Articles by B M

NEW DELHI Seventh Plan: Going through the Motions B M THE planners in yojana Bhavan expect to finish writing the draft of the Seventh Five-Year Plan by end July or early August and to present it to the Union Cabinet thereafter. According to this time-table, the National Development Council will be convened to consider the draft Plan in September. This has been possible because the planners were able to persuade the Prime Minister to hold a meeting of the full Planning Commission to determine the overall size of the Plan before leaving for his foreign tour with which he was evidently very much preoccupied. Earlier the Prime Minister had twice postponed the scheduled meeting of the Planning Commission because of more pressing preoccupations. Development planning cannot after all have a very high priority on the Prime Minister's agenda when liberalisation of the economy, so as to give private enterprise and market forces freer play, is the credo. However, the making of a development plan has its own uses and there is no question, at least as yet, of formally abandoning planning.

NEW DELHI Budget-Plan Link Snapped THE loud cheers from corporate business interests and their leaders for the first budget of Rajiv Gandhi's government are altogether unprecedented. Never before has a budget of the Union government won so much acclaim so unreservedly and enthusiastically from these quarters. No less enthusiastic has been the welcome of the budget by the middle classes, especially salaried employees among them. But this is somewhat tinged by doubts and reservations about the impact of the budget on prices. Fiscal reliefs on a selective basis for entertainment electronics and private transport have not dispelled these doubts. The sharp hikes in railway fares and freights, the hefty increase in the prices of petroleum products and levies on cement and vegetable products have unquestionably caused widespread misgivings. What stands out about the public mood is that while the top rich and business circles are fully satisfied by the Union budget and the trend of official economic policies, the middle classes are subdued and reserved in their response. The lower middle classes and the poor generally are visibly upset.

NEW DELHI Mindless Management of Government B M UNSETTLING everyone having to deal with her is Indira Gandhi's typical way of functioning. This includes her Cabinet colleagues and senior officials, not to speak of her political opponents. This trait finds expression in many ways, among them, the periodic reshuffle of her Cabinet and the portfolios of ministers and civil service departmental heads and senior officials. The sycophants who surround her and give her much satisfaction always applaud her supposedly extraordinary qualities of leadership in whatever she does and the manner of her doing it, but others are only puzzled and unable to divine any rationale for her ways and moves.

April 7, 1984 NEW DELHI Luring Multinationals into High Technology Areas B M M S SANJEEVI RAO is only a Deputy Minister in the Union government, in- charge of the electronics department and Chairman of the Electronics Commission. But he is playing a role much bigger than his formal office would ordinarily warrant He is indeed being noted as a spokesman of the government on major shift in industrial policy. He evidently enjoys the confidence of the Prime Minister and her close advisors. His standing with them was very much enhanced when he carried through last August, on the promptings of the top leadership of the ruling party and Rajiv Gandhi particularly, significant adjustments in electronics policy. The development of electronics and communications is currently receiving special attention of the leadership. It has not escaped notice in this context that Rao was chosen to announce on behalf of the government major policy changes in the development of the communications infrastructure and the communications equipment industry. Ordinarily, such an announcement should have been the prerogative of the Communications Minister. But the policy changes are reported to have come about after some controversy within the government, especially between the Communications and Electronics Departments, in which the stand of the Electronics Department is said to have prevailed with the personal backing of the Prime Minister.

January 28, 1984 The student leaders met him the next day and abused him in quite strong language. It is a measure of the culture of collaboration prevalent on the compus that a tape-record of their conversation is available with the police. The police obtained a complaint of 'criminal intimidation' against the students. That night (the early hours of 23rd), in a mysterious development that recalled to many minds the burning of the German Reichstag, the Chemistry laboratory of the University College got burn down completely, resulting in a loss of Rs 10 lakh. The University and Police authorities immediately declared that it was sabotage, and the local Press called it a 'stab in the back' to the fledgeling University. Without saying so, they all told the police whom to implicate