Hard action needed for
new hopes
S. Narendra
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s sixth
address from the Red
Fort, like the first in
2014, has briefly set
out an agenda with
priorities. Each of the latter and
would go to determine India’s
security, properly understood in
all dimensions, and the country’s
future. As such, the amplification
of the priorities set out into
implementable policies for action
by governments at the Centre and
in the states right down to
Panchayats should be the next
priority.
Among dozens policies and
programmes flagged by the Prime
Minister, a few are closely linked
to the government’s foremost
agenda of taking India’s GDP from
the current level of $2.8 trilion to
$5 trillion. A very big jump indeed.
As he himself noted, it is not easy
but a dream has been defined like
his ‘make in India’ and “swacch
Bharat” announced in the first
term. The reality is that this
dream has to sail through the
current lower than expected
growth rate of 6.8 in 2019, against
the earlier projected growth rate
of over 7 per cent.
Three things fire up
an economy:
investment (private
and public),
consumption and
healthy foreign and
domestic markets.
For some time now,
India has witnessed
declines on all
three fronts,
despite the
government’s effort
to increase its
investment for
making up the huge
lag in private
investment.
Several structural weaknesses
have surfaced in the economy; like
the highly troubled financial
sector, oversupply in the
construction sector, consistently
weak manufacturing,
unprecedented distress in
agriculture, massive layoffs
amidst a job-short economy,
shortfall in government’s revenue
expectations.
The global economic and
political headwinds like US-China
trade war, Brexit, tension in West
Asia are gravely complicating the
management of the Indian
economy. The global economic
growth rate for 2019 has been
lowered from 3.6 % to 3.3 %. As
the World Economic Outlook of UN
points out, climate change, trade
wars and financial uncertainty are
pulling down global growth. A
section of economic opinion is
even fearing return of a global
recession calling for concerted
corrective action by world leaders.
Nearly a dozen central banks
led by the US Federal Reserve have
cut interest rates to ease liquidity.
Our own RBI has downscaled
India’s growth expectation to 5.9
% ( for the Iast quarter of 2019),
while announcing a significant rate
cut to make borrowing for
investment cheaper. Fortuitously,
international oil price is ruling at $
60 per barrel, offering the
government a major relief.
Three things fire up an
economy: investment (private and
public), consumption and healthy
foreign and domestic markets. For
some time now, India has
witnessed declines on all three
fronts, despite the government’s
effort to increase its investment
for making up the huge lag in
private investment.
The government at the highest
level obviously is aware of the
huge economic problems, while
announcing the $5 trillion dream.
One has to wait to see how it
proposes to overcome the
problems in the coming days.
Population growth
A rather sensitive subject like
population stabilisation was
picked up by prime minister
Narendra Modi that is both
significant, and relevant to the big
dream. The good news on our
population growth trend is that
the national average birth rate has
fallen to a little above replacement
level (2 per cent). But the alarming
news is that the birth rate (TFR or
total fertility rate ) in seven most
populous and poor states like
Bihar, UP, Odissa and others
continues to be very high.
Most of the population decline
has come from relatively
prosperous western and southern
states. The population issue is
sensitive because the minority
Muslims are seen as opposed to
family planning on religious
grounds and any one in the
government mentioning the
subject from a prominent platform
is viewed as controversial. NDA of
1990s had raised the issue but
consigned it to an unwieldy
committee of about 100 persons.
After the backlash caused by
coercive family planning drives
during 1975 Indira Gandhi’s
emergency, all political parties
stayed away from the subject. A
precious asset like human
resource was thus allowed to grow
into a problem.
Political will
One hopes that the government
has some immediate, pragmatic
plan to take the states and all
sections of the population with it
in tackling this huge problem.
Jalshakti
Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
while expressing his solidarity with
lakhs of people coping with floods
in several states, used the
occasion for giving a call for better
water management. This came in
the backdrop of a NITI Ayog report
highlighting that 80 per cent of
households do not have piped
drinking water. About 600 million
people daily face serious water
access problems. According to the
Economist, by exporting huge
amounts of water –intensive farm
products like rice and sugar, India
is depleting its water resources.
While drawing attention to the
government’s Rs 3.5 lakh crore Jal
Jeevan mission to supply piped
drinking water, Modi repeated his
call for “per drop, more crop”, and went on to emphasise the need for
less water intensive farming and
lesser use of chemical fertilisers.
Obviously, climate change is
forcing itself into some action, that
can be seen from PM’s decision to
ban single use plastic
and attention to
alternatives to plastic
packaging. The newly
created Jal Shakti
ministry is expected
to bring an integrated
approach to India’s
water security.
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, while
expressing his
solidarity with lakhs
of people coping with
floods in several
states, used the
occasion for giving a
call for better water
management. This
came in the backdrop
of a NITI Ayog report
highlighting that 80
per cent of
households do not
have piped drinking
water.
EoDB or EoL
There was a clever
repackaging of the
ease of doing
business (EoDB)
perceived as benefitting mostly
the businesses into or ease of
living (EoL). With a turn of phrase,
Modi has taken the message to
ordinary people. This EoL is a
move to lessen the burden of
unnecessary laws and rules that
dog the common person’s
everyday life that is bound to
resonate well with the public.
While PM has flagged this, he has
to coax the states where such
burden is heaviest to go after EoL
in a mission mode. EoL is vital for
improving national productivity.
New growth centre
People may have missed the
significance of PMs reference to
the districts in states to be
developed as the hub of growth.
India has over 650 districts of
varying sizes and populations.
While Thane in Maharastra has the
highest population density, Kaacch
in Gujarat has the biggest area.
Each district has some or other
economic potential that requires
harnessing.
This idea is not new. After 14
banks nationalisation in 1969,each
district was assigned to a lead
bank branch to survey its growth and development potential and
tasked to work for the purpose in
cooperation with the state
administration.
Under Janata government ,
George Fernandez as the
Industries minister had mooted
the scheme for setting up District
Industries Centres. Such centres
were supposed to work as singlewindow service providers to
businesses.
Then there was the Planning
Commission’s scheme for
developing 100s of new growth
centres for ensuring balanced
development and avoid overcrowding of businesses and
people in a few cities as it is
happening now. The political
short- term interests tend to focus
on a few existing cities like
Bengaluru for industry and
business.
Unofficial estimates show that
this city population has crossed
one crore and political-realty
interests are hatching plans to
accommodate another 1.5 crore.
Bengaluru’s roads are clogged,
garbage over-flowing and it is
already water stressed. This
situation is being repeated in
other cities and big towns.
Driving growth away into
hinterland would reduce the
attraction of present big cities for
people and would facilitate a
modicum of urban planning. It is a
step towards better internal
security management . A national
political will has to be forged for
this agenda to take off. At long
last, it has figured on the PM’s
plate. This augurs well for the
future.
Driving growth away
into hinterland would
reduce the attraction of
present big cities for
people and would
facilitate a modicum of
urban planning. It is a
step towards better
internal security
management . A
national political will has
to be forged for this
agenda to take off. At
long last, it has figured
on the PM’s plate. This
augurs well for the
future.
CDS Post
I am taking up last CDS or the
proposal to appoint a Chief of
Defence Staff that has meaning for
external security mentioned
in the address. Under the
British rule, India did have a C-in-C
or Commander-in-Chief, who reported to the Governor General
and the Secretary of State in
London. There was also a Defence
member (civilian) in the Viceroy’s
council. After the adoption of the
1950 Constitution, this designation
CinC was ceremonially conferred
on the President of India signalling
civilian control over defence
forces.
In the present arrangement, the
three wings of the defence forcesNavy, Air Force and the Army have
their commanders. A post of
Chairman of Chiefs of Staff
Committee (COSC) was created
some time ago for inter-services
coordination and the senior most
serving commander among the
three service chiefs occupies this
post.
More than once during
external aggression faced by
India, inter-services
coordination has showed up as a
major gap. In addition to
c o o r d i n a t i o n ,
the need for
medium and
long - term
planning of
a r m s
p r o c u r e m e n t ,
t h r e a t s
assessment and
response to it
as a single
fighting unit
demands a
single-window
leadership.
In both the UK
and the US, a
CDS functions as
the military adviser to the political
executive. As pointed out by the
prime minister, the nature of war
and security in this digital era and
artificial intelligence has changed.
The introduction of CDS at the
helm of strategic defence matters,
hopefully, should remove the
perceived weaknesses in the
present arrangement.
However, there are several
things to be sorted out before operationlising the new
institution, such as clarifying
the relationship between the
civilian bureaucracy headed by
senior civil servants and CDS,
National Security Adviser and
Council, Scientific Adviser to the
Defence Minister, and the
political executive. The civilian
bureaucracy in the defence
ministry is normally expected to
offer administrative support
and financial advice to the
defence minister. Its proximity
to the political leadership is a
sore point with the top defence
brass.
In Britain, there were
complaints that the institution of
CDS inserted a new layer of
military bureaucracy. The longest
serving officer in the post, late
Lord Mountbatten, reportedly
engaged in projects which were of
no strategic value.
Again, the PM has taken a call
on a long –overdue change. How it
would bring about better
utilisation of resource allocated
and adds efficiency to security
management lies in the future.
There was a brief reference to
Article 370 and 35A removal ,with
the reorganisation of the Jammu,
Kashmir and Ladkah and Kargil as
union territories, followed by the
promise of ushering in a new
development era in the
reorganised territories.
The minimal treatment in the
speech to an unprecedented step
was perhaps because the issue
was coming up before the United
Nations Security Council, and
hence, diplomatically delicate. It
was a welcome change that
Pakistan went unmentioned in the
address, despite provocation from
the other side.
Lights and cameras are behind :
now comes the hard part-action.
The author has been
Distinguished Civil Servant
and thinker of India.