Two headlines caught my
attention today; from these we get a clear picture of the general drift of
neoliberalism. The Times of India (see link below) declared:
SOCIOECONOMICS:
BIG TALK, TIGHT FIST
Funds
cuts pinch edu & health schemes
Slashing the
education budget and keeping the outlay on health static in Modi government's
first Budget was seemingly based on the sound logic of the Finance Commission
giving bigger share of taxes to states.
But three months
later, harsh reality has sunk in. Mid-Day Meal (MDM) cooks, anganwadi workers
and Mahila Samakhya workers have hit the streets and state governments are
feeling the heat ….
The other headlines that was an interesting contrast to
this was in the Livemint.
Industries call
on Modi to spend Rs.1 trillion (Rs.100,000 crore) to boost economy
… At the top of India Inc.’s wish list are investments in
infrastructure, simplification of rules for acquiring land and implementation
of a proposed national sales tax. Executives say the government should take the
lead in financing new roads and public projects to give the maximum boost to
Asia’s third- biggest economy.
V.S. Parthasarathy, group chief financial officer at Mahindra and
Mahindra Ltd, suggests Modi make a dramatic move by investing as much as Rs.1
trillion ($16 billion) on infrastructure in the next six months. That would
provide the country with tangible assets, signal confidence in the future and
inject cash that would cascade through the broader economy …
So is industry really against spending and deficits per
se or does it prefer one kind of spending to another? And the government? Let’s be clear.
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