Obama Visit : High on Emotions But Far Away From Making India A Tem Trillion Dollar Economy
Rajiv Upadhyay
It is no mean achievement for a eight months old PM Modi to bring American President as chief guest on republic day . It further cre…ates an environment of hope and optimism started with the Modi’s victory ..Apart from economy , It will have atleast some softening effect on American bureaucracy which is still lukewarm to India. But Hillary Clinton in one of the unguarded moments had said that India can be tackled by just soft cuddling ( not exact words ) . Fine emotional speeches , Security Council permanent membership are such cuddlings .
My fear is that this visit of Obama is to undo the hurt of Khobragade affair , denial of US visa to Modi and a sort of reward for making some progress on old pending nuclear reactor issue . But his speech in SIRI Fort on religious freedom , mention of Shahrukh Khan , playing Aamir’s song from Lagan , Milkha Singh etc has proved that Joshua / Islamist lobby which was instrumental in visa denial episode is still effective . We did not need this lesson because we didnot keep Blasphemy law , like West or all Islamic countries ,in our constitution . Why Islamic countries donot need secularism .AT WORST IT IS AN INDICATION THAT NEO JAICHANDS ARE AGAIN ACTIVE IN INVITING INTERFERENCE OF FOREIGN POWERS . Finally it will create and keep a Mir Jaffer type fifth column ready to be exploited like in Libya etc when needed by west say when we become third largest economy in dollar terms .
But on a more practical note, earlier there was some talk of America offering to make India a ten trillion dollar economy like China . Four billion dollar FDI promise is negligible . India has gained in opening a small window in releasing latest defence technology for making in India . 9 Kms UAV which will be upgraded to 18 kms. The Herculeus transport planes will also do some reconnaIssance . If these are just beginings which will be followed by many more later it is welcome . But in themselves they are small items for gift from the great American president .But real big American CEOs like of Boeing did not come with Obama . A very crtical but some what honest view will be that it seems that it was a great opportunity missed atleast in capitalising in thinking out of box solutions .
Modi is still not able to take off defying the gravitational pull of bureaucracy because we are a nation of mediocre thinkers . Like the over milked green revolution in agriculture ,we are not able to go beyond outdated Manmohanomics of ninetees .
I will only repeat what I had said earlier just after the election that our real problem is that we have no thinkers to match Kissienger and no leader to match Margret Thatcher . We still have lot of hope from Modi but we see no Kissienger in horizon at all.
On FDI front picture continues to be dismal . We are getting almost one tenth of FDI in China . The nation of Banias ( sorry GURUSHARAN DASGUPTA’S TERM ) knows that capital follows or chases profit in safe environment . We have to give foreign capital more profit than China . Safe feeling needs trade surplus as our foreign trade is not stable due to poor exports . We need far more exports .
Rediff article at link below gives the problem in perspective .
http://m.rediff.com/money/2002/jul/29fdi.htm
if short of time just see the four graphs of FDI . See More
My fear is that this visit of Obama is to undo the hurt of Khobragade affair , denial of US visa to Modi and a sort of reward for making some progress on old pending nuclear reactor issue . But his speech in SIRI Fort on religious freedom , mention of Shahrukh Khan , playing Aamir’s song from Lagan , Milkha Singh etc has proved that Joshua / Islamist lobby which was instrumental in visa denial episode is still effective . We did not need this lesson because we didnot keep Blasphemy law , like West or all Islamic countries ,in our constitution . Why Islamic countries donot need secularism .AT WORST IT IS AN INDICATION THAT NEO JAICHANDS ARE AGAIN ACTIVE IN INVITING INTERFERENCE OF FOREIGN POWERS . Finally it will create and keep a Mir Jaffer type fifth column ready to be exploited like in Libya etc when needed by west say when we become third largest economy in dollar terms .
But on a more practical note, earlier there was some talk of America offering to make India a ten trillion dollar economy like China . Four billion dollar FDI promise is negligible . India has gained in opening a small window in releasing latest defence technology for making in India . 9 Kms UAV which will be upgraded to 18 kms. The Herculeus transport planes will also do some reconnaIssance . If these are just beginings which will be followed by many more later it is welcome . But in themselves they are small items for gift from the great American president .But real big American CEOs like of Boeing did not come with Obama . A very crtical but some what honest view will be that it seems that it was a great opportunity missed atleast in capitalising in thinking out of box solutions .Modi is still not able to take off defying the gravitational pull of bureaucracy because we are a nation of mediocre thinkers . Like the over milked green revolution in agriculture ,we are not able to go beyond outdated Manmohanomics of ninetees .
I will only repeat what I had said earlier just after the election that our real problem is that we have no thinkers to match Kissienger and no leader to match Margret Thatcher . We still have lot of hope from Modi but we see no Kissienger in horizon at all.
On FDI front picture continues to be dismal . We are getting almost one tenth of FDI in China . The nation of Banias ( sorry GURUSHARAN DASGUPTA’S TERM ) knows that capital follows or chases profit in safe environment . We have to give foreign capital more profit than China . Safe feeling needs trade surplus as our foreign trade is not stable due to poor exports . We need far more exports .
Rediff article at link below gives the problem in perspective .
http://m.rediff.com/money/2002/jul/29fdi.htm
if short of time just see the four graphs of FDI . See More
Rajiv Upadhyay
