India needs patriots, not excuses.

At a keynote address at ET Now conclave in New Delhi on 29 November our most revered Finance Minister said," I don't produce growth. I don't produce growth, I don't deliver growth. No government delivers growth - government delivers the conditions for growth." Politicians, especially Indian ones, are known never to take responsibility for their actions. Last week the Prime Minister of Latvia, Valdis Dombrovskis resigned after a rood collapse at a supermarket killed 54 people. He came to power in 2009 and is credited with rescuing the economy from collapse. A government or finance minister may not be able to produce growth but they sure can destroy it as ours has done by indiscriminately wasting money to buy votes to win elections. The FM compares his record with that of the previous BJP government, boasting about the growth rate between 2006 and 2008, completely forgetting to mention that this growth purely due to the reforms instituted by the BJP, a flood of cheap money from abroad, subsidies on fuel and record borrowing by business companies because of abnormally low interest rates. He brags that the best GDP growth rate of 9.6% was in 2006-07, the lowest fiscal deficit of 2.5% in 2007-08 and the largest rise in foreign exchange reserves by $92 billion in 2007-08. True, but oil was at 64 dollars per barrel and the rupee was allowed to rise to 39.33 to the dollar. The foreign exchange rise was due to borrowing by businesses and hot money looking for higher returns from the stock market. Inflation was 4.74% only because the strength of the rupee kept inflation low by keeping imports, especially of oil, cheap. That was the time when the Reserve Bank should have increased interest rates to bring inflation down to below 3%, controlled excessive borrowing and bought large amounts of dollars to bring the rupee down to between 45-50 to the dollar which would have increased exports, reduced the CAD and built up a comfortable cushion so that we would not have to worry about the Federal Reserve tapering its bond buying program. We had a Current Account surplus from 2002 for 4 years. Even now, more wasteful social schemes are being invented to try and win elections next year. The FM says that the best is yet to come. Yes, when the Congress is wiped out.