Retreating State

                I wonder sometimes why Indian Government needs to struggle so much to enforce a good decision for the benefit of the larger public. See the helplessness of Aviation minister and the way Airlines are browbeating him. Mind you, these were the same airlines begging a few months back for 'Bailout' packages and permission for late payments of dues to AAI. Forget Airfares, even Private Bus operators are also making hay and taking the 'aam admi' literally for a 'ride'. On a busy weekend a typical Bangalore-Hyderabad , Bangalore-Vijayawada or a Hyderabad-Vijayaward Private bus will cost more than 3 times the normal price.
              In this article  in 'The Hindu' the writer clearly explains how this kind of "Corruption" in Neo-liberal regime is getting unnoticed. I guess this is also crony-capitalism (Tata's (talk of )Crony-Capitalism will be a different post altogether). The writer in above article is bang on when he talks about the 'retreating role of the state'. This is clearly outlined by Shri. Pranab Mukherjee himself in 2010 budget: The role of government more as an enabler and less of a provider. So as per this new policy the 'State' goes 'all out' in helping and enabling the Private Companies to garner profits. It colludes with them for land acquisitions in case of Public-Private Partnership projects. There are already enough reasons to worry about even retreating from PDS by using food-coupons and UID. I am not against these measures as long as they improve the 'Public Services Delivery', Transparency and Accountabiliyt.  But the problem seems to be 'Government is unable to rein in these corporations after 'liberating' them'. In true 'liberated' style they challenge the government and 'aam admi' is the loser again. Also i am against this 'blind belief' that 'liberalization' or Privatization is the ultimate panacea for all our problems and the 'not so cool' impression about Public Sector. [ I agree Public Sector should get leaner, younger, trendier and cooler soon to counter this]
                 Land acquisition seems to be the classic case that shows how 'retreating' state can be a bad thing. Recent agitations in UP and Haryan against forceful land acquisitions bought the debate of bringing back 'Right to Property' as a fundamental right. Its a pity and irony that a right which was removed from Fundamental Rights to help in 'distributing' more land from rich to poor and achieve Socialism needs to be resurrected back to protect the 'poor' from acquiring their land forcefully. Things come full circle and Strange things do happen in India.