O J's Corner : Reflections

Open up with a human face

It is time one made up his mind about liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation.
There can be no going back from the liberalisation process officially set in motion in 1991. I would say the seeds of liberalisation were sown during the Prime Ministership of the dynamic  Rajiv Gandhi.

All the same,it is officially believed to be during the Prime Ministership of P V Narasimha Rao in 1991 that the process got started through budget proposals. Dr Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister then.

It was a churning process for a country which has been following the socialist ideals for a long time. For geopolitical reasons we were close to the Soviet Union by virtue of which the leftist thoughts had an upper hand.

It is all gone now. Even Russia and other independent States which broke off from the Soviet Union have been depending on the US for a lot of affairs.

Every country is aspiring to be part of liberalisation, opening up and thereby growing up. Russia has been attempting to join the World Trade Organisation, but it did not get admitted for want of proper democratic processes kept in place in that country.

India is the world’s largest functional democracy. It can withstand any pressure on the strength of the will of the people.

The suggestion is: by all means open up, liberalise and go in for competition. We are going by the example of countries which have been following open market policies.In the West, there are in-built policies and programmes to take care of the citizens who are bereft of employment.

First of all, let us have an educational system under which the meritorious students should get good education. The economically weaker students coming from poor families should be given all support.

Mind you, a few thousands of the young people who excelled in education are holding the reins in various companies and business conglomerates as managers, leaders, idea generators and think-tanks. They preside over compendiums that generate multiples of crores of dollars worth of goods and services.

Unimaginable levels of prosperity have been created by these intellectually-rich genre. Of course, they have the bounden duty to care for the society which provided them opportunities.

They should be roped in to contribute part of their profits to research work in educational institutions where the youth would get good education.

Simultaneously, in a country like India where majority of the people depend on farming, agriculture sector should get priority just like the education sector. The government should follow the example of the developed countries and implement schemes to make farmers self-sufficient. There can be prosperous farmers, if the inputs are provided to them.

The control regime in the education sector should go. There are a lot of agencies which, in the name of overseeing, put hurdles in the way of progress of private education.

There can be colleges and universities and research institutions in the private sector. The existing rules which provide the control agencies with the tool to stymie the growth of education should be amended.

Foreign universities should be allowed to function in the country. Expertise from anywhere should be welcomed so that our youth would share the knowledge and experience. Afterall, we want to become a developed country. The elements which contribute to all-round development should be welcomed.