Emergic: Rajesh Jain's Blog

Transforming India (Dec) When Gujarat Met China (Nov) Why Gujarat is Different (Nov) UPA 2′s Mid-term Blues (Nov) Citizens and Politicians Engagement: From Confrontation to Constructive Co-operation (Oct) Getting to the Goal of Good Governance (Sep) The Right Fight (Aug)  State of the Nation (Jun) BJP’s Project 275 for 2014 (Jun) Verdict 2011 (May) Big [...]

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Let us look at an area where decisive action is urgently needed, where , an alternate agenda and firm leadership is needed. Some prescient economists and journalists have been warning us that the NREGA scheme has put India on an inflation treadmill. Even as the government tries to blame inflation on  international factors, the reality [...]

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Much of what I have outlined is  obvious with just a little bit of thinking. But many of us have stopped doing so. In our daily struggles and desires, those among us who have the capability to bring about this transformation by changing people’s minds have cocooned ourselves in our own private gardens behind high [...]

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It could be argued that the Prime Minister was not the real leader but that power was concentrated with the Congress President and the Family. But the PM should have known better. If he saw the 2009 victory as a vindication of himself over the past years, he could have laid out the operating rules [...]

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As we look at the present morass, what is clear is that there is a lack of both vision and will in UPA 2. It is almost as if it is a cricket team batting on the third day of a Test Match to play for a draw or avoid a loss. How did we [...]

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Along with changing the economic model of India and driving a reforms-led agenda,  UPA 2 also need to think big. Two-and-a-half years is  a long time for many such bold ideas to start having an impact. India needs a hundred new cities. India needs to rethink agriculture productivity. India needs massive investments in alternate sources [...]

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The third issue, and this is linked to the governance issue, is that of the economic model for India. Central to this transformation are reforms. The Congress, under an external shock, started the real process of reforms in 1991 under Narasimha Rao. The BJP governments from 1998-2004, under Vajpayee, took this process forward. Since 2004, [...]

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Another issue that needs to be discussed and addressed is the governance model for India. This is a much deeper discussion since this will be harder to change, even though we may decide that the country is on the wrong track. UPA 2 needs to understand that the old rules of top-down, maximum government cannot [...]

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As we think through the leadership  issue, it is important to make sure we do not repeat the mistake. Our decision about which party to support and vote for must be based on the leadership of the party. Here is where the BJP is losing the game. The ruling coalition has poor and weak leadership [...]

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One of the first issues that UPA 2 needs to address is the leadership issue. Leaders matter – for companies and for countries. India has been singularly unfortunate in the leaders (such as prime ministers ) we have had for the most part since Independence.  Barring Shastri and Vajpayee, and to some extent, Narasimha Rao, [...]

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The UPA 2 government is nearing its half-way mark. I was reminded of this when I was clearing magazines from the past 3-4 years last week in office, and I saw the optimism-filled cover stories in national and international publications from May-June 2009. At that time, as the UPA 2 rode back to power with [...]

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