2 CHALLENGES FOR INDIA’S NEW GOVERNMENT: LIFTING UP THE ECONOMY AND THE POOR
Somini Sengupta
The New York Times, May 23, 2009
NEW DELHI — In a hall adorned with paintings of battle, an understated economist named Manmohan Singh was sworn in Friday evening as prime minister of India for a second five-year term. His own battle promises to be twofold: how to restore high rates of economic growth at a time of a worldwide downturn and to push for effective government services that reach India’s legions of the poor.
Mr. Singh’s party, the Indian National Congress, scored a surprisingly decisive victory in the election that concluded last week, defying worries of a fractured coalition government and offering hopes for a stable administration at a time when India faces daunting challenges at home and abroad. Congress alone won 206 of 543 seats in Parliament, and, with its coalition partners, stitched together a comfortable majority.
Shashi Tharoor, a former United Nations official and a first-time Congress member of Parliament from southern Kerala State, invoked the party’s symbol — the palm of a hand, held up as if to offer a blessing, or to stop a car in its tracks — to describe the Congress-led government’s delicate challenge.
“It has to avoid being a heavy hand at the macroeconomic level, at slowing down the engine of the economy,” Mr. Tharoor said. “But it has to be a helping hand for the poor, who are a majority. It has to deliver on such basic services as food, health, water, roads.”
(...) [artículo aquí]
Somini Sengupta
The New York Times, May 23, 2009
NEW DELHI — In a hall adorned with paintings of battle, an understated economist named Manmohan Singh was sworn in Friday evening as prime minister of India for a second five-year term. His own battle promises to be twofold: how to restore high rates of economic growth at a time of a worldwide downturn and to push for effective government services that reach India’s legions of the poor.
Mr. Singh’s party, the Indian National Congress, scored a surprisingly decisive victory in the election that concluded last week, defying worries of a fractured coalition government and offering hopes for a stable administration at a time when India faces daunting challenges at home and abroad. Congress alone won 206 of 543 seats in Parliament, and, with its coalition partners, stitched together a comfortable majority.
Shashi Tharoor, a former United Nations official and a first-time Congress member of Parliament from southern Kerala State, invoked the party’s symbol — the palm of a hand, held up as if to offer a blessing, or to stop a car in its tracks — to describe the Congress-led government’s delicate challenge.
“It has to avoid being a heavy hand at the macroeconomic level, at slowing down the engine of the economy,” Mr. Tharoor said. “But it has to be a helping hand for the poor, who are a majority. It has to deliver on such basic services as food, health, water, roads.”
(...) [artículo aquí]
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