BJP can do course correction.. Here it is..

swatkats

Skilled
“The economy is in a tailspin and we are heading for a depression,” said Dr Subramaniam Swamy, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) maverick leader and member of Parliament (MP), in an interview last week. He said that India’s real economic growth is lower than what the government claims and, if nothing is done quickly, banks may collapse and factories would start closing. The country’s GDP had fallen to a three-year low level of 5.7% in the first quarter of 2017-18. This is a shocking decline from expectations of double-digit growth after the BJP surged to power in May 2014. Dr Swamy’s concerns have resonated with a lot of people.

The mood of the nation has changed. There is a sense of anger about botched opportunities, disappointment that the promise of ‘achche din’ has been derailed by a series of rash decisions, including demonetisation. Three years ago, the economy was at the takeoff stage, riding on a good monsoon and incredible optimism about the changes promised by Narendra Modi (economic reform, war on corruption, more jobs, better governance, less government and ease of doing business). We are in a self-created crisis. Every top economist is advising the government to do whatever it takes to push public and private spending to kick-start the economy. Can this be done without re-capitalising banks in a big way at the cost of the exchequer? And won’t this, effectively, put end the effort to recover bad loans?

Dr Swamy, who taught economics at Harvard University, has several out-of-the-box ideas for the prime minister (PM), including the abolition of personal income-tax. The government has ignored them. Instead, finance minister Arun Jaitely, after consultations to revive the economy, has come up with a push for ‘affordable housing’ as the solution. The government has announced eight PPP (public private partnership) options, including six for promoting affordable housing with private investments using government land. Recapitalising banks again is another.

Affordable housing is last year’s idea—31 December 2016 to be precise—as part of the PM’s address to the nation. The Union Budget followed up with an attractive package to promote housing for all; but, barring a few developers (Tata, Godrej, Mahindra, Rahejas, Sobha and Piramal), almost all others are in deep trouble. They are unable to deliver apartments paid for by customers; many have spent time in jail; some may be headed there soon. At a time when home-buyers are struggling to get their fully-paid apartments delivered, talk of affordable housing sounds like a joke. In 2008, the bailout offered by lenders to realty firms was misused to keep property prices high. Affordable housing should not be a catchy new tag; it should be about reducing real estate prices in our cities to reasonable levels.

Similarly, infrastructure spending to boost the economy cannot be about showpiece projects like a bullet train of questionable utility (it is not even connecting Delhi-Mumbai). With the economy in a shambles and the promised job growth nowhere in sight, here are a few issues that could trip up the government, if it is not in listening mode.

• Demonetisation Failure: People went through untold hardship in support of the PM’s effort to mop up black money. After a long silence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), we discover that the crooked have laundered all their money and 99% of the banned notes have come back to the banking system. The government’s claim that its tax machinery will go after money in the banks sounds lame; we simply do not have the manpower and resources to go after every person who deposited old currency; most of them will probably escape by striking deals with corrupt tax officials.

• Taxes: While the war on black money is a flop, there is no reduction in tax harassment. True, the system is more efficient and refunds are faster; but cases of tax scrutiny being unleashed on honest taxpayers and illogical questions raised by assessment officers have increased manifold. Aggressive demands for payment of advance tax are beginning to rankle, especially when targeted at small and medium entities that pay tax diligently. It makes you wonder why tax sleuths are not entirely focused on enormous funds deposited into Jan-Dhan accounts during demonetisation. There is no transparency on how deposits into those accounts are being dealt with. Since the government likes bold decisions, why not experiment with Dr Swamy’s radical suggestion to abolish income-tax? He argues that we have a large and expensive tax machinery to collect tax but so few people pay it anyway; instead, abolition of income-tax would boost savings and restart the investment cycle.

• Goods and Services Tax (GST): Envisaged as a single tax rate (one country, one tax), what we actually have are multiple taxes and multiple rates that are changed all the time. A video of Arvind Datar, senior counsel of the Supreme Court of India and an expert on taxation had gone viral before the introduction of GST. He had warned the government about the dangers of hasty implementation and had strongly advocated a pilot project to bring a few products and services under GST to test the radical new system. But the government chose the drama of a midnight launch in Parliament over prudence. The daily collapse of the GSTN network is causing untold harassment to lakhs of persons and businesses. Exporters and traders complain about massive funds and working capital being blocked up and the high cost of filing multiple returns through chartered accountants. The date for filing returns is being constantly extended in the hope of fixing glitches. The impact on the ordinary person is an increase in costs across a large swathe of products and services (restaurant bills, repairs, utilities, housing societies, etc). All of this is bound to impact the economy and perception about this government.

• Interest Rates: Another suggestion from Dr Swamy is the reduction of key interest rates for small and medium industries, to about 9%, and increase in interest rates on fixed deposits (FDs) to 9%, to encourage savings. One assumes this refers to interest paid by banks on FDs. Dr Swamy has not explained how banks will manage this, since they are already gouging consumers for all services, including deposits and withdrawals, even when they enjoy a hefty spread of 6%+ between deposit rates and lending rates.

• Aadhaar: The relentless and unlawful push to force people to link their Aadhaar numbers to bank accounts, telephones, and furnish them for every engagement with government, may be the government’s last big blunder before elections. Disregarding a Supreme Court (SC) stay on making Aadhaar mandatory for government services only justifies fears about its misuse to target people. Moreover, although the Aadhaar database is flawed and unverified, the government stridently dismisses all reports about fraud and hardship encountered in reading biometrics as aberrations or propaganda. There is also the issue of costs. Aadhaar is only a number until authenticated by UIDAI (Unique Identity Database Authority of India) and each instance of authentication is planned to be charged. The cost and infrastructure required to do this, and to keep Aadhaar centres alive for updating changes is sought to be pushed on to banks. This cost is most likely to be recovered from customers. Denial of government services, ration, subsidies and the inability to read biometrics is bound to unleash fresh harassment which cannot endear the government to the public.

The last time around, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lost an election, despite a booming economy, largely because of hubris and a self-congratulatory ‘India Shining’ campaign. This time around, there is real hardship inflicted on people, declining growth and no sign of achche din. Will the absence of an alternative be reason enough to give the government another term? We will wait and watch. There is still time for a course-correction, provided the government is willing to listen and act.


Source: http://www.moneylife.in/article/wha...he-din-will-the-bjp-course-correct/51732.html
 
...Will the absence of an alternative be reason enough to give the government another term?

I say, however lackluster or incompetent you think the opposition is, it's still 100000 times better than these jokers.

They want to spend three times the Country's health budget or around Rs. 1.1 LAKH CRORE on a bullet train that runs about 500km from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. This is also about 70% more than the National highway budget.

Or how about the world's tallest statue, which will cost about Rs. Four thousand Crore.

We are going to show them what happens when they take advantage of a people who were desperate for change from a corrupt govt. and voted them into power. In the next elections in 2019, no more of this Acche Din nonsense which used to be India Shining two decades ago, another load of bullcrap.
 
I say, however lackluster or incompetent you think the opposition is, it's still 100000 times better than these jokers.

They want to spend three times the Country's health budget or around Rs. 1.1 LAKH CRORE on a bullet train that runs about 500km from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. This is also about 70% more than the National highway budget.

Or how about the world's tallest statue, which will cost about Rs. Four thousand Crore.

We are going to show them what happens when they take advantage of a people who were desperate for change from a corrupt govt. and voted them into power. In the next elections in 2019, no more of this Acche Din nonsense which used to be India Shining two decades ago, another load of bullcrap.

I think the no 1 joker is still RaGa, anyday, anytime.

Bullet train - I am divided on this. Considering that we need to someday start investing in new tech, this is not a wrong time, rather a correct time. Modi is playing a move against China for sure with this.

Statue - I dont get why we need to waste money. Tourism, maybe, but we all know that its going to be shitty at best later, and closed down at worst. Plus, corruption would mean that the real cost of the statue would be maybe a tenth of the cost?
 
Ideally, banks should reduce lending rates to people too. Current housing loans are in double digits and by the time you pay the oan in 20-25 years, the price you pay to them is more than double the cost of the house you bought. Interest rates for housing should be less than 5% annually. Only then people will try to buy a house on loan. Otherwise lot of poor people are disqualified in loan application itself since they earn lot less income that what the bank wants such people to have.

Another point is the more the govt taxez people, the more people will hold on to their money dearly. The govt should have made it tax free or everyone earning less than 5 lakhs per annum. Such people are mostly young people who are lower middle class and have no opportunity to grow any further in their field of work. If they get money in their hands, they will spend it on buying better quality food, clothes, jewellery, etc which they couldn't afford before.

Lastly, I believe, building statues should be banned. They are just a colossal waste of public money that could have been used for other purposes like building a sports complex for atheletes or divert it to R&D for health care etc. The statues serve no purpose other than fanning ego's of backward class people who think their state is great but do little to keep it great. These same people will spit and trash their place for no reason.
 
Bullet train - I am divided on this. Considering that we need to someday start investing in new tech, this is not a wrong time, rather a correct time. Modi is playing a move against China for sure with this.
Existing trains in Indian railways (IR) itself is in worst condition with seats/windows damaged. Why don't they fix something that's available with the allocated fund, rather than for something new. I accept that this bullet train is new tech, and will be like a gem in IR bla bla bla, - but in reality "Is this really needed at this point of time?"
 
Existing trains in Indian railways (IR) itself is in worst condition with seats/windows damaged. Why don't they fix something that's available with the allocated fund, rather than for something new. I accept that this bullet train is new tech, and will be like a gem in IR bla bla bla, - but in reality "Is this really needed at this point of time?"

As I said, I am divided on this. I am not sure that even that loan is technically free, considering analysts opinions.

Coming to damaged fixtures, I dont think its the railways fault entirely, even the passengers are equally responsible.
 
I think the no 1 joker is still RaGa, anyday, anytime.

As i've said before, it's very well made propaganda that makes people think this. I've never liked rahul or the gandhi clan much but even i have a hard time believing the stuff they put out around him. If you set aside your bias and see even the biased media reports you will know that this is a well executed smear campaign. Going on for years now, even before the elections.

I still remember my bjp supporter friend bashing rahul about his interview "that guy is such an idiot, he spoke about everything except answer the direct question asked to him". I was totally disinterested in politics at the time, yet i downloaded the interview to see what the fuss what all about. And i saw Arnab ask him, "What is your opinion on the opposition's Prime Ministerial candidate?". And like a true international politician (who are supposed to be diplomatic, not barking dogs like most are in india), rahul answered "i don't wish to express an opinion on that". Yet Arnab repeated the question multiple times and got the same answer. That's when i realised most bjp supporters are rabid dogs. Just like most right-wing extremists.[DOUBLEPOST=1506586726][/DOUBLEPOST]
Bullet train - I am divided on this. Considering that we need to someday start investing in new tech, this is not a wrong time, rather a correct time. Modi is playing a move against China for sure with this.

The economy is in shambles, this is ABSOLUTELY the wrong time to be spending on fancy crap we don't need and fix our dilapidated infrastructure instead. I don't understand why people don't realise that all the tech in the world is useless when basic ground level infrastructure is broken.
 
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The economy is in shambles, this is ABSOLUTELY the wrong time to be spending on fancy crap we don't need and fix our dilapidated infrastructure instead. I don't understand why people don't realise that all the tech in the world is useless when basic ground level infrastructure is broken.

+1
 
As i've said before, it's very well made propaganda that makes people think this. I've never liked rahul or the gandhi clan much but even i have a hard time believing the stuff they put out around him. If you set aside your bias and see even the biased media reports you will know that this is a well executed smear campaign. Going on for years now, even before the elections.

Rahul Gandhi really is just that retarded and no smear campaign is required to tarnish him. He only has to speak his mind without following the script to prove that which he did on numerous occasions and not just on the political arena, but also whenever he was invited to some conferences or even student debates. He has neither knowledge nor oratory skills going for him. He would just blabber some nonsense while randomly sprinkling it with terms like "Women empowerment" to make it seem like is he is not talking rubbish.

I cannot blame BJP taking advantage of that. The only thing that has changed after the 2014 elections is that he was pulled away from the public view for several months and trained hard not to deviate from the scripts given to him.

IMO, Sonia and Congress shot themselves in the foot every time they tried to make the road clear for Rahul Gandhi. Anybody moderately capable of leading the party were cast away in one way or other in order to make way for Rahul Gandhi. Even MM Singh played a big part in congress downfall by being a highly qualified, but utterly incompetent leader and a puppet to the point that even his friends and children got disgusted with him.

Modi on the other hand is clever and has always used every trick in the book to get support that he needed. Leaving aside the countless number people whose livelihood and life savings were destroyed during the demonetization drive, the fact that people just ignored that an estimated 2000+ people died just waiting in bank and ATM queues during the demonetization process is proof of that. That is a bigger number than 30 years of terror attack casualties, but you still see support for them.

If BJP manages to win in 2019 (which already are not doing to be fair elections in many places), people can count on a North Korea like governance in India pretty soon. Every dictator in history was born when people gave too much support to a leader and refused to question their leaders and put them in check.
 
Take a look at his recent speeches and public interactions. Quite a few without a teleprompter or even a piece of paper in front of him. And while he's not a loud barking dog like most people seem to like for some absurd reason, his speeches were pretty well delivered. Don't base your judgement on media and indian public opinion, see for yourself. A number of learned and educated people, after hearing him speak in the us, said they were quite surprised at his intellect and he was nowhere as bad as they though based on the already well spread propaganda. i'm not a fan of his or any party for that matter but the facts are in plain sight.
 
^^ One of his daughters spoke in some interview few years back that many of his close non-politico friends, family friends and relatives urged him early on to resign and save his dignity and self-respect His continued stubbornness and insistence on being a puppet PM apparently distanced him from his friends and a void was formed in the relationship with his children too. Furthermore, he is from the Sikh community for whom dignity and self respect is of at most importance. They would do any hard work to earn a living and I have seen them who work into their 80's than be dependent on their own children, but they will never compromise their dignity and self-respect and let themselves be trampled by somebody else.
 
AFter very long time here guys.

My 2 cents...Being a businessmen now.

All roads are paved for billionaire like JIO,Adani,Zee and many more by killing the competition to stand in front of them.

Bullet Train::I guys diamonds from ahmedabad to Mumbai and via may soon be the finance or havala rouyte for elections hence bullet train is utmost importance for the government.

Congress need to search RAGA replacement.Even Jyotiradha scindia will do.That will break the shackles of dynasty on main front and at-least will bring some l;evel playing field for Congress.

GST should be on lines of all ready to pay with less tax at 12% rather than all are chor and follow strict discipline else we will screw you around which looks to be the case.

As nemesis said if 2019 it goes the BJP way better be ready with your passport to move out.
 
He said that India’s real economic growth is lower than what the government claims and, if nothing is done quickly, banks may collapse and factories would start closing.

EVERYTING GOT COVERED,
 
Existing trains in Indian railways (IR) itself is in worst condition with seats/windows damaged. Why don't they fix something that's available with the allocated fund, rather than for something new. I accept that this bullet train is new tech, and will be like a gem in IR bla bla bla, - but in reality "Is this really needed at this point of time?"
Im not sure why is Modi harping on bullet train technology and that too for 500 km of a route that has already in place robust transport means, (flights, trains etc.) Govt. in Andhra Pradesh is planning on introducing hyperloop tech, (which though costly would actually meet the definition of "new tech"). As someone rightly pointed out, for working on reviving the economy, one has to admit that they have gone wrong, an admission which would hurt their ego.
 
120 seats for sure.
Gujrati community would never let their son down.[DOUBLEPOST=1513310568][/DOUBLEPOST]whatever demo and GST loss they have had, they know it will recover in multiples in shares.
 
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