Similarly India has had to pay a very heavy economic price for twisted socialist policies of the Gandhi family.

Recently Rahul Gandhi indulged in slum tourism and was accompanied by Miliband the visiting foreign secretary of UK. According to the host, Shivkumari, “It was their sudden visit to my hut. The arrangements of mattress and pillow etc were made by the Trust (Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust) people. After their departure, a vehicle came and took those items”.

The entire exercise was a great experience in looking at Indian poor people as a museum exhibit. Doing anything to remove poverty is a separate subject . Reducing poverty in India would also reduce the vote bank of the Gandhi family. This practice of “breeding poverty” has been passed on from generations.

Under Indira Gandhi, economic policies were used as a powerful tool to increase control of government over trade, industrial production, and credit allocation. It expanded her power exponentially at the cost of nation.

It was only when P. V. Narasimha Rao became the Prime minister that we saw the dismantling of the license raj. The situation was so bad that economic reforms were adopted to avert impending international default in 1991.Rao’s finance minister was coincidentally Manmohan Singh, who played a central role in implementing these reforms.

The impact of those reforms was huge and it improved all sectors of our economy like foreign investment, manufacturing, banking, trade and the nascent software sector. All of them grew by leaps and bounds. India’s image also changed, from a beggar state to that of an IT hub.

There has been growth but their is a problem of inequity. The number of poor people in India is very large. In villages basic facilities such as drinking water, electricity, sanitation and medical facilities are lacking. But poverty cannot be removed by lip service or sloganeering like”Garibi Hatao”. It can be removed by generating wealth and that can only be done by rapid industrialization.

Lessons can be learnt from Gujrat, where even in times of global recession investors have promised to invest a phenomenal Rs 12,000 lakh crore. No wonder leading industrialists are praising the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and suggest that he could be the prime minister.

Today,India has been growing economically not because of but “inspite” of the Gandhis.

India’s Reliance Petroleum has started processing crude oil at its new refinery, creating the world’s biggest refining complex. The $6 billion project will make the oil complex in Jamnagar in Gujarat the world’s single biggest supplier of fuels to the global market, pumping out 1.24 million bpd of ultra-clean fuels.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has also commenced production of hydrocarbons in its KG-D6 block of Krishna Godavari Basin with the production of crude oil on 17th September 2008. The field is initially producing about 5,000 barrels of crude per day and is expected to reach its peak hydrocarbon production of 5,50,000 BOEPD over the next six to eight quarters.

A first of its kind hydrocarbons production from any deep water field in the country, Reliance KG-D6 will account for 40% of country’s current indigenous hydrocarbon production. It is estimated that the production from KG-D6 facility will save India an annual foreign exchange outflow of US$20 billion.

It is very important that India reduce its dependence on imported Oil. To do that we need to develop not only new oil exploration initiatives but also initiate new forms of energy and new ways of using it like – wind, solar, hydel and other new technologies.