The single-minded pursuit of fast GDP growth of the Manmohan Singh government involves encouraging manufacture of more and more of ever increasing number of products by creating demand for all such products by getting banks to make available to consumers cheap money virtually on demand and giving huge tax concessions to businesses like the IT industry to enable them to leave very high levels of disposable incomes in the hands of their employees. No wonder that all major international car manufacturers have set up shop in the country and are flooding the roads of urban India with large automobiles which generally carry only one or if there is a driver two people, throwing pedestrians out of the roads and polluting the environment with exhaust gases, dust and noise. In Mumbai the number of BEST buses on the roads has been conveniently reduced to make room for more and more cars.In that city circulation of air has been considerably hampered and the health and quality of life of people living on both sides of the roads affected by the large number of fly-overs constructed to help the car owners and thereby the car industry. It would seem that for our rulers common people no longer count. Should we be proud of such a democracy? One wonders.

from: K.Vijayakumar
Posted on: Aug 25, 2010 at 20:45 IST-Hindu