDI data, things that people tend to fixate
at... - but those at best are symptoms of a deeper structural problem. The
deeper concern is the kind of reform that will require a major legislative
agenda such as labour law reform, for example, to unlock our manufacturing
sector. And managing the huge demographic dividend that we are going to get in
the form of 300-400 million young people. They will have to be educated.

But is there a demographic dividend?

That's the question. Will it become a demographic nightmare? Can you imagine the
social chaos if you have all these kids just wandering around, not educated
enough to get a job, what are they going to do? It's a recipe for social
disaster. That, according to me, is going to be a real litmus test. If we are
able to navigate that, then I don't see why we wouldn't be on track to again go
back to 8-9% economic growth. I want to remain optimistic at the end of the day.

Interviewer Kaul is a writer and can be reached at vivek.kaul@...

URL:
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interview_reform-by-stealth-the-originalsin-of-199\
1-has-come-back-to-haunt-us_1724348-all

In India, the richer you are, the less likely you are to vote

Posted by: "karmayog - tanya"

Extracts from
DNA: Reform by stealth, the original sin of 1991, has come back to haunt us:
August 06, 2012

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interview_reform-by-stealth-the-originalsin-of-199\
1-has-come-back-to-haunt-us_1724348-all

India badly needs a second generation of economic reforms. But that doesn't seem
to be happening. "What makes reforms more difficult now is what I call the
original sin of 1991. What happened from 1991 and thereon was reform by stealth.
Never was an attempt made to articulate to the Indian voter why we are doing
this. What is the sort of the intellectual or the real rationale for this? Why
is it that we must open up?" says Vivek Dehejia, economics professor at Carleton
University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also a regular economic commentator on India
Ink, The New York Times's "first-ever country-specific" online content offering.
In this interview, he speaks to Vivek Kaul.

So, are you suggesting that the next generation of reforms in India will happen
only if there is an economic crisis?

I don't want to say that. Again that could be one interpretation from the
arguments I am making of the history. It will require a change in the political
equilibrium and certainly a crisis is one thing that can do that. But a more
benign way the same thing can happen without a crisis is the realisation of the
political actors that, 'Look, I can make economic reform and economic growth
electorally a winning policy for me.' But India is a land of so many paradoxes.
A norm of the democratic political theory in the rich countries - that is to
say, the US, Canada, Great Britain and the like - is that other things being
equal, the richer you are, the more educated you are, the more likely you are to
vote. In India, it is the opposite. The urban middle class is the more
disengaged politically. They feel cynical. They feel powerless. Until they
become more politically engaged, that change in the equilibrium cannot happen.

What about the rural voter?

The rural voter at least in the short run might benefit from an NREGA (the
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and will say, 'You are
giving me money and I will keep voting for you'. We have all heard people say
they (rural people) are uneducated and ignorant. No, it's not like that. He (the
rural voter) is in a very liquidity-constrained situation. He is looking to the
next crop, the next harvest, the next 'I-got-to-pay-my-bills'.If someone gave
him 100 days of employment and gives him a subsidy, he will take it.

Reform by stealth has come back to haunt us

Posted by: "karmayog - tanya"
Extracts from
DNA: Reform by stealth, the original sin of 1991, has come back to haunt us:
August 06, 2012

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interview_reform-by-stealth-the-originalsin-of-199\
1-has-come-back-to-haunt-us_1724348-all

Reform by stealth, the originalsin of 1991, has come back to haunt us.... Vivek
Kaul

India badly needs a second generation of economic reforms. But that doesn't seem
to be happening. "What makes reforms more difficult now is what I call the
original sin of 1991. What happened from 1991 and thereon was reform by stealth.
Never was an attempt made to articulate to the Indian voter why we are doing
this. What is the sort of the intellectual or the real rationale for this? Why
is it that we must open up?" says Vivek Dehejia, economics professor at Carleton
University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also a regular economic commentator on India
Ink, The New York Times's "first-ever country-specific" online content offering.
In this interview, he speaks to Vivek Kaul.

How do you see overall Indian economy right now?

The way I would put it is, if I take a long-term view, a generational view, I am
pretty optimistic. The fundamentals of savings and investments are strong.

What about a more short-term view?

If you take a shorter view of between six months to a year or even two years
ahead, then everything that we have been reading about in the news is worrisome.
Foreign direct investment or FDI is drying up. The savings rate seems to have
been dropping. The economic growth we know has dropped. The next fiscal year we
would lucky if we get 6.5% economic growth.

How do we account for the failure of this particular government to deliver
crucially needed second-generation economic reforms?
The India story is a glass half-empty or a glass half-full.If you look at the
media's treatment of the India story, particularly international media's, they
tend to overshoot. So two years ago we were being overhyped. I remember that the
Economist had a famous cover where they said that India will overtake China's
growth rate in the next couple of years. They made that bold prediction. And
then about a year later they were saying that India is a disaster. What has
happened to the India story? The international media tends to overshoot. And
then they overdo it in the negative direction as well. A balanced view would say
that original hype was excessive. We cannot do nor would we want to do what
China is doing. With our democratic system, our pluralistic democracy, the India
that we have, we cannot marshal resources like the way the Chinese do, or like
the way Singapore did.

Could you discuss that in detail?

If you take a step back, historically, many of the East Asian growth miracles,
the Latin American growth miracles, were done under brutal dictatorial regimes,
be it Chile, Taiwan, Singapore or Hong Kong. They all did it under authoritarian
regimes.

So the India story is unique. We are the only large emerging economy to have
emerged as a fully fledged democracy the moment we were born as a post-colonial
state and that is an incredibly daring thing to do. At the time when the
Constituent Assembly was figuring out what are we going to do now
post-Independence, a lot of conservative voices were saying, 'don't go in for
full-fledged democracy' where every person, man or a woman, gets a vote because
'you will descend down into pluralism and identity-based politics and so on'. Of
course, to some extent, it's true. In a country with a large number of poor
people, which is also a fully fledged democracy, the centre of gravity
politically is going to be towards redistribution and not towards growth. So any
government has to reckon with the question: where are your votes? In other
words, the market for votes and the market for economic reform do not always
correlate.

You talk about authoritarian regimes and growth going together.
This is one of the oldest debates in social sciences. It is a very unsettled and
a very controversial one. For any theory you can give on one side, there is an
equally compelling argument on the other side. So the orthodox view in political
science particularly more than economics was put forward by Samuel Huntington.
The view was that you need to have some sort of political control, you cannot
have a free-for-all, and (you need to) marshal resources, savings rate and
investment rate that high growth demands.

So Huntington was supportive of the Chinese model of growth?
Yes. Huntington famously was supportive of the Chinese model and suggested that
was what you had to do at an early stage of economic development. But there are
equally compelling arguments on the other side as well. The idea is that
democracy gives a safety valve for discontent, unhappiness or popular expression
to disapproval of whatever the government or the regime is doing. We read about
the growing number of mysterious incidents in China where you can infer that
people are rioting. But we are not exactly sure because the Chinese system also
does not allow for a free media. Also, let's not forget that China has had
growing inequalities of income and growth, and massive corruption scandals. The
point being that China, too, for its much wanted economic efficiency, also has
kinds of problems which are not much different from the ones we face.

That's an interesting point you make.

Here again, another theory or idea can help us interpret what is going on. When
you have a period of rapid economic growth and structural transformation of an
economy, you are almost invariably going to have massive corruption. It is
almost impossible to imagine that you have this huge amount of growth taking
place in a relatively weak regulatory environment where there isn't going to be
an opportunity for corruption. It doesn't mean that it is okay or it doesn't
mean that one condones it, but if you look throughout history, it's always been
the case that in the first phase of rapid growth and rapid transformation, there
has been corruption, rising inequalities and so on.

Can you give us an example?

The famous example is the so-called American gilded age. In the United States,
after the end of the Civil War (in the 1860s) came the era of the Robber Barons.
These people who are now household names - the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers,
the Carnegies, the Mellons -were basically Robber Barons. They were called that,
of course, because how they operated was pretty shady even according to the
rules of that time.

Why are the second-generation reforms not happening?

What makes reforms more difficult now is what I call the original sin of 1991.
We had a first phase of the economic reforms in 1991 when we swept away the
worst excesses of the licence-permit raj. We opened up the product markets. But
what happened from 1991 and thereon was reform by stealth - reform by the stroke
of the pen, and reform in a mode of crisis. There was never an attempt made to
articulate to the Indian voter why we are doing this. What is theintellectual or
the real rationale for this? Why is it that we must open up? It wasn't good
enough to say, 'Look, we are in a crisis. Our gold reserves have been mortgaged.
Our foreign exchange reserves are dwindling.' Again India's is hardly unique on
this. Wherever you look, whether Latin America or Eastern Europe, it generally
takes an economic crisis to usher in a period of major economic reform.

So, is the original sin still haunting us?

The original sin has come back to haunt us because the intellectual basis of
further reform is not even on anyone's agenda. Discussions and debates on reform
are more focused on issues like 'the FDI is falling', 'the rupee is falling',
'the current account deficit is going up', etc. Those are all symptoms of a
problem. The two bursts of reform that we had first were first under
Rao-Manmohan Singh and then under the NDA (National Democratic Alliance;
1999-2004; Vajpayee was then Prime Minister, and Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant
Singh were successive finance ministers in his Cabinet).

If a case had been made to build a constituency for economic reform, then I
think we would have been in a different political economy than we are now. But
the fact that didn't happen and things were going well, the economy was growing,
that led to a situation where everybody said, 'Let's carry on'. But now we don't
have that luxury. Now, whichever government comes to power in 2014, it is going
to have to make some tough decisions that their electoral base isn't going to
like necessarily. So how are they going to make their case?

Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad
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Posted by: "info@..."

From: IAC-Mumbai <iac.mumbai.vora@...>

INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION - THE WAY AHEAD

For almost 65 long years, India citizens have been struggling to realize the
dream of the Mahatma and many other revered freedom fighters. This dream has
been to create 'all inclusive' citizen centric national systems and
institutions, which will respond positively to the ever growing/changing needs
of the citizens. A lot has been achieved for a population that has tripled in
the given time frame but India finds itself wanting more than just political
freedom and some economic prosperity. Even these have failed to reach a majority
of the citizens, in spite of India giving itself an amazing Constitution, which
makes the citizens the 'owners of the nation' and therefore supreme at every
level. The era of selfless and nationalistic leaders did not blossom to achieve
the dream stated above, due to selfish behavior of some of those in corporate,
political and administrative power. A series of ever growing scams, cronyism,
misuse of power-money-muscle and corruption of all kinds, going back to most of
the 65 years, have caused serious setback in the natural growth of the nation of
120 Crore citizens. The failure of the governance systems and national
institutions, to address these serious problems, caused the creation of a
national movement called India Against Corruption (IAC), during November 2010.

India finds itself at almost the bottom on most 'global development indices' due
to serious shortcoming in: Corruption Laws, Electoral Reforms, Judicial Reforms,
Police Reforms, Gram Panchayat Reforms, Nagar Raj Reforms, De-centralization,
Taxation Reforms, Education Reforms and Food Security among others. While the
political parties, many elected leaders and selected administrators, did work on
all of the above national issues, unfortunately the results fail to deliver
substantial relief to majority of the citizens, who find themselves unable to
benefit from national development. Dedicated and selfless citizens find
themselves isolated and targeted at all levels across the country, such that
Activists find themselves incapable of moving the nation in the right direction
in spite of isolated instances of bringing justice to the troubled citizens. IAC
took up the issue of rampant corruption and framed a 'new draft bill' for a
strong anti-corruption law (Lokpal at the centre and Lokayukt at the state
level). Such a bill has been pending for some 44 years. The main protagonists of
IAC were the same persons who had worked in the national governance systems and
therefore knew its systemic shortcomings. Many Activists across India, old and
new, became Volunteers to take forward the national movement called IAC. Shri
Anna Hazare who had already worked with some of them for the RTI statute and who
had caused the removal of some powerful corrupt politicians and administrators,
was the natural choice for leading the IAC movement. A parallel movement to
control and bring back black money stashed abroad, was taken up by Yogi Shri
Baba Ramdev.

IAC Volunteers with Anna developed a Mahatma type national andolan/agitation to
take forward this draft bill. It was pointed out to the politicians and
administrators that the 'owners of the nation' had woken up and wanted a strong
Lokpal and Lokayukt law to control corruption, punish the perpetrators, recover
the loot in a time bound manner with existing systems/institutions, working
synchronously. The agitation, peaceful in all respects, with Anna and Baba in
the forefront, took the nation by storm, was widely reported in the local and
national Media and digital world. For some time the political parties and the
current national Government were forced to admit the urgent need for such law
and took a few positive steps in that direction, under pressure of repeated
satyagrah. However, in spite of many promises by some of the Government leaders
and some in Parliament, the outcome is found to be zero.

The stand of the 'owners of the nation' to make the 'servants of the nation'
work for greater national good and fine tune the national institutions has only
lead to false promises, incessant delays and more of the 3D poison (Deny, Divide
and Divert). Extreme forms of satyagrah have failed to move the tainted and
criminal among the elected and selected officials in Government and Parliament.
It seems the dedicated and selfless among them are a helpless minority. The
India Constitution requires the Parliament and State Assemblies to pass laws and
make required changes. The only constitutional path available before the nation
is now to send more selfless and capable persons into the Parliament and State
Assemblies, to persuade citizens to avoid the tainted, to correct the
system/institutions and bring in effective reforms that keep the citizens at the
centre for all types of projects and plans.

Continuing the current IAC agitation, andolan and satyagrah in its present form
has so far failed to bring in a 'strong and comprehensive law and reformed
system' to control corruption, but has raised awareness in the citizens and
scared the tainted. Now, about 44 years have elapsed for this one single reform;
but we are closer to a participatory democracy than ever before. This mission is
now over. It will be insane to continue indefinite fasting when a large number
of tainted representatives obviously will not pass a strong Lokpal Bill in
Parliament. The best one can hope for is a repeat of the weak Nagar Raj Law
passed by the Maharashtra Assembly. The new mission is to channelize the current
national fervor, to put many more selfless persons into the 'house of power' and
achieve the needed goals stated above. Such persons: Rashtra Sevaks, Rajya
Sevaks, Zilla Sevaks, Nagar Sevaks, Gram Sevaks, chosen directly and only by the
citizens, at all levels: Rashtra, Rajya, Zilla, Nagar and Gram, will eliminate
all forms of Raj Shahi and bring in Lok Shahi, as was envisioned by the Mahatma
and other important leaders of the past century. Their attitude will be of
'andolankaari's focused on service to the citizens. Strong persons are needed to
work as a team, and introduce/frame laws and policies to achieve the dream of an
'all inclusive resurgent India', by eliminating: VIP perks, nepotism, 3D poison,
influence of money-muscle-power and other similar evils from the corridors of
national power. Such persons will have to work under the umbrella of an 'andolan
type political party' and expose/prevent further misdeeds by the tainted MPs and
MLAs and bring in reforms and fine tune national and state institutions. The
mission for them will be to substantially improve the political and governance
culture at all levels. It is expected that such persons will offer only five
years of their lives for nation building and then make way for others like
themselves. India has talent and capable persons, in all age groups, who are
patiently biding time and opportunity for selfless national work, prepared to
live simple ordinary lives to enable India to set new and better global
standards. The evils in India that seem to be the norm will have to be made rare
and episodic.

India can wait no longer. The year 2014 brings an opportunity for Volunteers to
persuade citizens to vote to bring in the best that India can offer. These
Volunteers will continue work at mohalla level and identify local persons who
are acceptable representatives, to majority of citizens there. Volunteers will
study the electoral rolls and get removed non-existent voters, register new
voters, engage youth for this cause and prepare for the coming national
elections and for some state elections. All planning and discussions must be
Participatory, Accountable and Transparent (PAT) with a strong dose of
Decentralization and Integrity.

It is accepted that many well meaning dedicated citizens and activists will not
find this a satisfactory mission and will therefore work for other
constitutional methods. They are welcome to follow their desires and also raise
relevant issues and get them resolved/accepted at regular Volunteer public meets
and various forums of the digital age. It must be understood that this mission
is being fine tuned even now and was taken up only when about 90% of citizens,
Volunteers and Supporters at the recent 25th July 2012 agitation, across the
nation, found it satisfactory. This is an opinion poll subscribed to by tens of
thousands of responsible selfless citizens. Let those who object, not insult
this choice but work to make politics and politicians a positive word. Vande
Maatarum. Jai Hind.

(compiled by Praful Vora, 06th Aug 2012, iac.mumbai.vora@...)

The entire essay is posted at:

http://thinkunderstandacceptadapt.blogspot.com/2012/08/india-against-corruption-\
way-ahead.html

Please feel free to use it for the nations welfare.

--
Praful Vora, Volunteer & Contact-Mumbai, IAC. (Cell: +91 90 0401 7654)

I will FAST FOR INDIA with Anna Hazare for a Corrupt free India... Will you?

Link: iacmumbai.org Link: http://indiaagainstcorruption.org/

The great Indian sinkhole....Niranjan Rajadhyaksha
The government has spent nearly Rs. 10 trillion over the past decade in
subsidies. How could the money have been used better?

In an essay published in January, economist Alex Tabarrok pointed out that
nearly two-thirds of the $2.2 trillion US federal budget is spent on what he
described as welfare and warfare programmes. Very little money is budgeted to
support innovation that is needed to restore economic vitality of that country.

India suffers from a variant of this problem. The country needs to invest in new
roads, power plants, schools, hospitals, irrigation networks, water supply
systems, rural cold chains and scientific research-projects that will help
support income growth on a sustainable basis in the long run. However,
government budgets are used to fund schemes that offer immediate benefits to
specific groups rather than help build economic strength over the decades.

For example, a look at budget documents shows that the Indian government has
spent Rs. 9.12 trillion on various subsidies in the nine years since fiscal year
2004, and this number would be far larger if the current value of money is
considered. It is well known that most of these subsidies help people who are
relatively better off, rather than the genuinely poor, be they rich farmers who
use fertilizers or car owners who burn subsidized fuel.

Another example is the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme, which has seen a cumulative spending of Rs. 1.66 trillion. The
scheme aims to help the rural poor, and has proved to be a useful income support
mechanism for poor families. But no lasting capital assets have been created, so
it is worth asking whether the money would have been more effectively used if it
had been used to fund, say, rural roads.

Economists like to think in terms of opportunity costs, or what is being given
up to pursue a particular activity. So the opportunity cost of resigning your
job to study further is not just the cost of college, but the salary you are
giving up to get higher education.

I asked a few experts about what could have been done with the money that the
government has spent on subsidies over the past decade. Building a kilometre
(km) of good rural roads costs about Rs. 5 crore per km, which means that India
has effectively given up around 20,000km of new rural roads, assuming one-tenth
of the subsidy spending since 2004 had been diverted for this work.

Or consider the pet project of former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, for the
provision of urban amenities in rural areas (Pura), that has now been taken up
by the government. The plan is to create rural hubs with good infrastructure
that will help regenerate local economies. In an interview with The Economic
Times in February, Srijan Pal Singh, an associate of Kalam, said that each Pura
hub would require an investment of Rs. 60 crore over seven years. "The size of a
Pura can vary from 10 to 50 villages. India has six lakh villages and we will
need approximately 7,000 Puras to cover them," he said. That, by the way, would
be a total bill of Rs. 420,000 crore-once again less than half of the decadal
subsidy bill.

One can offer similar examples in education, public health and water. None of
this means that only physical capital matters; the money could also have been
used to improve human capital by spending more on the battle against
malnutrition or improving skill levels. More money could also have been diverted
towards structural challenges such as renewable energy or a second green
revolution.

The political economy of subsidies draws its strength from a fractured society
that cannot agree on the provision of public goods that can help all Indians.
The focus is on grabbing money for sectional interests. This problem is present
in most complex societies, as the economist Mancur Olson showed many years ago.
But the problem is particularly rampant in India, with its complicated matrix of
caste, religion and language.

The waste of financial resources in the pursuit of myopic political goals is not
evident at any one point of time, when calls to protect consumers against higher
oil prices or offer doles to the rural poor have a resonance. But the picture
changes when a longer-term view is taken. The inability of the Indian political
system-and indeed Indian society as well-to create assets that help income
growth on a sustainable basis becomes evident.

Here is what Tabarrok wrote at the end of his essay: "Our economy is stagnant
and for the first time in a long time, and the national mood is deeply
pessimistic. To restore our economy and our spirits we need to become an
innovation nation. An innovative nation would improve the prospects for economic
growth but could do much more. The warfare-welfare state divides the pie and
also divides Americans. Americans, however, are an innovative, forward-thinking
people and the prospects are good for uniting them on a pro-growth,
pro-innovation agenda."

Seems familiar?

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is executive editor of Mint. Your comments are welcome at
cafeeconomics@...

URL: http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/07211439/The-great-Indian-sinkhole.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Satyanarayana Kunamneni
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 21:40:15 +0530
Subject: Fwd: Duty Free Shoppers (VERY IMPORTAT PLS READ)


Dear All,
       My suggestion is that we should never enter any Duty Free Shop. It
looks like they are deliberately targeting Indians for such humiliating
treatment.
Satyanarayana


*Duty Free Shoppers (VERY IMPORTAT PLS READ)*

  *Duty Free Shoppers*
*PASS IT ON TO YOUR FRIENDS WHO TRAVEL A LOT!*
*Read ahead...

An Indian was detained in Bangkok for stealing a box of cigarettes in a
duty-free shop in Bangkok International Airport . He had paid for
chocolates and a carton of cigarettes. The cashier put an extra pack of
cigarettes into his bag and he thought it was a free pack. He was arrested
for shop-lifting and the Thai Police extortion price was 30,000 Baht for
his release.*
*He spent two nights in jail and paid 500 Baht for an air-conditioned cell,
200-300 baht for each visitor and 11,000 baht for his final release. The
Police shared the money in front of his eyes. On top of that, he was
charged in court and fined 2,000 baht by the magistrate and handcuffed and
escorted to his plane. *
*His passport was stamped "Thief". While there, his relatives requested
help from the Indian Embassy and was told that they are helpless, and many
Asians are victimized similarly daily and letters and phone calls to the
Thai authorities are ignored. He shared a cell with a Singaporean the first
night who paid 60,000 baht for his release. The second night was a
Malaysian national who paid 70,000 baht.

Mind you this was not in a shanty shop in downtown Bangkok but in a
duty-free shop at the Bangkok International Airport. So - BE WARNED! The
above is 100% correct information because Mr. Rajan Khera's customer from
India faced exactly the same scenario mentioned above when he was in
transit at Bangkok Int'l Airport going to Taipei.

Someone went through the same ordeal in Dubai. He bought stuff at the
duty-free shop upon entering. The girl at the duty-free shop put a bottle
of cologne in his shopping bag (he did not even see it happen). He was
arrested for stealing (this is before he even picked up his luggage). He
sat at the airport jail where he was harassed for the whole day. NO FOOD,
NO WATER for one day and only after he paid a fine (bribe of US 500...).
That was all the cash he had in his pocket at the time. They let him go.
These are scams that are happening all over the place. Please BE CAREFUL!
All of this is pre-planned and the people who work at the airport know who
to target.*
*

UNBELIEVABLE BUT APPLY CAUTION.... duty-free employees intentionally put
extra items to scam passengers. ALWAYS TAKE A RECEIPT FOR ANY FREE GIFT
THAT THE DUTY FREE SHOP GIVES. PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND WATCHFUL WHEN YOU ARE
BEING BILLED AND ITEMS PACKED AT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS (DUTY FREE SHOPS)*

 Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad as a part of
'Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities'
in collaboration with
Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Vidyaranya High School, Landscape of Surprise & Arch+
invites you to

Photo-documented Urban Walks by Martin Kohler

On: Friday, 10 August 2012, 18:00hrs

At: Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad

Martin Kohler presents a series of photo-documented walks through some of the biggest urban agglomerations in the world.

OPEN TO ALL

Meet Also:

Ann Linh-Ngo, Peter Gotsch, Susanne Kohte...and many more architects and city-planners from Germany

On the occasion of Inauguration and Public Symposium of
Post-Oil City & Landscape of Surprise
Inauguration On: 11th August 2012, 17.30hrs
Symposium on: 12th August 2012, 10.00 - 17.00hrs
At: Vidyaranya High School
Exhibition on view: 12 - 26 August 2012
Timings: Mon-Fri: 16.30 - 20.30hrs
Sat, Sun & Holidays: 11.30 - 20.30hrs

For further info: 040-23350443 / 040-23350400 / 040-23350473 or monika.hirmer@...
Please publish the same for complete information dissemination.

The project is one of the highlights of the year of Germany in India. Central to this program is a focus on sustainable urbanization and the challenges that both the countries face with areas such as urban planning, public transportation, sustainability, education and urban culture.

Thank you

GOETHE-ZENTRUM HYDERABAD 

20 Journalist Colony 

Road No. 3 Banjara Hills 

Hyderabad 500 034  

Tel.: 23350473, 23350040

www.goethe.de/hyderabad

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE EDITOR: EVENT ON 11^th August 2012

PLEASE CIRCULATE FOR MAXIMUM VISIBLILITY

Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad as a part of
'Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities'
in collaboration with
Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Vidyaranya High School, Landscape of Surprise & Arch+
invites you to Inauguration of
Post-OilCity & Landscape of Surprise
Inaugurated by Mrs. Shanta Rameshwar Rao
Founder-Principal of Vidyaranya High School

In the presence of:

Mr. Anh Linh-Ngo, Curator of Post Oil City, ARCH+

Mr. Peter Gotsch & Ms. Susanne Kohte, Curators of Landscape of Surprise

Inauguration On: 11th August 2012, 17.30hrs
Symposium on: 12th August 2012, 10.00 - 19.00hrs
At: Vidyaranya High School
Exhibition on view: 12 - 26 August 2012
Timings: Mon-Fri: 16.30 - 20.30hrs; Sat, Sun & Holidays: 11.30 - 20.30hrs
OPEN TO ALL

The project is one of the highlights of the year of Germany in India. Central to this program is a focus on sustainable urbanization and the challenges that both the countries face with areas such as urban planning, public transportation, sustainability, education and urban culture.
For further info: 040-23350443 / 040-23350400 / 040-23350473 or monika.hirmer@...
Please depute your reporter and staff photographer to cover the same.

Thank you,

GOETHE-ZENTRUM HYDERABAD 

20 Journalist Colony 

Road No. 3 Banjara Hills 

Hyderabad 500 034  

Tel.: 23350473, 23350040

www.goethe.de/hyderabad

How UPA government is going to waster our hard earned tax money to grab the vote
bank by providing the mobile phone for Below Poverty Line people with 200
minutes talk time free initially

People who don't have food, shelter but has mobile... what a JOKE

What about once the finish this 200 minutes talk time?.. next election
UPA government will update few more thousand minutes ... so next to next year
plan to get vote

UAP government is just after Vote bank so again for 5 years they can lootofy us

It's a mistake of all the educated people for not voting.. so we all must enjoy,
party, celebrate how on our hard money UAP government is buying vote bank

so every INDIAN who get educated is salesman of the UPA government to help them
to loot Indian tax paid money

So what educated people should call them... "Educated Fool"

Hope before its over late and we are more burden with tax .. Time to voice and
action and vote so UPA government don't come again to loot us

Do spread the message or wait for inflation so to run after earning more-- like
donkey

This is my view... not to hurt anyone personally but trying to wake up sleeping
educated Indians

Hope before it's too late we wake up and vote and protest against vote bank
schemes

Regards
Dr Rita Savla

My Reflections on the Indian Independence Day.

Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:34 am (PDT) . Posted by: "MD Kini" Dear Vinay,

Here are my reflections on the Indian Independence Day. Allow me share them
with Karmayogis

With Independence Day Greetings,

M.D.Kini
kinis68@...

Reflections on the Indian Independence Day.

M.D.Kini

India will be celebrating its 65th Independence Day on August 15, 2012
with army parades, floats on Indian heritage and economic development of
the country - all this in midst of the looming drought in many parts of the
country. India's economic, social and political developments are a mixed
bag of achievements and glaring lack of will to tackle problems confronting
the country, especially the poor.

The achievements.:

Democracy & Food Security : India's achievements are well-known. A
democratic set-up which has weathered the storms of dictatorial mind-set (
the 19-months emergency regime ) and many challenges to its unity ( the
rise of sub-nationalisms with political tact and accommodation). It has
banished famine. Just now it has 80 million tons of food-grains in its
buffer stock, thanks to increased irrigation facilities, hybrid seeds and
fertilizers introduced since the Green Revolution. The country has come a
long way from the famine conditions in 1965-66 when India had to depend on
US wheat imports to feed its teeming millions.

Economic Growth, Technology and Defense: It is one of the few countries
which has mastered the space technology. It is one of the leading countries
in software sector.Today it one of the fast-growing economies of the world
after the change of direction of its economic policies from the statist to
encouraging free enterprise initiated in 1991 by the Prime Minister
P.V.Narasimha Rao and ably implemented by the finance minister Dr. Manmohan
Singh. It has also joined the select few in the world with its own nuclear
technology and atomic weapons with which USA and other countries have
nuclear agreement. The Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee courageously
exploded and stockpiled a few atomic weapons to ensure India's defense in
a region full of these weapons. The decade of the `nineties took India to
the top table.

The failures.

While the achievements are significant, economic and political problems are
persistent. These have been summed up by the President Pranab Mukherjee in
his speech delivered on the assumption of office on July 25: poverty (
`For our development to be real the poorest of our land must feel that they
are the part of the narrative of rising India'); corruption ( `Corruption
is an evil that can depress the national mood and sap its progress') ;
terrorism ( `The war against terrorism is the fourth `(world war).

Poverty : Among the most important problems of the country is the
persistence of poverty in the country. While the experts and economists
discuss the poverty line, whether it is Rs.28.65 or Rs.22.42 per day,
whether it should be related to caloric food intake, infant mortality rate,
education, health or employment, all are agreed that more than one-third of
the population, which would be about 400 million, are poor. A recent report
states that ten percent of rural people live on less than Rs.17 per day. "
Trickle-down theories do not address the legitimate aspirations of the
poor", as the President pointed out in his address. All the policies
implemented by the successive governments have failed to uplift the poor.
They are still not the `part of the narrative of rising India'.

The latest policy of offering 100 days of work for the poor under the
Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is riddled with design
faults - it does not create any permanent asset, it does not train the
uneducated for any job, and full of corruption - not paying the workers in
full and in time, the local politicians in league with the officials
manipulating the workers' attendance to enrich themselves. There are no
proper checks and balances, there is no efficient monitoring and there is
no transparency. Moreover, you can build a nation on doles. There is a
certain lack of vision.

There has to be a policy to empower the poor with various training
programmes. The small landholders should be able to get more returns from
their holding with proper advice from the agricultural experts. The
landless should be trained in some profession or job which can extend from
brick-lying to electrician which every village, town or city requires.
Recently, the government has set-up a skill development corporation under
the guidance of one of stalwart of software industry.

Mahatma Gandhi was right. India lives in its villages. He dreamt of village
republics as self-sufficient in most of its needs. He believed in
self-reliance,decentralisation of political and economic power to empower
the poor - to remove tears from the eyes of the poor, as he put it. His
vision is now being appreciated by many as global warming is becoming a
global menace due to the energy-intensive lifestyle which creates demand
for more goods. He said long ago that there is enough in the world for
everybody's needs but not for everybody's greed. President Abdul Kalam, a
visionary like Mahatma Gandhi, has put forward a plan to uplift the
villages called, PURA,( providing urban facilities to rural areas) with
multiple connectivities ( knowledge, technology, marketing etc.) This is in
tune with the vision of Mahatma Gandhi.

Corruption : Corruption is a universal phenomenon to realists and cynics
but to the poor, it is a curse. People have to pay for every legitimate
government services such as issuing a ration card, getting a birth or a
death certificate, registering a FIR ( First Information Report) in a
police station, getting admission to a school, getting a water connection
and others of similar nature. Madhya Pradesh and Bihar governments have now
made it mandatory to provide these services within a time-frame with a fine
for defaulting officials.

The recent scams such as 2G spectrum sale, Commonwealth Games Scam and
Coal-fields allotments were just the tip of the iceberg of corruption in
India. The corruption has a long history in India going back to the jeep
scandal during the early years of our freedom. Many well-known politicians
were involved. Cases, even when they went to the court, took a long time to
investigate and punish the culprits.

CBI ( Central Bureau of Investigation) is under the prime minister's
jurisdiction and the politicians have the tendency to to misuse it. In the
recent years cases have been filed against two former chief ministers for
possessing disproportionate of wealth and they are still going on. Now both
of them support the ruling coalition at the centre. No wonder, Anna Hazare
and his NGO, India Against Corruption, have demanded that CBI should be
under the jurisdiction of Lokpal ( Ombudsman) who can take up cases
involving politicians and the bureaucracy suo moto for investigation and
persecution. The institution of Lokpal was a suggestion made by the first
ARC ( Administrative Reform Commission) almost 42 years ago and has never
been implemented by any of the administrations till now. The least that the
government has to do is to make CBI as independent as the Election
Commission.

Terrorism : India has two types of terrorism to tackle, one is left-wing
terrorism which wants to change the Indian polity through violence, and the
other one is promoted by Pakistan, first in Jammu and Kashmir, now all over
India.

Naxalite terrorism, started by some left-wing intellectuals, has killed
many innocent people who do not join them or help the government bodies who
promote social welfare programmes such as schools and hospitals. It has
spread its tentacles to many states. They have recruited the poor and the
unemployed to its rank. Instead of preventing the misuse of power by the
politicians and the officials, the movement has prevented social welfare
programmes reaching the poor. The government has to appoint young and
highly motivated officials who can mobilise the support of the youth of the
region to frustrate the efforts of these terrorists. And the officials
should be adequately protected by a well-equipped police force.

The other terrorism has a different dimension altogether. It is a
state-sponsored project and it spans many of our neighbouring countries as
well.It stated in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989 challenging the rigging of
election by the ruling party of the state, and later, questioning the
state's integration with India, now it has spread all over India. It has
hurt India and now, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Its effects are felt
all over the world - UK, France, USA. It has inflicted many wounds on
Pakistan itself. It is assuming the proportion of a frankenstein killing
the creator.And the day may not be far off when the world would jointly
hold Pakistan to account for this act of war against the world.

India has always extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan in spite of
numerous acts of terrorism executed by the non-state actors with the
support by its agencies. This has been misunderstood as the weakness of the
Indian state. India would be forced to act to defend itself against these
activities by Pakistan sooner rather than later. The least that the
government has to do it is to equip our police to gather intelligence to
prevent such activities, when occurs, investigate speedily and punish the
culprits immediately. This the duty of every state and it can not abdicate
its responsibility under any excuse.

Our government has the dubious distinction of dealing sternly with Anna
Hazare and Baba Ramdev than the terrorists of both the variety. The
vote-bank politics has weakened our country.

India needs new politics and new economics.

Indian politics has run on few slogans which are touted as principles.
While the constitution envisages a society of equals, its politics is based
group interests. The only tools it has in its armoury for welfare are
reservation and subsidy which have distorted our economy and politics.
However, the only principle which can promote welfare of all ( sarvodaya)
is good governance - that which rises all the boats. Mahatma Gandhi gave a
talisman to all politicians - to ask themselves whether their policies
would empower the poor. This is the standard which should guide government
policies.We have to use all our resources, men and materials, to create
employment and wealth.Here are a few examples:

(a) Water : We have drought in many areas and at the same time there are
floods in other areas. There has to be a vigorous campaign to promote
conservation of rainwater through bunds and check-dams, and afforestation
to attract more rain in the drought-prone areas. Plans should be drawn to
divert flood waters to dry areas. River-linking project should be initiated
where ever it is feasible. The rain-water harvesting should be made
compulsory in all towns and cities.

(b) Electricity: The recent headline all over the world says it all - "
India in the dark, 600 million people hit by world's worst blackout".
Electricity generation is not enough for economic growth ( thousands of
villages and millions of households have no supply), supply is erratic,
some are given free and all electricity boards are in the red. India has
300 days of sunshine and it should be the pioneer in solar power. Every
household should be encouraged to have solar panels over its roof One-time
cost is high but it has low maintenance cost and lasts for many years.
Solar lamps cut down the use of kerosine and provide better light to the
villagers. Germany is phasing out nuclear power and going in for solar
power in a big way. Gobar gas projects too should be revived.

( c ) Roads and railways : They are the lifeline of the country. They link
villages with towns and cities, and promote movement of people and goods -
agricultural produce to towns and manufactured goods to villages. They open
the doors of prosperity. They needed to be funded adequately.

(d) Food security : Every village or a group of villages should have a
grain silo and refrigeration facilities to store food-grains, and preserve
vegetables and fruits. Now hundreds of tons of food-grains rot under the
open sky as the state has not built enough storage facilities. Fruits and
vegetables are spoiled without any preservation facilities.

(e ) Health and Education : Every village or a group of villages should
have a primary school and primary health centre.

( f ) Housing : Housing has many multiplier effect - create demand for
bricks, cement, steel, labour. It fulfills one of the basic needs of man.
It should be made easier to people to build houses and own apartments with
low interest loans and low taxation.

Let the politicians treat India as one and Indian people as one. People
will respond as one. Indian people are industrious and talented. The
government policies should unleash their hidden talents and aspirations.
Politicians have to be persuaded to renew their pledge to serve India, not
any narrow interest, through agitations and movements by concerned
citizens. Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have shown that it is possible to
awaken and mobilize the people to change the system. Changing the system
is not easy but it is not impossible. That is way to change our swaraj into
suraj.

******

My Reflections on the Indian Independence Day.

Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:34 am (PDT) . Posted by: "MD Kini" Dear Vinay,

Here are my reflections on the Indian Independence Day. Allow me share them
with Karmayogis

With Independence Day Greetings,

M.D.Kini
kinis68@...

Reflections on the Indian Independence Day.

M.D.Kini

India will be celebrating its 65th Independence Day on August 15, 2012
with army parades, floats on Indian heritage and economic development of
the country - all this in midst of the looming drought in many parts of the
country. India's economic, social and political developments are a mixed
bag of achievements and glaring lack of will to tackle problems confronting
the country, especially the poor.

The achievements.:

Democracy & Food Security : India's achievements are well-known. A
democratic set-up which has weathered the storms of dictatorial mind-set (
the 19-months emergency regime ) and many challenges to its unity ( the
rise of sub-nationalisms with political tact and accommodation). It has
banished famine. Just now it has 80 million tons of food-grains in its
buffer stock, thanks to increased irrigation facilities, hybrid seeds and
fertilizers introduced since the Green Revolution. The country has come a
long way from the famine conditions in 1965-66 when India had to depend on
US wheat imports to feed its teeming millions.

Economic Growth, Technology and Defense: It is one of the few countries
which has mastered the space technology. It is one of the leading countries
in software sector.Today it one of the fast-growing economies of the world
after the change of direction of its economic policies from the statist to
encouraging free enterprise initiated in 1991 by the Prime Minister
P.V.Narasimha Rao and ably implemented by the finance minister Dr. Manmohan
Singh. It has also joined the select few in the world with its own nuclear
technology and atomic weapons with which USA and other countries have
nuclear agreement. The Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee courageously
exploded and stockpiled a few atomic weapons to ensure India's defense in
a region full of these weapons. The decade of the `nineties took India to
the top table.

The failures.

While the achievements are significant, economic and political problems are
persistent. These have been summed up by the President Pranab Mukherjee in
his speech delivered on the assumption of office on July 25: poverty (
`For our development to be real the poorest of our land must feel that they
are the part of the narrative of rising India'); corruption ( `Corruption
is an evil that can depress the national mood and sap its progress') ;
terrorism ( `The war against terrorism is the fourth `(world war).

Poverty : Among the most important problems of the country is the
persistence of poverty in the country. While the experts and economists
discuss the poverty line, whether it is Rs.28.65 or Rs.22.42 per day,
whether it should be related to caloric food intake, infant mortality rate,
education, health or employment, all are agreed that more than one-third of
the population, which would be about 400 million, are poor. A recent report
states that ten percent of rural people live on less than Rs.17 per day. "
Trickle-down theories do not address the legitimate aspirations of the
poor", as the President pointed out in his address. All the policies
implemented by the successive governments have failed to uplift the poor.
They are still not the `part of the narrative of rising India'.

The latest policy of offering 100 days of work for the poor under the
Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is riddled with design
faults - it does not create any permanent asset, it does not train the
uneducated for any job, and full of corruption - not paying the workers in
full and in time, the local politicians in league with the officials
manipulating the workers' attendance to enrich themselves. There are no
proper checks and balances, there is no efficient monitoring and there is
no transparency. Moreover, you can build a nation on doles. There is a
certain lack of vision.

There has to be a policy to empower the poor with various training
programmes. The small landholders should be able to get more returns from
their holding with proper advice from the agricultural experts. The
landless should be trained in some profession or job which can extend from
brick-lying to electrician which every village, town or city requires.
Recently, the government has set-up a skill development corporation under
the guidance of one of stalwart of software industry.

Mahatma Gandhi was right. India lives in its villages. He dreamt of village
republics as self-sufficient in most of its needs. He believed in
self-reliance,decentralisation of political and economic power to empower
the poor - to remove tears from the eyes of the poor, as he put it. His
vision is now being appreciated by many as global warming is becoming a
global menace due to the energy-intensive lifestyle which creates demand
for more goods. He said long ago that there is enough in the world for
everybody's needs but not for everybody's greed. President Abdul Kalam, a
visionary like Mahatma Gandhi, has put forward a plan to uplift the
villages called, PURA,( providing urban facilities to rural areas) with
multiple connectivities ( knowledge, technology, marketing etc.) This is in
tune with the vision of Mahatma Gandhi.

Corruption : Corruption is a universal phenomenon to realists and cynics
but to the poor, it is a curse. People have to pay for every legitimate
government services such as issuing a ration card, getting a birth or a
death certificate, registering a FIR ( First Information Report) in a
police station, getting admission to a school, getting a water connection
and others of similar nature. Madhya Pradesh and Bihar governments have now
made it mandatory to provide these services within a time-frame with a fine
for defaulting officials.

The recent scams such as 2G spectrum sale, Commonwealth Games Scam and
Coal-fields allotments were just the tip of the iceberg of corruption in
India. The corruption has a long history in India going back to the jeep
scandal during the early years of our freedom. Many well-known politicians
were involved. Cases, even when they went to the court, took a long time to
investigate and punish the culprits.

CBI ( Central Bureau of Investigation) is under the prime minister's
jurisdiction and the politicians have the tendency to to misuse it. In the
recent years cases have been filed against two former chief ministers for
possessing disproportionate of wealth and they are still going on. Now both
of them support the ruling coalition at the centre. No wonder, Anna Hazare
and his NGO, India Against Corruption, have demanded that CBI should be
under the jurisdiction of Lokpal ( Ombudsman) who can take up cases
involving politicians and the bureaucracy suo moto for investigation and
persecution. The institution of Lokpal was a suggestion made by the first
ARC ( Administrative Reform Commission) almost 42 years ago and has never
been implemented by any of the administrations till now. The least that the
government has to do is to make CBI as independent as the Election
Commission.

Terrorism : India has two types of terrorism to tackle, one is left-wing
terrorism which wants to change the Indian polity through violence, and the
other one is promoted by Pakistan, first in Jammu and Kashmir, now all over
India.

Naxalite terrorism, started by some left-wing intellectuals, has killed
many innocent people who do not join them or help the government bodies who
promote social welfare programmes such as schools and hospitals. It has
spread its tentacles to many states. They have recruited the poor and the
unemployed to its rank. Instead of preventing the misuse of power by the
politicians and the officials, the movement has prevented social welfare
programmes reaching the poor. The government has to appoint young and
highly motivated officials who can mobilise the support of the youth of the
region to frustrate the efforts of these terrorists. And the officials
should be adequately protected by a well-equipped police force.

The other terrorism has a different dimension altogether. It is a
state-sponsored project and it spans many of our neighbouring countries as
well.It stated in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989 challenging the rigging of
election by the ruling party of the state, and later, questioning the
state's integration with India, now it has spread all over India. It has
hurt India and now, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Its effects are felt
all over the world - UK, France, USA. It has inflicted many wounds on
Pakistan itself. It is assuming the proportion of a frankenstein killing
the creator.And the day may not be far off when the world would jointly
hold Pakistan to account for this act of war against the world.

India has always extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan in spite of
numerous acts of terrorism executed by the non-state actors with the
support by its agencies. This has been misunderstood as the weakness of the
Indian state. India would be forced to act to defend itself against these
activities by Pakistan sooner rather than later. The least that the
government has to do it is to equip our police to gather intelligence to
prevent such activities, when occurs, investigate speedily and punish the
culprits immediately. This the duty of every state and it can not abdicate
its responsibility under any excuse.

Our government has the dubious distinction of dealing sternly with Anna
Hazare and Baba Ramdev than the terrorists of both the variety. The
vote-bank politics has weakened our country.

India needs new politics and new economics.

Indian politics has run on few slogans which are touted as principles.
While the constitution envisages a society of equals, its politics is based
group interests. The only tools it has in its armoury for welfare are
reservation and subsidy which have distorted our economy and politics.
However, the only principle which can promote welfare of all ( sarvodaya)
is good governance - that which rises all the boats. Mahatma Gandhi gave a
talisman to all politicians - to ask themselves whether their policies
would empower the poor. This is the standard which should guide government
policies.We have to use all our resources, men and materials, to create
employment and wealth.Here are a few examples:

(a) Water : We have drought in many areas and at the same time there are
floods in other areas. There has to be a vigorous campaign to promote
conservation of rainwater through bunds and check-dams, and afforestation
to attract more rain in the drought-prone areas. Plans should be drawn to
divert flood waters to dry areas. River-linking project should be initiated
where ever it is feasible. The rain-water harvesting should be made
compulsory in all towns and cities.

(b) Electricity: The recent headline all over the world says it all - "
India in the dark, 600 million people hit by world's worst blackout".
Electricity generation is not enough for economic growth ( thousands of
villages and millions of households have no supply), supply is erratic,
some are given free and all electricity boards are in the red. India has
300 days of sunshine and it should be the pioneer in solar power. Every
household should be encouraged to have solar panels over its roof One-time
cost is high but it has low maintenance cost and lasts for many years.
Solar lamps cut down the use of kerosine and provide better light to the
villagers. Germany is phasing out nuclear power and going in for solar
power in a big way. Gobar gas projects too should be revived.

( c ) Roads and railways : They are the lifeline of the country. They link
villages with towns and cities, and promote movement of people and goods -
agricultural produce to towns and manufactured goods to villages. They open
the doors of prosperity. They needed to be funded adequately.

(d) Food security : Every village or a group of villages should have a
grain silo and refrigeration facilities to store food-grains, and preserve
vegetables and fruits. Now hundreds of tons of food-grains rot under the
open sky as the state has not built enough storage facilities. Fruits and
vegetables are spoiled without any preservation facilities.

(e ) Health and Education : Every village or a group of villages should
have a primary school and primary health centre.

( f ) Housing : Housing has many multiplier effect - create demand for
bricks, cement, steel, labour. It fulfills one of the basic needs of man.
It should be made easier to people to build houses and own apartments with
low interest loans and low taxation.

Let the politicians treat India as one and Indian people as one. People
will respond as one. Indian people are industrious and talented. The
government policies should unleash their hidden talents and aspirations.
Politicians have to be persuaded to renew their pledge to serve India, not
any narrow interest, through agitations and movements by concerned
citizens. Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have shown that it is possible to
awaken and mobilize the people to change the system. Changing the system
is not easy but it is not impossible. That is way to change our swaraj into
suraj.

******