Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is off to a good start. The need of the hour is to have experienced hands on deck. In choosing Pranab Mukherjee as the finance minister, Singh has ensured that the economy is in safe hands. Mukherjee has looked after this portfolio at critical times in the past, and has been chosen by the government to tackle major crises — he has headed around 50 or more Groups of Ministers — so he is familiar with the problems in most sectors of the economy.
He has rightly understood that the Washington Consensus has been junked in Washington and there is a consensus amongst most developed countries that it has lost its relevance — when the economy is in trouble, the new mantra is to spend whatever you need to fix it. This is what Mukherjee has said he will do —- he is looking at getting back to the fiscal targets only after a year or two.
N Kumar, Gurgaon
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