India Shining is currently under re-construction

Andy Mukherjee, columnist for Bloomberg News writes about the "India Shining" campaign which is currently under re-construction ;-). He points out that there is no shortage of Slogans in India be it BJP or Congress and disucsses the real issues which nobody seems to be bothered about.

The high-decibel ``India Shining'' publicity blitzkrieg has come to a quiet, unceremonious end.



Type www.indiashining.com in your browser's address box now, and the message pops up: ``This Web site is currently under reconstruction.''



Wasn't it just three months ago that the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was using the $11 million campaign to ``spread the enthusiasm'' of ``these excellent times''?



One election changed everything.



Now that Vajpayee has been voted out, gone with him are the Internet images of beaming villagers and happy mothers. In public consciousness, they've been supplanted by new metaphors, which tell us how the new government will bring good cheer to every citizen before its five-year term is out.



Thankfully, there's no Web site, or television promos, to peddle the new dream of ``economic reforms with a human face.'' At least, not yet.



The government of Manmohan Singh, the new prime minister, will pursue economic policies that will benefit the common man to ``achieve the goal of making a billion people smile,'' India's President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told lawmakers this week.



Investors must recognize that these too are slogans, and rather trite ones at that. The Congress party, back in power after eight years, has borrowed the idea of a billion smiling faces from nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi, the Mahatma, who wanted to ``wipe every tear from every eye.''