An eventful month has passed by since my last post. Most notable amongst them (events) being
1) The electorate (or whatever fraction of it is not disillusioned enough to curl up in front of the telly watching the media give second-by-second we-predicted-so updates and does cast their vote) giving a decisive victory to the UPA and Dr Singh
2) The markets hitting the upper circuit on Golden Monday and the media proclamation of investor wealth skyrocketing by over 6.5 lakh crores in a minute
3) The ultimate demise of the LTTE and Puli Prabhakaran
What do the above have in common apart from the month of their occurrence? Its not hard for any layman who follows the news to connect the second event to the first. After all, every news channel with its experts assiduously educates the masses of political stability, the reduced danger of the Left, continuation of reforms (very subjective and will get to this shortly), FII capital inflows and investor confidence in India's fundamentals. The reason why the Congress won more than the expected number of seats (average prediction of 180 odd) is not quite as simple and can be only be partly be explained even on a case-by-case basis for every state as each had its own dynamics of voting. A multitude of factors have worked for the grand old party of the country with its entourage of psychophants vociferously claiming it to be Rahul's coming of age (all of 37) with his dimpled cheeks and mass mobilizing political acumen. It is ironic to note that the stage is all set for him to becoming the next PM in the near future of the country when we are yet to hear him speak anything of significance on issues (mobilization of youth and their increased participation in politics sounds best in movies like Yuva and RDB but lets get back to reality). So why has the BJP - the only forward looking democratic party in the country got a drubbing of sorts (even from states where it holds power and does good work like MP)? Why has the party which initiated and executed the best of infrastructural reforms and framed trendsetting policies been sent back to warm the seats of the Opposition?
- Lack of focus on ground level issues like food prices, inflation, taxes, fiscal deficit, taxes, terrorism?
- Inability to fill the Vajpayee void as someone who could rein in the RSS and BJP?
- Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath, Jaitley - The choice of the leader is obvious but unfortunately we dont have a unified chain of command and dont operate like Italian mafioso eh?
The market response has been however as expected after such a solid drubbing. The potential for growth in India is so immense that its not difficult to observe what is happening. The country is at a crucial juncture and is poised to consolidate its position as one of the power houses in the world (best performing stocks across all emerging markets as calculated through MSCI Barra indices). Government policy being one of the most important hurdles for business and infrastructure development in the country now expected to reform (relax), one can hope for better access to capital in the near future. The prices of L&T and BHEL stocks are thus no surprise (And I wish I had enough money to buy).
With the demise of LTTE, the war in Lanka and civilian deaths comes to an end. So does this post.
