Indian rupee is touching new lows these days as compared to USD. This has not just left finance ministry, but the whole nation in a serous wretchedness. Economists are giving various reasons for this steep fall. The prominent reasons that have come to light so far includes rising demand for USD to meet import needs, rising prices of crude oil in international markets, euro zone crisis etc. All in all, it is because of adverse balance of payments, if we are to summarize in few words. This adversity has arisen because of oil prices and euro zone crisis particularly.
This troubled BOP isn’t a problem that India has come across today only. Actually, India has always struggled with balance of payments. The major reason for that is lack of will and practicality in goals. Defense and oil imports form a major portion of our foreign trade. In both these areas, we are not self reliant. It took more than twenty seven years to develop a fighter plane, more than three decades passed on while the tank is still under development, we still have to import artillery guns and we are still dependent on decommissioned aircraft carriers bought at whooping prices.
Indian military needs aren’t concealed from anyone. We rest in a geographical playground where we have to be at the top. Comparing India to Israel , one can simply see the difference where we are lacking. A small nation like Israel is much more advanced than the world’s second most populous and seventh largest nation.
Now coming to fuel prices, majority of the nations in the world are blessed with limited resources of oil and one day they are going to get exhausted. So are they are going to face similar brunt in future? Definitely not, here we lack exploration will. Americans always hunt for oil, because they know future is going to be powered with oil (whether they accept it or not). China keeps on laying its claims in South China Sea and always tries to press the small island nations, not because of some enmity but it knows the presence of natural resources there. But we are lacking similar temperament. We have a vast Indian ocean in the vicinity, that has plentiful resources buried under it, but we have never bothered for exploring them. In fact, we have become so addicted to our imports that we hardly accept local makes or take endeavors to do something of our own.
We are still revolving around the baseless politics instead of looking far and progressing. Economic downturn that is set on horizon for India is because of our political incapacity, incapability and lack of far sightedness. There is need to look beyond regional conflicts and place India on the center of the world. If we can have bilateral agreements with Iran on trading in INR then why can’t we do that with other nations? Why depend on US dollars? There are two ways to go; either we find a solution tailored to our needs or face Greek like crisis.
