When neoliberal policies were launched in 1991 by Dr. Manmohan Singh, then as the finance minister, he had promised that the benefits of his reforms would ‘trickle down’ to the aam admi in the course of time. Recently, commenting on the Supreme Court’s directive to distribute food grains at a low cost, the Prime Minister has conceded that 37 per cent of the population in the country is poor – meaning that there was no reduction in the poverty during the past two decades. The minimum the economist Prime Minister should do is – to revoke the market driven globalisation policies which have only widened the rich-poor divide, stop future trading and forward trading on food grains and launch universal Public Distribution System.
Syed Sultan Mohiddin
Kadapa, A.P.