By Sreekumar Raghavan
Management graduates are fond of quoting case studies to prove their point. Rahul was no different in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday when he joined the debate on on the no-confidence motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Rahul talked about two women of Vidharaba, one Sasikala and Kalavati. Sasikala is a landless labourer, has three children, earns Rs 60 per day while her husband earns Rs 90 per day. The elder child wants to become a district collector, second one wants to become an engineer while the third wants a private sector job. But they don’t have electricity at home.

In the second case study, one Kalavati, a widow has nine children. Her husband was a cotton farmer and out of indebtedness, he committed suicide. Kalavati now survives because she has diversified into buffalo rearing and set up her own pond to ensure water supply.

Like Kalavati we need to diversify our energy sources – hydro, coal and nuclear so that the country can meet the challenge of addressing its energy security. Kalavati herself proves another point. If in distress, it is better to have commonsense and find a way out rather than depend on our politicians to bail us out. Even the massive Rs 66,477 crore debt waiver scheme did not benefit many because loans taken from money lenders do not fall under the ambit of the welfare scheme announced with much fanfare.

Even when Rahul Gandhi did not go into the nitty gritties of the Indo-US nuclear deal as P Chidambaram had done earlier in his speech, Gandhi’s arguments seemed to have gone well with the members thumping their desks as he said India should make an impact in the world rather than the world making an impact on us.

Interestingly, the vote of no confidence turned out to be an assessment of the performance of the UPA government across sectors not necessarily on the Indo-US deal. Finance Minister devoted a considerable part of his speech on how the economy had grown during the past four years comparing it with the lesser average GDP growth achieved during the NDA’s rule.

L K Advani has promised that if NDA comes back to power, they will be leading a government that will be pro-market and pro-reform. Significantly, he has said that the nation now needs an Indian model of economic development divorced from the Soviet-model of yesteryears and the US-oriented development model being touted by UPA now. Advani expects the politicians and academicians to discuss the possibilities of such a model.

P Chidambaram the other day hinted that a date will be notified for the implementation of Commodity Transaction Tax (CTT) but ruled out any further ban on commodity futures. Which ever party comes to power the crucial issue is whether policies that will tap the rich mineral wealth of the country would be followed? A nuclear expert recently said that
India is able to meet 50 percent of its uranium requirements and it is capable of meeting the rest with it’s own resources.

India is planning to increase uranium production in order to build eight new 700MW reactors, according to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Director Srikumar Banerjee. He said the other day that designs for the new reactors were ready, adding that the new reactors would help boost India’s nuclear power generation to around 10,000MW.

However, getting uranium out takes time and India had earlier enlisted the support of Australia and Canada to enable uranium mining the issue is whether India only has the Indo-US deal to take care of its energy security or are there any other options?

The pressing concerns of negotiating the Doha Round to India’s favour, the continuing agricultural crisis in many parts of the country, the falling indeed of industrial production, the creeping inflation are issues that have to be grappled with that could affect the common man much more than the Indo-US nuclear deal. That needs a comprehensive outlook on the agricultural sector, logistics, futures and spot markets and credit availability.

Whether the government survives the no-confidence or not, these are the issues any alliance at the Centre has to grapple with. Meanwhile, hopefully Sasikala of Vidharbha would be able to find a solution to her energy problem may be with a solar panel.

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