This interview: from a clandestine Marxist to a Marxist minister (Finance Minister of West Bengal) is amusing to say the least.

Normally a newspaper report/interview leader is supposed to be expressed in a neutral tone. However, the Indian Express is different: it takes sides when it is convenient.

In that time, the state has taken steps towards leaving behind its economic mess to become an example of how change can be ushered in by a little pragmatic idealism.

Try harder, Mr.Gupta, your Leftie friends might quite be happy. Outside their circle, your words won’t find any takers. Especially in light of what we read about West Bengal’s stellar performance as reported in your own paper by Arun Shourie: 1 2 3.

The First World countries, when they developed, they got all the protection, all the subsidies

Can anybody check for me por favor if this is true, and if it is, what is the evidence to back it up?

You see basically, morbidity pattern indicates all over the country that of all illnesses of the people, little more than 50 per cent can be prevented.

Yeah certainly. But what was the socialist Congress government–now your bedpartner–that was in power for some 40 years post independence, doing? Perhaps the only worthwhile achievement in the health sector has been the eradication of small pox: and polio to a large extent. A telling example of how the morons in the health ministry function, can be given by how they’ve gone about dealing with AIDS. With number of diseased climbing up at a staggering rate, AIDS at best stands as a joke and at worst, is viewed with a horror blown out of proportion. Instead of educating people about the difference between an HIV-infected person and a person who suffers from AIDS, the nitwits have gone about caricaturing the virus in horrendous masks, costumes, and cartoons. The “morbidity pattern” lies in your half-baked policies and their equally worse implementation.

You don?t need doctorates for medicine. You don?t need multinational corporations selling medicines. And for remaining 50 per cent, you do not need big city hospitals. Decentralised curative treatment at the block level

Note the whole argument. The substance? You don’t need anything. And how do you propose to achieve the “decentralised curative treatment?” Second, haven’t you heard of our own desi pharma industry that has achieved several breakthroughs in research, not merely product development? That the desi pharma companies are major contributors to the economy? So you see the problem: the blinkers that The Ideology equips them with doesn’t allow them beyond beaten-to-death phrases and words: block level, local bodies, workers’ interests, peasants’ welfare….

… in the municipality round hospital, the doctors and paramedical staff are appointed on a social contract. It is really good on the basis of performance. And everybody pays fees…Fees are much below private-sector fees and above the government sector. (Emphasis mine)

Low fees. Of course. Who makes up for the loss? Your comrades have already thought about that. Milk the rich, milk the Evil Capitalists.

…. but why did I even bother to go into such detail over absolute trash, why did I waste my time over a dolt who says “competition should not be one-sided?”

Tags: Commentary, Indian Politics, War on Communism