Few Thoughts on Negative Impact, Debt-Ridden States And The World Cup Winner

                 There are no two ways in which I work but always a single way in which I go about my routines. Sometimes, there will be setbacks or something might pull me down but I still refuse to let the external disturbance affect me and perform my daily duties without getting disturbed. Rather than me taking those decisions to continue like that, it is some unknown wave which is taking me for a ride in it. The best instance is - I worked for a foreign visa keeping in view all the required background necessary for working in a rich nation. While the task of building up a profile with all the required background is huge, I took it up like a yagna and performed for well over 8 months. When I got the result of denial, it is devastating enough for me and to continue in the same way is never a big return on my investment. I could have easily suspended all my activities and lie down crying for a week. There is no reason for this bull run and I could have taken a good 1 month break before thinking about my future plans. But, if I remember, the morning I came to know about the denial, I mourned in silence and with a heavy heart I went about my daily tasks as usual without letting the world know that something struck me hard. I realigned my goals nimbly and set them aloft without any time loss and redirected my future course of life to be on the same plane as my present work. I am in a hyper loop with an unknown force acting as an engine propelling me from behind and no externality can stop me. In the past decade no ill-health or hospitalization can keep me down for more than a day. Even when I complained of pain in critical area, the second day I was back on my bike whizzing away to office. The point I would like to make is there are no two ways in which I work and the only way is being regular at it come what may. This quality has only increased in the recent times. I am still trying to figure out why I got myself into this never ending loop and how can I escape safely. You might have to adapt your work style according to the times prevalent and you cannot be unidimensional in the approach. But I know no two ways of working and the only way way is which I have been working like some 9 years ago. I cannot go on like this for eternity but learn to work differently as I age.

                The problem with this unidimensional approach is there might be adverse or negative impacts because of the work you do or because of the approach towards your work. When you work like a soldier for over a period of many months, you are bound to produce results. My only hope is that there are no negatives in that leave alone positives. A growing pattern which I observe is I am crushing the people’s resentment or opposition which is raising day by day. I am arousing a lot of dissension and resistance by way of my work and these are being suppressed for me to continue to work unabated.    When you crush the opposite forces or suppress people’s liberty to express their dissenting free will you are adding fuel to the growth of fascist society. A premature fascism can be felt when you have opposition voices reduced to null and you have your way throughout. When the ever growing qualities of opposition and the expression of free will are suppressed by an overarching super power, you are leading the society to an intangible totalitarian regime. You cannot intrude into the independence of the public and people might demand freedom from this ever-growing cult. I do not understand why God scripted my life in such a way that I had to induce so many negative feelings and emotions just for doing my job and earning my living. But I also believe that a good dictator is always better than a bad democracy. I pray that I do not turn evil or bad from being a good person that I am.

                This story might have never taken place anywhere else in the world except in this great land which has tolerance embedded in its gene. These people hardly revolt or oppose and always live by accepting the authority. When there is a passage to all these negative emotions nurtured over time to go free, people tend to revolt and indulge in illegal or criminal activities. As Sadgurus say, you need to nurture and breed finest qualities in humans for them to do good deeds and not evoke these negative emotions. I wish the common balance of the good and bad results of my work tilts towards the good results. I also believe that the net result of a person’s work is neither good or bad. Ultimately the good done by a person will be evened out by the bad that results from his work. This also reminds us of the fact that all persons are born equal, lives equal and dies equal. If any bad is emanating from me, it is negating the good I did previously so that I remain neutral. A hounding question to me is - Is my presence good for country, city, company, house and wherever I am associated. If the answer is yes, then I do not bother writing this blog post.

                  These days every entity operates with loans and debts. I personally took few loans and paying back instalments along with interest. I consider myself extremely relieved when I become debt free and my every action and step at present is towards that direction. All my efforts are aimed towards fulfilling my dream of becoming debt-free. I would cease to work and I would resign from the present position once I reach that status. My multiple visits to U.S. is also aimed at that reason only but unfortunately it only increased my debt. When I give this much of importance to this debt personally, the state we live in and the country should behave responsibly towards the public debt. But what we see on the ground is a different picture. Let us look at some of the numbers.

                  The public debt of Andhra Pradesh state is around 3,50,000 crore. This is a huge number by any standards. Considering the state is newly created in 2014 but already inherited a debt of 1,30,000 crore on the day of bifurcation. Which means it has added another 2.2 lakh crore to the rising pile of debt in the last five years. This is more than the debt incurred by the state in any of its earlier five year terms. If it continues at this pace, the state will become the most debt-ridden state in the country. While the historic debt is only around 1 lakh crore from the formation in 1956 to 2014, how come it shot up to 3.5 lakh crore in the span of 5 years till 2019 is a difficult question to answer. This is certainly fiscal negligence by increasing the borrowings alarmingly and leaving the economy in very precarious state. It is true that the state began its journey as revenue-deficit but it should have concentrated on adding income generating resources and limiting the expenditure. But the state is running on borrowing which exceeds the revenue and it is very unhealthy state of economy.

                   A well-managed fiscal prudence should have helped the state in coming out of its financial mess, like, it should have been careful in doling out a lot of freebies in the past few years. Sure, a lot of factors gone wrong for the state from its bifurcation to incurring huge debt to lack of steady stream of income to building a new state to building a new capital and many other costs involved. For all these problems, if the accountability is shared by all its citizens instead of just politicians the state would not have fallen into debt trap. The government has chosen the policy to develop the state at the cost of incurring huge debt. Instead of going for the short term benefits, far-sightedness, fiscal prudence and a shift in paradigm should be the ingredients which are required for the new Government. On our part, we the citizens must be educated, vigilant and should not let the politicians run a debt-ridden state.It is not enough if our personal balance sheet is positive and looking fine but we should also strive to make our collective i.e. state’s balance sheet positive as well. They may tell - running the government with debts is the new form of practical governance but it is never a good practice to prescribe and follow. For all its innumerable problems of building a new state on one side to getting out of debt on other side, the state requires central assistance magnanimously, as the trend is leading to fiscal imbalances, which will cause irreparable damage to the economy and adversely affect growth and development of the state. The center must grant the special status or special grants, allocation of funds and special incentives liberally if it has intention to walk along with the state of A.P. in its path towards progress.

                   Hopping on to the other side of the boundary, if I need to look at the status of the residing state of Telengana, it is not very different either. Both the C.M. Chandras(one ex.) are very similar in their administrative approaches and competes with each other in raising the debts of their respective states. Telengana, which came into existence as revenue surplus state with an initial debt of 70,000 crore owes an outstanding amount of 1.8 lakh crore which is an increase of 159% in five years. Though it is bad, it is not worse, considering the amount spent on irrigation projects due to lack of central funding. The debt is still under control since it is a one-time investment on irrigation projects and the majority completed. Nevertheless, the borrowing mania engulfed the youngest state as well and it is high time the government comes out of its vice. If we look at the nation-wide picture, the country’s debt is 82 lakh crore which has increased by 50% since the present government came to power in 2014. The governments total debt to GDP percentage is 125 and the same for China is 303%. Though the country has huge debt of 82 lakh crore, it is relatively lower when compared to other developed and emerging countries. The world is going debt-ridden with U.S and Japan leading the charts and this is not a healthy sign and a way to lead the world. The world needs a new world order, good examples of balance sheets and you can take lessons from some great private companies on how to run the public institutions. Since in all these cases, it is the governments which owes a lot of money and never any private body that is in debt.

                    Speaking about the world, the cricket world cup is just completed and there is a surprise winner –England. This needs a special mention since England, besides inventing the game never won it till date. It took 44 years to end the title drought for England. It can be said that England are the deserving winners of the world cup for playing with lot of hunger and grit. As they said, it has been a four-year journey for the players to dream about and win the cup. After losing all these years in finals or some other stage, they had won it in their own backyard. This can’t get any better. As mentioned, they are the deserving champions after the final match tie and the ICC rule is spot-on to decide the winner. It is hard luck for Indians as they lost the tournament in a span of half an hour after entertaining fabulously for over six weeks and topping the table. On the whole, this is a good win for the English side and the game of cricket itself was the champion from what can be seen in the final game.