Airport Privatisation -- Crash Landing ?

If the Left parties have their way, the Airport privatisation may crash land before it takes off.

The Hindu Business Line reports that " The Left parties have asked the Government to consider adopting the `greenfield route' for the development of the airports in Delhi, Mumbai and other important cities.The four Left parties — CPI (M), CPI, AIFB and RSP — have expressed their "firm opposition" to any unilateral decision to privatise the Delhi and Mumbai airports. The letter points out that in the absence of consensus pursuant to the consultation with the employees and in the light of alternative plan submitted by the employees, the best option was to speed up the modernisation of these airports through AAI instead of wasting time in going through a privatisation or joint venture route.The Government is following the joint venture route for modernisation and restructuring of the two metro airports in which the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will have a minority stake.

The letter, opposing the move to privatise the two metro airports, comes days before the empowered Group of Ministers (e-GoM) is scheduled to meet to take a final decision on who should be chosen as the successful bidder for restructuring and modernising the two airports."

Ironically this comes just a day after the FM emphasized the need for better Infrastructure to achieve higher GDP growth.

India's biggest economic summit opens

BusinessWeek reports that " Hundreds of executives and policy makers from around the world gathered Sunday to explore business opportunities in India, one of the world's fastest-growing economies that is increasingly opening up to foreign competition and investment.The three-day India Economic Summit comes at a time when Foreign investors have been increasingly looking to India as its booming economy -- which has been expanding at an annual rate of more than 7 percent in recent years -- offers promising returns on capital".

Global experts will join Indian policy makers at the summit to discuss what should be done to make the growth process more inclusive in order to prevent a social and political backlash in the face of widening economic disparities, said Gay Davis, an expert with the Geneva-based World Economic Forum that hosted the annual meeting.A key focus of the summit would be how India could sustain annual economic growth of 8 percent or more in a way that benefits people across all sections of the society, Davis said.The obvious challenges include infrastructure bottlenecks, including a lack of enough schools and hospitals needed to provide an educated and healthy work force, he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will address the summit. More than 600 participants from nearly three dozen countries are attending.

The Hindu adds "Unveiling the roadmap for reforms to achieve eight per cent growth, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Sunday announced that more sectors would be opened up to foreign direct investment (FDI) while public investment would be increased in critical sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure.The FM admitted that the Key to sustaining higher GDP growth is larger investment in infrastructure".

But how much of that is possible with the Left being an ally ? Keep your fingers crossed .

Moral Policing

The state of Tamil Nadu - the abode of conservatism, finds itself again under national spotlight. The recent moral policing episodes do not do any good to the state's image . An Actress is attacked verbally and with rotten eggs for her opinion , the Anna University passes a dress code for students and media (certain section) & police become cultural torch bearers by invading a Bar. All these attackers have different agenda, none of which is noble. Also such Blatant intolerance of Individual freedom is shocking & despicable.

Whether the remarks made by Khusboo are right or wrong is besides the point. But I fully support her right to say whatever she feels. As Voltaire said " "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Thankfully , there seems to some respite. Karthi Chidambaram (Son of P.Chidambaram - FM) & Kanimozhi (Daughter of M.Karunanidhi) have joined hands to start a portal named "Karuthu" to uphold freedom of expression.A small step in the right direction.

What is happening now is not moral policing but amoral policing.

Indophiles

The Victor Hugo quote " No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come" has a definitive buzz about it. In his maiden speech as Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh quoted it during his budget speech.

We feel the same way about India. There is something exciting happening there which is transforming a sleeping elephant into a asian tiger. We shall strive to track,analyse & disseminate Business,economic,political information about India through this blog. This blog will be a Group Blog with contributions by me & Aruna Urs ( Watch out for this guy , He is a UG in economics now pursuing a Masters in International Political economy with future plans of a Ph.D in Macroeconomics ! ).

As Mark Twain exclaimed " India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition" . We are pretty excited about this interesting journey. We hope we can keep the readers glued too.