P V NARASIMHA RAO

[daisy]

May his soul Rest in peace.



Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao - Profile



Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao was born on June 28, 1921, in Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh.



Rao studied at Osmania University in Hyderabad and at Bombay and Nagpur universities, earning the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Law. He entered politics as a Congress Party activist working for independence from Britain.



Rao a poet, was active in the Indian National Congress during the struggle for independence and thereafter. He served as a Minister in Andhra Assembly (1962-71) and also served the top post of Chief Minister from 1971-73 before his election to the Parliament from Nandyal constituency.



He held several Cabinet posts under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi between 1980 and 89, including Foreign Affairs Ministry (1980-84).



After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, Rao was chosen to lead the Congress party, and when Congress won a plurality in Parliament later that year Rao became Prime Minister.



He along with an able economist Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister moved decisively toward free-market reforms, reducing the Government's economic role, instituting austerity measures, and encouraging foreign investment.



He was often confronted by Hindu religious unrest during the demolition of controversial structure in Ayodhya and by opposition within his own party.



Harshad Mehta episode was a turning point in the political career of Rao. When general elections were held in May, Rao and Congress were badly defeated.



He retained leadership of the Congress party until late 1996. In 2000, Rao was convicted of conspiring to buy votes in Parliament prior to a 1993 no-confidence vote, but the conviction was overturned in 2002.





Courtesy IndiaInfo



dont know if anyone already opened a thread

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Great man.... R.I.P

[Mayavi Morpheus]

From an interview to Indian express:



• And chapter three would not have come if chapters one and two had not been written. Now there is no controversy.



And there is also another thing... How did chapter one come? It came from 0. Maybe negative. So taking something from 50 to 100 is making it double. But if you take it from 0 to 1, how many times is it?



• It’s infinite.



Infinite, and what it really entails is a complete U-turn without seeming to be a U-turn... So the question for you to consider is: which is more difficult?



• Certainly a change is more difficult than accelerating a continuum.



That’s why it need not be laboured too much, because it’s obvious.



• So tell me a little more about how this 0 to 1 or whatever movement came about. Take us back to to 1991, when you took over power and the challenge that faced you and persuaded you to change this.



Logically we had come up against a blank wall. There was nothing more to do. You had no money, you were going to become a defaulter within two weeks and you can imagine what it means for India to be a defaulter.



We have always been paying our installments of debt in advance. That has been our record. Once you become a defaulter your entire economy, your honour, your place in the comity of nations, everything goes haywire.



• You were a lifelong socialist or you were brought up in a Nehruvian sort of milieu. When did you conclude that: look this has to change, the world has changed. Was it in the first couple of weeks, was it in a chat with Dr Manmohan Singh?



You see Nehru was the person who said something about not being Nehruiite. Gandhi was the person who said very strongly that ‘I am not a Gandhiite’. This becoming ‘iite’ (means) becomes something frozen. Gandhi was never static. Nor was Nehru. Why did Nehru leave the whole of agriculture in the private sector? Not many people realise it.



• And not go the way of either Lenin or Ben Gurion.



You are right. So he said it in so many words that if you are talking of socialism... it’s not being imported, it’s being evolved under our own conditions. So that should suffice as a permanent answer in favour of what Nehru really wanted to do. And what we were trying to do in that spirit.



• So for you it was not such a big instinctive shift. It was not like Deng Xiaoping changing the Chinese economy.



Not for me. You have to read my presidential speech at (the AICC in) Tirupati in 1992... I traced from Nehru to what I was doing and no one could say that it was a sudden shift. You cannot afford u-turns in this country.



• So how does one make a U-turn without making a U-turn? That’s a special Narasimha Rao art.



It’s not like that. If you understand that where you are standing is itself in motion...



• That’s a clever way of putting it.



... The turning becomes easier. You are not static. That’s what I just told you.

[satishgoda]

Rest In Peace