The dialogue needs to move from being a general desirable thing to do to being judged using tangible, measurable indicators
The cynic would say the question to ask is whether ‘governance’, not even ‘good governance’, will make a comeback in 2014. In the last few years reforms have been dead and there has been very little to write home about on most governance fronts. Good governance as a concept has been as used as much as abused, and if the four 2014 Assembly results are any indication, the verdict is clearly anti-misgovernance.
The dominant economic strategy for success in good governance appears to be a highly calibrated 80:20 mix of (a) growth-enhancing, competitiveness-creating policies which increase the overall size of the cake and (b) carefully modulated left-of-centre distributive policies, respectively—these will split that cake reasonably fairly as per the political calculus. Economic growth has to be the lynchpin of good governance and this formula is a close approximation of that, provided the 20 is not growth-decimating which impacts the 80.
Investments and Ease of Starting a Business
(This story appears in the 10 January, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)