India: Issues and Ideas

Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. Highly questionable. 2. Is India shining? 3. This is not done! 4. Have plebiscite in Kashmir. 5. Indo-Pak detente, but...6. Control those numbers. 7. Corrupt India. 8. Need for electoral reforms. 9. Illiterate India. 10. UN: bloated expenditure. 11. Reform the United Nations. 12. The Kargil war. 13. Economic liberalisation. 14. Presidential system preferable. 15. We are consumers. 16. Population ageing. 17. Reform education. 18. Governmental profligacy. 19. First tighten your belt. 20. World food day. 21. Under-employed Babus. 22. India an AIDS. 23. Pipeline politics. 24. Tourism needs a boost. 25. Freedom of the press. 26. Maiden of Myanmar. 27. A golden puzzle. 28. India's foreign trade. 29. The oil conundrum. 30. India-Pakistan animosity. 31. Hong Kong as a bridge. 32. Need cooperation not warmongering. 33. Level of interest rates. 34. Rupee versus dollar. 35. Wanted national government. 36. India--an exim policy. 37. India and Britain. 38. India and South Africa. 39. Budget--a curate's egg. 40. Rich versus poor. 41. Prices and people. 42. India and the Philippines. 43. Faulty public distribution system. 44. Increasing bank frauds. 45. The Tibetan imbroglio. 46. WTO at Singapore. 47. Governmental extravagance. 48. Oh, the income tax. 49. Nuclear insanity. 50. World Bank and India. 51. Child labour. 52. JP the great. 53. India and Japan. 54. India and Oliver Twist. 55. India and Bangladesh. 56. Will SAPTA materialise? 57. India and Israel. 58. Pace of liberalisation. 59. India and China. 60. India-South Africa bridge-building. 61. Introduce expenditure tax. 62. Economic as tension-reducer. 63. Prostituting the bonus. 64. India and Brazil. 65. Foreign direct investment. 66. The Enron imbroglio. 67. India and France. 68. Indo-French ties. 69. India and Russia. 70. Indo-German economic ties. 71. India and Germany. 72. Indo-British economic ties. 73. Neo-colonialism?

"India takes pride in enabling its citizens to cast a vote quinquennially. But Indian democracy, argues Senior Journalist Arvind Bhandari, is distressingly flawed, being based on institutionalized corruption and rule by minority vote. A thematic strand running through this vibrant book, which commences with a comprehensive and thought-provoking introduction, is that India has more failed than succeeded as a newly emerging nation. The author contends that India's non-performance is ascribable to the country being deprived of across-the--board reforms, which have not been effected because of a short-sighted, pusillanimous political leadership. Areas which cry out for reform include population policy, anti-poverty programmes, political system, electoral system, judicial system, educational system and accountability in public life. Even 57 years after independence, India's face is pockmarked by poverty, squalor, chaos, congestion, injustice, violence, brutality and, of course, ubiquitous corruption, with the result that not un - often the country sinks to the depths of an uncivilized nation.

Despite statistical obsolescence, the arguments and analysis contained in the book retain their validity and relevance. In fact, the book is suffused with political and economic information which could serve as valuable background material for general readers and journalists as well as students and competitioners." (jacket)