Narendra Modi vs. Manmohan Singh

I thank bsh for his arguments.I'll get right down to the case.Con argues Singh's credentials based on three major parameters- Economic, domestic and diplomatic policies. 1. Economic policies: India's GDP grew at an unprecedented rate, true. I acknowledged this in my opening argument. However, what matters here is not *how much* the GDP grew, but how much did the growth lead to better standard of living. Short answer- It did not. India grew at that rate *because* it liberalized in 1990s. True. However, that liberalization was forced. No matter who the government would have been at the time, they would have had to liberalize because IMF was twisting our arms. It refused to grant us loans till we laid out a liberalization plan, and we needed money. Badly. Our reserves were enough only to last a week. What matters is *how* we laid out that liberalization. As I stated previously, more than 50% of that growth was due to growth in teh services sector, a sector that employs only 23% of our population. This 23% is the priviledged sector which can avail the benefit of expensive and meagre good educational institutes in our country. The contribution of agriculture in this growth was merely 17%, even though more than half of our population is engaged in agriculture. The sad part is that even though a majority of these people would *want* to migrate, they cannot because they dont have enough skills. And they can't acquire it because the agricultural sector is largely stagnant even though the *GDP* is growing. The HDI index of India depicts this stagnancy well. India fell from the global HDI ranking of 127 in 2004 to 134 in 2008, had some inprovement in the subsequent years and fell again to 134 in 2011. GDP growth is not progress. In fact, the fact that they couldn't ensure that the growth wasx inclusive *even* when they had enough excuse to lay down the difficult reforms (like fiscal prudence and other reforms) is a downright failure. Given that they did not focus on structural reforms in the sector we have comparative advantage in is a downright failure. We NEED more research institutes, we need better labour laws. We need better infrastructure in our basic sectors. Instead, we have politicians bickering and pepper spraying each other. This is far from a success. It is as if success was forced down our throat by the IMF and we did everything we could to muck it up.Regarding poverty reduction, the only reason it did not get that much fanfare is because its common knowledge that the poverty reduction is more of a statistical jugglery than an actual achievement. The poverty line was changed for measuring the poverty rate, and is widely believed to be too low to be competent. Even plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia agrees that the poverty line is low but he his claim that even though this low poverty line helps in measuring the impact of social sector schemes on well being of people. Which is true but it negates any comparative analysis. Any reduction in poverty rate is merely a rhetoric that fails statistical analysis.Lastly, he points out agricultural subsidies. I believe that's more fo a failure of the current administration than anything. The focus of Singh administration has *not* been improved agricultural productivities. It has just been doling out input subsidies rather than focussing on research, infrastructure, better technology, everything. EVERY policy in this sector has been populist- guided by strong farmer lobbies that ensure that the policies favour certain crop industries rather than the others. Government buys these crops off the farmers at a high price ( Protecting the farmers) and selling them to consumers at low price (protecting the people from high price)- pocketting the loss and balooning the fiscal deficit. Oh, and also reducing the incentives of the farmers to actively look at innovation and improving technology.They can get fertilizers and stuff at low prices, forever. There's no sunset clause in the subsidy law. Its an endemic.2. Foreign policy: I actually agree in part with this. Foreign policy was a strong suit of the Singh government. However, it IS a strong suit in teh Modi government too. n a widely welcomed and groundbreaking first step, Modi invited leaders from all SAARC countries (and Mauritius) to his swearing-in ceremony, followed-up by bilaterals. All came, including Afghanistan's President Karzai who passed up the opportunity to meet President Obama, but made sure to meet Modi. Presently he's attending a BRICS summit in Brazil, for efforts to address regional crisis and security threats to restore a climate of peace while advancing global economic stability. He's already met Pakistan leader on the DAY when he became the prime minister, and as Hafis Saed said, was 'always welcome' in Pakistan. I personally felt India was too soft on Pakistan, and Modi's percieved hardlining on the Pakistani issue would a welcome step from Singh's passivity. I mean, Pakistan carried out 26/11 (according to the testimonies by the caught terrorists and inputs from US and wikileaks) and all we did was to 'pressurize' Pakistan to fess up. Spoiler: They didn't. According to Musharraf, former Pakistani president- due to prevalence of anti-India sentiment, people "themselves" are "motivated" and "indoctrinated" to cross the border "because there are gaps and it's a porous border". "They don't need training. They themselves want to go. They want to learn and want to go," he said, arguing terrorist outfits such as Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed existed much before he came to power. "Great public support, great public sympathy among the people of Pakistan gave rise to all of them," he said, adding, "Everyone individual in Pakistan knew that people are volunteering to go and they are going into Kashmir to fight the Indian Army." In an interview to German magazine Der Spiegel earlier this week, Musharraf had said that militant groups "were indeed formed" to fight India in Kashmir. And "the government turned a blind eye because they wanted India to discuss Kashmir"... Even though Modi has been nothing but a diplomat with Pakistan, India's percieved hardlining with them would indeed be a blessing in disguise. Proclaiming *peace* when the other side hates you can get self- destructive, as was seen in 2008 mumbai attacks. To support the resolution, Con would have to prove that Modi would be decidedly *worse* than Singh. Singh was great here. I agree.Lastly, Domestic policy. Regarding right to information act, a completed country-wide assessment of the RTI was conducted by the Right to Information Assessment and Analysis Group’s (RAAG). The study surveyed 27 information commissions to find that nearly 60% of the commissions reported inadequate infrastructure as their biggest problem. Inadequate staff and low budgets were the most commonly cited problems. Perhaps because of inadequate infrastructure, there is a wide variance in the speed and efficiency with which Information Commissions dispose of cases and some states (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh) have an estimated waiting period of over one and a half years. It is certainly not adequate. There was a long fight for teh said act, spearheaded by Anna Hazare for 11 years. NIA, its too early to comment on it being a success. Regarding food schemes, I've already outlined my concerns- its a short term appeasement policy with no sunset clause. Definitely a huge contributor to hardlining inflation and fiscal deficit. I do, however, agree that AIDs and polio were eradicated and that IS a feather in Singh's cap. Note that I do not say that Singh was incompetent, he was just not in control of his government and the people in control had different objectives. Modi, however, is in control. His objectives are clear, he has been known to work for them in Gujarat delivering positive results. In order to fulfill his BOP, Con would have to prove that Modi would NOT work for these. Finally, lets talk about Gujarat riots. Here's the thing, there can be a lot of allegations here. We do not know what jhappened. Conspiracy theories are abound. The fact remains that teh supremen Court of India acquited him of all charges. The Special Investigation Team found NO evidence to support his involvemengt in the riots. And before we dismiss this as another charge of corruption, or Modi pulling his strings or whatever, THIS SIT had people nominated by the Congress. Congress was the governing government when the Supreme court passed the verdict. Our judiciary is one of the most respected institutions in the country, we need to accept the verdict. Also, it should be noted here that muslims in Gujarat and kerala were the ones which progressed the MOST in the entire country. According to the NSS survey, it is one of the top two states where rural and urban poverty declined the drastically in the last seven years. Muslims are certainly not discriminated against in Gujarat, where teh Mosi hovernment has been elected twice.