Your edit title "The six crises" (August 14) reminds one of Richard Nixon's Six Crises (1962) that recounts his role in six major political crises.
The crises discussed in the edit have their roots in politics. The first and foremost crisis that India still faces is a “leadership crisis”, with an extra-constitutional body like the National Advisory Council that acts as a super-Cabinet and undermines the legitimacy of the prime minister’s authority. By exercising undue influence on public policies and holding back reforms, it has exacerbated India’s economic woes. With better political management and economic foresight, this crisis could have been easily avoided.
Thanks to the reforms of the early 1990s, which were taken to the next level by the National Democratic Alliance, India saw a dramatic turnaround in its economic fortune and saw a sharp decline in poverty. The reforms slowdown under the United Progressive Alliance reversed this trend and damaged our growth prospects, denting the India growth story the world had come to believe in. Hopefully, just like Nixon overcame many crises to become the 37th president of the US, India, too, would beat the policy paralysis and regain its lost momentum.
Manish Kumar Patna
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