The Hindu Business Line : New Year resolve

THE TEMPLE BELLS have pealed; the people have greeted one another and politicians have conveyed their message to the nation. Yet another new year is upon us. This one is quite unlike any other in recent years. The gentle waves of the ocean that had long beguiled us with its prattle on the coastal sands chose early this week to perform a cosmic dance that devoured all that lay in its path if only to remind us that, however much we may seek to shape our destiny, nature will forever remain a factor in our calculus.

If the year just gone past ended on a depressing note, its beginning had, nevertheless, heralded a glorious future. The economy was expected to record a heady growth rate of 8 per cent, three months into the New Year. The number was widely perceived as possessing a magical quality that would put the economy on a self-sustaining growth path, making us forget the pockets of deprivation or inequality of an extreme order within society. The voters, of course, forced a rude reality check on the rulers of the day, reminding them that such a disconnect can neither be ignored nor simply wished away. But it is not all gloom and doom for the economy as the nation looks ahead. Overseas investors, of course, exude optimism and they are, in a manner of speaking, putting their money where their mouth is. The organised corporate sector has over the years acquired a level of competence to handle both internal and external competition that is reflected in their financial performance. The emergence of a large number of small and medium sized enterprises and their increasing acceptance by the community of investors is a happy augury. The stock market has shown itself to be rapidly maturing and the quality of governance among publicly held companies is, on the whole, improving — the current revelations concerning Reliance Industries notwithstanding. The positive features of the economy need to be reinforced.

But there is an unfinished agenda of reforms in the management of the economy. People living below the poverty line have to be lifted quickly out of their misery and not left to await the trickle-down effect of overall improvement in prosperity at the top and the middle. This calls for effective public intervention and this is an area where we have been witness only to a sharp decline. The benefits of competition may have lifted the corporate sector to a higher level of performance in its core mission of wealth creation. Unfortunately, there is no competitive market for public service. Politicians have collectively operated on the least common denominator of venality and incompetence across a broad political spectrum, and the public, with its apathy and ignorance, has to shoulder the blame for this degeneration. If the New Year is an occasion for resolutions then there is no better one can do than resolve to get involved in a greater measure with the political and the governance processes of the nation.

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