PM Modi has indicated India will soon begin to reopen but with precautions, and rightly so. However, he’s also passed the onus on to state governments and citizens. The Rs 20 lakh-crore economic package sounds promising but only the fine print will reveal if it can make a real difference.
India’s CMs are making a poor case for federalism by passing the buck on fighting pandemic
India’s CMs are making a poor case for federalism. They want more freedom to take decisions on demarcating Covid zones, but also lean on the Centre to extend the lockdown, further strangling the economy. Then they expect financial bailouts from the Centre. They’re just passing the buck and shirking responsibility.
Lording over the bureaucracy has been the way of running the governments. The test of the ability of the leadership come once in life time like the present. Advice can be sought and even bought but to use the advice correctly one needs some inherent qualities and studious capabilities of an analytical mind.
Good looks, good pedigree with a gift of gab can only take one that far and no more.
” India’s CMs are making a poor case for federalism by passing the buck on fighting pandemic”
SAYS IT ALL
Financial bailouts / largesse will not come to the states from Delhi, not because the Centre does not appreciate their difficulties but because it is so much more fiscally stressed than they are. It plans to borrow twelve trillion this year, which could increase if the problem proves to be more severe than currently visualised. Short of opening up the economy, no solution suggests itself. Think of the remorseless force with which a lioness squeezes a zebra’s throat.
It seems nobody wants to take responsibility of opening the economy. Modi wants the states to do it, and the states want to extend the lockdown. They all know, though, that the economy is huting badly. In America, Dr. Fauci, Trump’s man on his task force, contradicted him, and told the senate that time was not yet to open the economy, and that a second wave of coronavirus was not only conceivable, but was possible in the Fall (between October and December. The election is in November.)