The year of living angrily

Was 2011 a year of democratic splendour, or a year of democratic squalor? The latter term is not often used. But if you asked Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, he would not hesitate to use it for India. How else, he would say, can one characterise a year whose key features were as follows: a democratically elected Parliament spent more time adjourning legislative proceedings than participating in them; non-elected civil society activists threatened to take over legislation from those elected to make laws; farm unrest made it virtually impossible for industrialists to acquire land for industrialisation, something India badly needs; protests forced the government to put on hold a much-needed reform of retail trade that would have benefited millions of farmers and consumers.

Read Full Story>>