Jai Hind - A salute to our Nation on 62nd Independence Day

I salute Indian National Flag on the occasion of 61 years of our independence.

On this August 15, we have celebrated 62nd Indian independence day in our Ayyakhar Bhavan, Queens Road in Bangalore at 8:00 am. On this occasion, our Chief Commissioner of Income Tax spoke and mainly emohised on the concept of "Ahamkaram" (Self-ego) and said that we should go away from self and try to help others within our own way. He said that there can there views on an issue. One is my view, two is your view and three is our view. Unless we take correct view taking into consideration of my view and your view, we cannot think of giving a helping hand to others.

On this eve, I also salute our Indian, Mr. Abhinav Bindra, who had achieved the first gold medal for India in an individual capacity in air rifle shooting event at Beijing Olympics, 2008. We had to wait for more than a century to get a gold medal in any olympics in an individual capacity. India is a billion country now!

The economy is on downtrend as suggested by the letest GDP estimate of 7.7% for the fiscal 2009 by PM's Economic Advisory Council. This is a downward estimate from its own ealrier estimate. The reasons for dpwnturn could be

• The tight monetary conditions prevailing in the market with the corersponding rising inetrest rates.
• The sluggish industrial growth. The main concern is the deccelration in the capital goods sector which is in single digit (5% for the period from April-June, 2008) when compared to the robust double digit growth in the same period of last year.
• The inflationary trends. The inflation tocuhed almost 16 yeras high last week. This inflation is mainly driven by incresed global prices of agricultural commodities, and oil. It is also fuelled by the relentless increase in the prices of steel and cement in India. All the developed countries are also facing their worst inflationary pressures on their economy.
• The global slow down mainly driven by weak US economy. The US economy is still reeling under sub-prime crisis. But, still to come is the credit card bubble which is yet to catch the Indian media. I will discuss this issue in this month seperately.
• The not so encouraging liquidity in stock market which in egenral reflects the sentiment towards Indian economy.

Everything is not so gloomy. The Indian economy will bounce back from the next fiscal by which time new government at the centre will bring in stability to the economic policies as well as the inflationary pressure may subside paving the way for reduced interest rates. These aspects will increse the credit offtake by the banks, will fuel the infrastructure, real estate and housing sector which are very sensitive to the interest rates.

The following are the highlights of the Prime Minsiter Sri Manmohan Singh on the eve of independence day

1. For the first time in history, we have had four years of nearly 9.0% economic growth. India is among the world’s fastest growing economies. Our economy must grow at the rate of at least ten per cent every year to get rid of poverty and generate employment for all.
2. Our growth is critically dependent on "Saat Sutras", namely agriculture, irrigation, education, health, employment, urban renewal and infrastructure.
3. India will have 30 new universities, 8 new IITs, 7 new IIMs, 20 new IIITs, 5 new Indian Institutes of Science, 2 Schools of Planning and Architecture, 10 NITs, and a 1000 new polytechnics.
4. The world today sees India as a major knowledge power whose people are skilled, competent, hard working and peace loving.

The complete speech of the PM can be seen by clicking here