Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave his customary reply on the debate on the President’s address to Parliament. The media has as usual gone gaga over his reply with headliners like “Manmohan nukes Advani, praises Vajpayee”.
Offstumped takes a critical look at his reply to both houses for fact, fiction and poll time hyperbole.
In the Lok Sabha Manmohan starts off praising the President for her inspiring address, well that may be the only inspiring thing about her tenure this far.
So what does the Prime Minister see in the “aam aadmi”. Well not potential, not promise, not that indomitable spirit of enterprise but here is what the Prime Minister sees in the average Indian
chronic poverty, ignorance and diseases which still characterizes millions of our people in our country
Well that is the “doom and gloom” vision of India that the Prime Minister holds. So if you are an “aam aadmi” you are chronically poor but wait not just you are diseased in the body and ignorant in the mind as far as the Congress is concerned and that is were likely it wants you to remain.
Well the Prime Minister goes on drone on the intentions of his Government on inclusive growth, rather late in the day four years into his tenure to talk of intentions dont you think ?
One would have expected the Prime Minister to reel out specific accomplishments rather than lecture on intentions 4 years on. Here is a classic example on how clueless the Prime Minister is when it comes to specifics on accomplishments.
the number of doctors, the number of nurses, the number of specialists that are now in place, I think, is much larger than what it was four years ago.
Mr. Prime Minister you cant “think” four years on, you must “know” what your accomplishments are.
The Prime Minister then goes on to talk about the UPA’s flagship program for dole - NREGA and the Prime Minister is surprisingly honest in calling what it is - an “entitlement”
If work for hundred days is available, each family, even if it has only one earning member, would have an entitlement of Rs. 8000 per annum
Manmohan Singh’s Communal Socialism comes next. The Prime Minister pleads not guilty to LK Advani’s charge of appeasement.
First off let us get this straight. It is not “minority” appeasement it is “muslim” appeasement as Offstumped had shown .
Second it is important to note that Manmohan Singh has accepted that the Vote Bank Politics practised by the Congress over the last 6 decades have not helped but hurt the Muslims.
take pride in saying that our Government has the courage to recognise that our minorities have not benefited appropriately
More bullshit from the Prime Minister on inclusive growth and states not doing their bit before he goes on to talk about Agriculture.
Here is where Manmohan Singh has pulled a fast one in his attempt to simultaneously hit at the NDA for its record while defending the 60,000 crore debt waiver.
Manmohan Singh makes the argument that because the growth in agriculture during the NDA years slowed to 2.3 % from an earlier 3.5% farmers across the country are in distress.
Claiming no expertise in economics common sense should tell us that it is specious to claim a direct correlation between the macro rate of growth in agriculture and the personal financial situation of an individual farmer which is a consequence of choices that individual would have made.
In fact here is an interesting analysis on “why poor Indian farmers default less, and why repayment rates of comparatively better than that of financially better off farmers.” That should puncture a hole in the Prime Minister’s hypothesis as well as raise serious questions about who the 60,000 crore waiver is meant to help.
Here is another interesting analysis, this time not from the NDA years but from 1986 of 4 villages in Assam which reveals that rural indebtedness results in decline in productivity. But here is the catch, indebtedness is initiated by unproductive expenditure in the first place.
So the malaise of indebtedness has little to do with macro policies of the NDA and existed even during the earlier Congress period that Manmohan Singh was tom-tomming. What is more important is that the cause is more often than not local in nature and is rooted in bad spending decisions by the individual farmer.
The Prime Minister than goes on to labor on how the UPA raised MSP during its tenure and other things to make the rather questionable point that
It is the distress of this whole peasantry that brought the UPA to office when the NDA was talking about ‘Shining India’. This distress is the legacy of the NDA rule, a rule during which, policies were anti-farmers, anti-agriculture. About the debt relief, we have now announced……..to finally remove the burden of the NDA period from our farmers’ shoulders
So let us see here, even if we accept the PM’s logic here is what is troubling. The farmers were in distress in 2004 so they voted out the NDA and in comes the UPA. 4 full years pass by nothing happens.
Then “finally” the burden of the impending elections is felt by Messrs Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi so they wake up to this distress to act now ?
The Prime Minister then goes on to bullshit further on how this will be paid by not getting into any specifics. Instead he merely talks about getting this done by June, well in time for elections one must guess and then he makes this curious remark
the banks will be compensated as and when the loans become due
What is the Prime Minister talking about ? The whole point about this waiver was loans that were past overdue as of December 2007.
So what is he talking about “when the loans become due” ?
Offstumped Bottomline: The Prime Minister reply in Parliament should leave no one in doubt that the Congress is preparing to go to polls later this year. The June deadline for the 60,000 crore Debt giveaway should be the giveaway on the timeline. The biggest loser must be Don Prakash Karat. He had the opportunity to decide the timing of the polls last year but he blew it, thanks to Budhhadeb’s Nandigram fiasco.
Loading ...
2 users commented in " Manmohan Singh’s reply in Parliament - Offstumped Commentary "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackthanks to useless article..hope you got payment from CIA to support nuclear deal
Printer Friendly
Contradictions Still Plague U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal
Daryl G. Kimball
Two and a half years after President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their proposed U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation deal, the ill-conceived arrangement faces a highly uncertain future. In the next few weeks, decisions will likely be made at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that will determine whether the deal occurs at all and, if so, at what cost to the global nuclear nonproliferation system.
As soon as this month, the IAEA Board of Governors may be convened to consider a new India-specific safeguards agreement. If approved, the 44 other members of the NSG might then act on a U.S. proposal to exempt India from long-standing guidelines that require comprehensive IAEA safeguards as a condition of nuclear supply. If these bodies agree, the United States and other suppliers could finalize bilateral nuclear trade deals with India.
Although many states are willing to bend some rules to help India buy new reactors and the additional fuel needed to run them, there is growing resistance to forms of nuclear trade that could indirectly enable India’s nuclear weapons program or that would allow continued nuclear trade if India breaks its pledge not to resume nuclear test explosions. There is good reason for such concern because India violated past agreements on peaceful nuclear cooperation when it tested its first nuclear device in 1974 and has refused to allow comprehensive IAEA safeguards.
Contrary to claims of its proponents, the deal does not bring India into the nonproliferation mainstream. In fact, given India’s refusal to join the five original nuclear-weapon states in halting the production of fissile material for weapons, foreign supplies of nuclear fuel could free up New Delhi’s existing (and limited) uranium stockpile and increase its capacity to produce more nuclear bomb material. Unlike 177 other states, India has not yet signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Meanwhile, Indian officials are highly sensitive to concerns that the deal could affect its nuclear weapons program. To preserve India’s military options, the Singh government has bargained hard for unprecedented fuel supply assurances and unspecified “corrective measures” in the new safeguards agreement to offset disruptions that might occur if India resumes testing.
Indian leaders are also demanding terms of trade with other nuclear suppliers that sidestep the minimal but vital nonproliferation conditions and restrictions established by Congress in 2006 implementing legislation. The law, known as the Hyde Act, would require the termination of U.S. nuclear trade if New Delhi resumes nuclear testing or violates its safeguards commitments.
To improve its fuel production and spent fuel reprocessing capabilities, the Singh government has fought tooth and nail to secure access to uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies. The Hyde Act effectively bars the transfer of these sensitive nuclear technologies, which India could potentially use to enhance its military nuclear program.
Yet, India is demanding an NSG exemption without any of these and other conditions or restrictions. To date, the Bush administration has carried India’s water. The current U.S. draft proposal calls for a “clean” exemption, and the bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement contradicts the Hyde Act in several areas.
But at a hearing Feb. 13, the new chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), challenged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on this approach, noting that would give other nuclear suppliers, such as France and Russia, a commercial advantage and undermine U.S. nonproliferation objectives. Rice told Berman that the United States would pursue India-specific nuclear trade guidelines that are “completely consistent” with the Hyde Act.
Days later, India’s special envoy, Shyam Saran, contradicted Rice, saying that “it is our expectation that there would be a fairly simple and clean exemption from these guidelines, without any conditions or even expectations regarding India’s conduct in the future.” He asserted that India has “no problem with permanent safeguards provided there are permanent supplies of fuel.”
Saran noted that, in the U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement, the Bush administration pledged to help India amass a strategic fuel reserve and provide fuel supplies for the lifetime of its safeguarded reactors. Yet, at the urging of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Hyde Act stipulates that fuel supplies should only be “commensurate with reasonable reactor requirements.”
Now is the time for Congress and responsible members of the NSG to hold the Bush administration to Rice’s pledge to support international guidelines for trade with India that, at the very least, incorporate the minimal requirements mandated by U.S. law. If India’s leaders cannot even abide by these minimal standards and decide to reject the deal, that is their choice. Additional concessions to India will only further compromise the already beleaguered global nonproliferation system
Leave A Reply