Bullet points...

Sometime back, I compiled a list of major issues that, I felt, should go into the manifesto of political parties. Reproducing them here:

I know this will be a long list, and I know some ( or maybe most ) of the points are wishful thinking. But surely, there is hope - for if a Nitish Kumar can successfully make development, and not caste, the major issue in Bihar; if a Modi can make development, and not religion, a major issue in Gujarat, if a Naidu could make development, and not charisma, a major issue in AP - surely India awaits many more such leaders... With that, here are my views..

Infrastructure:

• Connectivity in the country is a key factor assisting in development
• Roads, transport system, power, water, sanitation, trees etc. - all help in the development of the country
• Improved Tourism will be an automatic by product of better infrastructure, bringing in more foriegn exchange and also awareness about India.
• Should not look at it as a profit making venture, public convenience should be the only driving factor

Transperancy

• The key to combat corruption
• Need to create awareness campaigns to let people know about their rights
• Assist in effective use of the RTI Act
• A No-nonsense leader should make sure his attitude trickles down as much as possible

Education

• Employable education is important
• Purposeful education has to be the motivation
• It should inculcate wisdom, civic responsibility, helping nature and more importantly, positivism
• Need to stress on the roles of teachers - a factor that is convienently overlooked
• School buildings should have basic infrastructure - benches, boards, library, and food.

Agriculture

• Encourage agricultural research projects. Increase funding for such institutions
• Keep farmers constantly updated on key developments in this field, and also invovle them in research activities
• Provide the right kind of subisidies, and agricultural inputs
• Continously revisit the MSP policy
• It is the backbone of our country, deal with it with the importance it deserves.

Health

• Best solution is to heavily fund for infrastructure in government hospitals.
• Improve facilities in them, and automatically their acceptability will increase
• Mobile clinics, and mobile awareness vans to create awareness on cleanliness of our surroundings, and the importance of hygiene

Sports

• This is another form of purposeful education
• Provide infrastructure facilities, like stadiums and playgrounds at affordable rates
• Encourage kids to take up sports
• Remove the apprehensions that sports is too much of a Bureaucratic affair.

Backwardness

• Create opportunities for backward people to grow.
• Encourage small scale industries on a very large scale
• Enable their long established livelihoods (fishing, weaving, sculpting etc) with modern equipment
• Enable PSU's with more skill
• Let them not remain backward, instead show them the way forward

Development

• Human Resources are under utilized in our country
• Development through youth - involve them in developmental works
• Development through women - involve them in decision making
• Development of children - prepare them for better contributions to nation building

Administration

• Laziness is pretty rampant
• Leader needs to inculcate a new spirit of working and win the confidence of employees
• Make them happy and appeal to their sense of responsibility, and then efficient administration will automaticall follow. The best example is what the DGP of AP has done ( will talk about this in the next blog)

Security

• Strengthen our intelligence organisations, and relieve them of the stagnancy they have been affected with.
• Radical changes are the need of the hour - show the strength to do it

IT

• Enormous potential opportunities
• Tap the resources for rural development
• Creation of wealth is huge here, enable distribution of wealth too.

Awareness

• Lot of people in our country suffer from lack of awareness, so it is important that we encourage people to be armed with information
• Information can be related to anything and everything - from agriculture to infrastructure, from health to sports, and from corruption to awards - people need to be kept in the know

I could have elaborated more on each topic, but then it will be too long. Hence, restricted myself to just Bullet Points :-)