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Journalism of Courage
The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Thursday met industry captains to review the effects of the global meltdown here, asking them to take “urgent steps to minimise job cuts,” give a “massive push to public spending, especially in the infrastructure sectors” and to help build a “safety net for the working class”. Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, Vijay Kapoor and S Gurumurthy represented the BJP along with Advani.
“The economic slowdown is affecting the poor. A country cannot rise as a global economic power if its farmers commit suicide in thousands. Real and enduring prosperity can come only by developing the economy-agriculture, industry, banking and financial sector, manufacturing, services, informal sector, etc in an integrated manner, by taking care of the needs of everybody and everything in our economic and social eco-system,” said Advani in his opening remarks. The meeting went on for close to three hours.
Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Auto Limited and Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel stressed on the need for the BJP and Congress “to work together” to deal with the economic crisis. Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani said the country should reconsider its models of governance and business growth as a long-term strategy, and play to India’s strengths, which according to him lie in the agriculture sector. Venu Srinivisan of TVS Motor pointed to the slump in truck manufacturing to highlight the crisis facing the auto sector. ICICI Bank’s K V Kamath highlighted the anxieties facing the banking world when he said that “many banks were worried on how the money they were lending doesn’t become NPA”.
“The crisis could assume the proportions of an economic emergency unless handled with determination, clarity of thought and new approaches,” said Advani, who is slated to next meet representatives of farmers and traders to assess the impact of the meltdown at the grassroots level.
