NEW DELHI-More Flexible Than Ever

NEW DELHI More Flexible Than Ever B M GEORGE FERNANDES has at last found the way to present his much- promised industrial policy statement. He laced it with repeated assertions of a break with the Nehru legacy and the denunciation of the poor performance of the previous regime. But even a cursory reading of the lengthy statement shows that it hardly squares with all the hard-sell advance publicity for the "new" Janata industrial policy. For one thing, Fernandez was hard put to it to explain why he failed to come forward with a brand new industrial policy resolution in place of the much- maligned 1956 Resolution. He merely asserted by way of explanation that it was always open to him to convert his statement into a full-fledged resolution. That, of course, may be readily conceded. But, as the Secretary to the Industry Ministry in briefing the press admitted, the 1956 Resolution stands and has not been rescinded and, further, there was hardly anything in that re- solutfon to which serious objections might be raised, Fernandes' broadsides against the industrial policy of the previous government thus has no particular significance except as a currently fashionable, posture.