Some nation-building suggestions 

Rishikant Singh

Constitution 

Is it time citizens draft a new Constitution, or, at least spell out the intentions, and honest mechanisms? 

Legal system 

The effort must be to substantially reduce multiple wasteful and expensive multi-review legal and judicial processes and appeals, as it hurts ordinary citizen fighting corporates, or their own elected civic bodies and governments. 

Frivolous litigation must be punished with deterrent fines, with a different structure for corporates, whose legal dept. specializes in keeping litigant busy and process extended, till occasionally death do us apart. 

Public-private partnership

Incentivize infrastructure development to private and public-private partnerships.

Beyond NOTA 

Introduce right to recall through electronic balloting for bad performance. 

Debate 

Allow televised public debate of candidates at local TV and radio simultaneous broadcast on issues. 

Accountability 

Sign criminal and civil liability contracts with elected representatives.

Dishonesty 

And do away with dishonest intent to rob tax payers e.g. facilitate loans, and create huge NPAs to industrialists, or land banks granted to companies, rather than limited time use leases for 5-50 years, depending on type of manufacturing or business-cum-investment. 

Protection of natural resources 

Relook at natural resources handed over to private enterprises, whether minerals or others. Flouting of safety and deployment of inefficient processes. 

One of the saddest cases was unscientific coal mining that resulted in underground fires and the destruction of natural resources depriving our future generations of a valuable resource that nature takes hundreds of millions of years to create ! 🥲

The other was flaring of invaluable natural gas in Digboi, Assam just to get to the meager oil below, when both should have been harvested if one had to!  The plan for Bombay High was similar, but it was changed to piping the gas. Don’t know how my letters to Editor, taken editorial note of, and the ones to national executives helped. 

Au contraire, US is preserving its oil reserves, by helping others pump out theirs now, at relatively low prices, whether in the Middle East, or Venezuela, the latter sadly going socialist-communist way squandering away its earnings of last few decades, and returning nation to poverty, with its oil gone.  Several Middle East nations have invested in alternative energy around the world and built a futures fund for their coming generation from the oil money. 

Taxation 

Reduce hiding of income under tax shelters, particularly farmhouses, and agricultural income. Rationalize tax rates on the lower side to boost sentiment, and attract global investments, with a stable tax regime. 

Amnesty and honesty 

Proactively close tax evasion and conversion routes.  Offer liberal amnesty to come clean, especially those who missed reporting of incomes under Rs. 5 lakhs per year. Incentivize honesty with low and nearly uniform tax rates… 

Rishikant Singh
The Sage – Author of Lark’s Nest
Delhi, India…