The Economy

The economist talks about the monetary policy, fiscal policy, Industrial indexes of Production, Purchase, interest rates, global shocks, quantitative easing,...

The common man understands it as the price of petrol, onions, tomatoes, cars, scooters, availability of public transport, non-collapsing bridges/overbridges, trains which run on their given tracks, and the bribes that he pays (or doesn't) to do what he needs to do.

The politician who understands this the best, and achieves ease of doing business for the common man (not just for businesses) would probably achieve great success in coming years. After all, the big buzzwords are of no use unless they ease the pain of an average citizen.

We had a combination of good economics and politics in 1991 with the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh team. Hope that happens once again, and India achieves 10% growth in its GDP, and not just 7%.

Reforms in Governance

This is wishful thinking in areas of governance that give the common citizen great amounts of irritation, if not angst.

All government services must be home-delivered at the customer's (citizen's) convenience. The government can employ people with minimum levels of education and lots of common sense to do the home-delivery, and charge customers for it if necessary-if the fee already charged is not enough. This can boost employment tremendously-it does not have to be in rural areas/farming. Could be a part of the govt. employment schemes, too.

There must be a fixed time period in which the delivery must happen, if not, the service should be free (or discounted appropriately).

There should be visible penalties (like a transfer to the boondocks) for non-compliance by the government official responsible.

No citizen should stand in a line begging for any favours. Approval of most things can be done online, or not depending on merit. A copy of the request can go to the Lok Pal of the respective jurisdiction, and maintained for a certain period until the window for complaints runs out.

You will see wonders happening, and bureaucrats lose their swagger in no time.