Media Watch
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 2nd June 2014
What is the impact on macro economic environment due to change in political incumbent at the center ? This question lingers even as most of the economists acknowledge that reforms are needed to be pushed more at the level of state than at center for India’s fortune to be changed in any significant manner ? The reforms of GST etc. were policy actions devised to pursue the same line of action. Is it the imagination of the ensuing defeat in upcoming elections lingering high on the leadership team at states that is pushing them to discuss whispers in social media to initiate policy action or in choosing to make the difficult decisions that were postpone for future date. The change in fortunes of the stock market at least seems to suggest so since up till now no concrete action has been witnessed from center, so it must be some thing else that’s pushing up the stocks and currency and this must be something at some other level which could be at the state level or at the level of international markets. Since there does not seem to be any major change in the international arena so whats’ happening in states especially at economic policy or pushing up of specific large projects should be an area of focus. Almost nothing on this front is coming from the media which has simply shifted to playing Bhakti Sangeet for a different party/leader. Excellent deployment of the Cola-resources by media to keep the industry in high spirits. The previous government seems to have fallen prey to its own propaganda seems to have been forgotten for the good reason.
This is even as we witness some of the leaders especially at state level work overtime to revive the past ‘glory’ of the caste and religion based politics ably supported by some of the actions at center. We therefore continue to witness a near lack of action on economic front while a lot of ‘hardtalk’ on nearly every other stuff being pushed for public consumption. This is even as the leaders openly acknowledged that ‘developmental politics’ and concern regards ‘inflation’ were the core election issues which resulted in ‘change’. Their expectation seems to be quest for the new status quo line which ‘stabilizes’ the change and that this line can be found by following the tracks of the religion and caste politics, something which seem to have been rejected by people. We are therefore back to ratcheting up the case of ‘urgency’ in case of defence procurements, solving the K-problem, dalit/women-issues (no actual harm with this one though) and likes that to on the eve of budget which is expected within a few weeks. Why do the media not expect even some basic level ‘change agenda’ to be pushed in such policy announcements is anybody’s guess? Let’s watch the space…
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 2nd June 2014
What is the impact on macro economic environment due to change in political incumbent at the center ? This question lingers even as most of the economists acknowledge that reforms are needed to be pushed more at the level of state than at center for India’s fortune to be changed in any significant manner ? The reforms of GST etc. were policy actions devised to pursue the same line of action. Is it the imagination of the ensuing defeat in upcoming elections lingering high on the leadership team at states that is pushing them to discuss whispers in social media to initiate policy action or in choosing to make the difficult decisions that were postpone for future date. The change in fortunes of the stock market at least seems to suggest so since up till now no concrete action has been witnessed from center, so it must be some thing else that’s pushing up the stocks and currency and this must be something at some other level which could be at the state level or at the level of international markets. Since there does not seem to be any major change in the international arena so whats’ happening in states especially at economic policy or pushing up of specific large projects should be an area of focus. Almost nothing on this front is coming from the media which has simply shifted to playing Bhakti Sangeet for a different party/leader. Excellent deployment of the Cola-resources by media to keep the industry in high spirits. The previous government seems to have fallen prey to its own propaganda seems to have been forgotten for the good reason.
This is even as we witness some of the leaders especially at state level work overtime to revive the past ‘glory’ of the caste and religion based politics ably supported by some of the actions at center. We therefore continue to witness a near lack of action on economic front while a lot of ‘hardtalk’ on nearly every other stuff being pushed for public consumption. This is even as the leaders openly acknowledged that ‘developmental politics’ and concern regards ‘inflation’ were the core election issues which resulted in ‘change’. Their expectation seems to be quest for the new status quo line which ‘stabilizes’ the change and that this line can be found by following the tracks of the religion and caste politics, something which seem to have been rejected by people. We are therefore back to ratcheting up the case of ‘urgency’ in case of defence procurements, solving the K-problem, dalit/women-issues (no actual harm with this one though) and likes that to on the eve of budget which is expected within a few weeks. Why do the media not expect even some basic level ‘change agenda’ to be pushed in such policy announcements is anybody’s guess? Let’s watch the space…