oppn parties White Paper & Black Paper Duel Ahead Of Lok Sabha Elections

News Snippets

  • The Indian envoy in Bangladesh was summoned by the country's government over the breach in the Bangladesh mission in Agartala
  • Bank account to soon have 4 nominees each
  • TMC and SP stayed away from the INDIA bloc protest over the Adani issue in the Lok Sabha
  • Delhi HC stops the police from arresting Nadeem Khan over a viral video which the police claimed promoted 'enmity'. Court says 'India's harmony not so fragile'
  • Trafiksol asked to refund IPO money by Sebi on account of alleged fraud
  • Re goes down to 84.76 against the USD but ends flat after RBI intervenes
  • Sin goods like tobacco, cigarettes and soft drinks likely to face 35% GST in the post-compensation cess era
  • Bank credit growth slows to 11% (20.6% last year) with retail oans also showing a slowdown
  • Stock markets continue their winning streak on Tuesday: Sensex jumps 597 points to 80845 and Nifty gains 181 points to 24457
  • Asian junior hockey: Defending champions India enter the finals by beating Malaysia 3-1, to play Pakistan for the title
  • Chess World title match: Ding Liren salvages a sraw in the 7th game which he almost lost
  • Experts speculate whether Ding Liren wants the world title match against D Gukesh to go into tie-break after he let off Gukesh easily in the 5th game
  • Tata Memorial Hospital and AIIMS have severely criticized former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for claiming that his wife fought back cancer with home remedies like haldi, garlic and neem. The hospitals warned the public for not going for such unproven remedies and not delaying treatment as it could prove fatal
  • 3 persons died and scores of policemen wer injured when a survey of a mosque in Sambhal near Bareilly in UP turned violent
  • Bangladesh to review power pacts with Indian companies, including those of the Adani group
Devendra Fadnavis to be the next chief minister of Maharashtra after Eknath Shinde agrees to join the government as deputy CM
oppn parties
White Paper & Black Paper Duel Ahead Of Lok Sabha Elections

By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2024-02-14 03:30:49

As promised by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her interim Budget speech, the Centre came out with a white paper on the alleged mismanagement of the economy during 10 years of UPA rule between 2004 and 2014. Obviously, the paper is overtly selective and decidedly political. While there is much to condemn for what went on during those UPA years and much to recommend for what has been going on after NDA came to power in 2014, all things in both periods are not only in black and white and the UPA years also had some silver linings as the NDA years have their black spots. The white paper conveniently ignores the good things in UPA rule and glosses over the mistakes in the NDA period. Hence, while it may be good as a political statement, it is not a fully truthful report card on the state of the economy under UPA.

The paper rightly says that the UPA inherited a sound economy (but forgets to mention that it was as much due to economic liberalization under P V Narasimha Rao as due to the subsequent reforms of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government). It goes on to say that it turned the economy fragile and India began to be included in the five most fragile economies of the world. This, it says, was due to the policy paralysis under UPA as well as rampant corruption (it listed 15 major scams), leakages in welfare schemes, high inflation, low capital expenditure and indiscriminate lending by PSU banks that almost brought the financial sector to its knees. In contrast, the paper says that the NDA government, through its prudent and effective policies from 2014, has turned around most PSU banks and the Indian financial sector is one of the most stable in the world now.  This is, by and large, true. The NDA government has also rightly increased capital expenditure to build assets for the nation instead of spending money thoughtlessly in sundry schemes.

But where the white paper suffers is in comparing the job situation and the state of the people between 2004 and 2014 and then between 2014 and 2024. It is also silent on the disruption caused by demonetization. The level of joblessness was high in the first period. It has remained high in the second period also. Although there is no denying that the NDA government has had to bear the twin shocks of the pandemic and geopolitical disruptions but the state of the people has not shown any significant improvement. The Congress came up with a 'black' paper to highlight the anti-people economic policies of the NDA government which, it said, have increased joblessness, led to farmer suicides and high inflation and complete devastation of the economy.