Context:

• Politics must be grounded to solve the problems of today. While a party may draw inspiration from the past, it must live in the present. The laurels of the past will not serve the present.
• The present is far more dynamic than the past ever was. Millions are influenced by the tsunami of information which has the capacity to misinform and misdirect impressionable minds.
• Political parties must be alive to this and have an army of digital soldiers to guide and educate. Without it, political discourse might just be one-sided.
• More important is the ability of a political party to sensitise itself to the most fundamental issues of the people.
• The two areas of concern to every home are educating children and health-care facilities for the family. We need a transformational education policy and a radically different mechanism for delivery.
• Those details must be worked out after thoughtful debate.
• A similar exercise must be done with reference to the delivery of health care. Existing systems of education and health care suffer from a deep malaise.
• Lack of resources, inadequacy of quality teachers and doctors and inadequate infrastructure are a few of the causes.
• Central to any exercise in providing solutions is the abject poverty afflicting our people that diminishes their ability to make choices. Any proposed solution must take that into account.

The Way Forward:

• We need to deregulate both our mindset and governmental procedures. Industry must flourish for economic growth. We must not view business, and through it prosperity, with suspicion. Investigating agencies must not be used to throttle enterprises. Our taxing regime must be far more humane than it is today.
• Money in the hands of the private sector is often more efficiently used than by government. Yet the state must garner adequate resources for providing infrastructure and public necessities. Digital technologies must be accessible to all to ensure equity.
• We must quickly bridge the gap between India and Bharat.
• Our obsession with a market-oriented distribution of public assets needs a relook. Allocation of land, spectrum, minerals and other natural resources, if allocated through a competitive bidding process, has made our industry globally non-competitive.
• We need to put in place an alternative resource allocation mechanism in which the government is entitled to a share of the profit that industry garners.
• Further, high interest rates have debilitated both industry and business. This is the main reason why enterprises cut corners and indulge in malpractices — reasons for the growing spiral of corruption.
• Our legal system is poor in quality.
• Our justice system must be made immune from external pressure. Corruption within our justice delivery system destroys the citizen’s confidence in the state. Our police and enforcement agencies must also be immune from external pressures.
• We need to embrace a new vision. Let us make a fresh start giving hope to those we serve.

Source:TH