Tuesday, May 30, 2023

India always was waiting to become a 'more honest society' and Namo regime has made it happen to a large extent

For the first time in the history of India, ministers are compelled to visit the other side of jails -- they have to walk inside.  Partha Chatterjee and Manish Sisodia -- two powerful ministers in West Bengal and Delhi ae cooling their heels --- this was unthinkable once upon a time. 

Honesty is the best policy was in theory. Corruption was regarded as a way of life and perhaps still it it. But in the big picture image India was waiting as a nation to become a more honest society.  A previous India made life comfortable for elites. 


Politicians and Babus had unlimited powers of discretion, and that is why a significant section is uncomfortable with the basic idea of 'New India' that discards nepotism. The government(s) - including states and even PSU authorities - were all powerful. 


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From taxation point of view - prior to 2014 - Indians loved to be non-compliant. A large part of Indian economy was black or parallel economy. This banked on cash dealings and no accountability. On the other hand, poor people stayed away from banks. But PM Modi's Jan Dhan scheme has enabled millions of 'unbanked'  families to enter the formal economy with "no-frills" bank accounts. 

But between 2014 and now, 2023, the systems by and large have become more transparent.

Thus, Modi is the first Indian prime minister to leverage technology so much for his welfare programmes and he also revolutinised a system called digital payment. 


The government's Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has revolutionised India's economy by facilitating digital payments even in villages and even for vegetable vendors and milk booths. Behind the huge digital payments infrastructure that has come up in India is India Stack, a set of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic potential of identity, data, and payments at population scale, such as Aadhaar, UPI, Digilocker. 

Even the CoWin Vaccination Platform has proved successful and result oriented.  





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