After two years of Modi government rule, one has to admit that governance is largely corruption-free (“Taking stock, two years on”, May 23). However, as far as development programmes and job creation in the organised sector go, the government has to do something significant. The promise of bringing back black money remains a dream.
C. Koshy John,
Pune
The Modi government’s social welfare schemes are remarkable. The Jan-Dhan Yojana and Swacch Bharat mission, to mention a few, have made a remarkable difference to the lives of people in rural India. What needs to be done now is to focus more on reducing our booming population which will propel the country towards sustainable development and more productive growth.
Raunak Agarwal,
Kanpur
The article was very pro-government with the emphasis on outlay rather than outcome. It almost read like an edited version of government accounts. In the context of electrification of 7,654 villages, I would like to remind the writer and readers about how the mere presence of pole and wires in a spot is considered as “electrification of a village” (“Rural electrification: Centre’s claim exaggerated” and “On paper, electrified villages — in reality, darkness”, both March 26; “Electrified, but without electricity”, Oct.7, 2014). There has been no great achievement in raising nutrition levels. Despite the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, a crop insurance scheme, there is still agrarian distress.
Nisha Yadav,
Dahina, Haryana
Arvind Panagariya has failed to mention the status of democratic decentralisation, devolution of functions and functionaries to panchayats and gender-responsive governance as far as sustainable development goals go. Reforms in higher education have failed to maintain the quality of research in all State and Central universities. Issues like land rights for women and homesteads in the name of women need attention if there is to be gender equality.
T. Prabhakar Reddy,
Secunderabad
All that this government is doing is window dressing. How can we forget how Narendra Modi was initially hyper-critical of Aadhaar and MGNREGA, the two schemes he is riding high on now. Where are the jobs? What is the state of agriculture and the lower-end rural economy? Where are the big-ticket investments? Not one major industry or scheme has come on stream in these two years. Mr. Panagariya needs to tell us how many BPL families now have a decent livelihood in these two years.
M. Balakrishnan,
Bengaluru
