Acche din ab aa gaye....

Understandably, the hype around the new government right now is at its highest pitch. The entire country seems to wait with expectations that Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi will come up with a magic wand and in one swipe will vanish all the evils and ills currently plaguing the country.

While it is a million dollar (or more precisely 272+ ) question whether these high expectations could put severe pressure on the new government, I personally don't believe in such Utopian visions and also feel that most of us should not harbor such wild dreams.

Without sounding pessimistic, any student of economics will tell you that growth and inflation will go hand-in-hand, and therefore any growth-oriented strategies or schemes of the government will automatically lead to price rises. And cosmetic ways of subsidizing to mask the effects of inflation would lead to great strains on growth. So the Modi government will be caught between the devil and deep sea, and apart from some deft balancing, I don't think there is any medicine that can curb price rise drastically.

So for the IT channel community, what are the positives they can expect from this new government, even keeping in rein the Utopian expectations. For one, I feel there will be a more decisiveness in policy formulation and execution, as unlike the previous regime it is not a shadow PM with strings of power elsewhere. Rather, if we really have to look for shadows, it will be resting on the associates-we have a master who can control all his associates (in shadows or not) with the string in his hand.

While decisiveness will be a quality, Modi needs to take a firm and decisive stand on certain contentious issues. These are issues which he had opposed earlier, but that was when he was pandering to a smaller constituency. Now as head of the country, he literally needs to look at a broader vision (and this needs to be broader than a 56 inch chest).

The implementation of GST across the country to standardize taxes will be one major issue-enough has been said and debated over this. If even this regime is not able to implement this, we may say goodbye to it forever. This should be one of the top priorities in Modi's agenda.

Next issue, where there needs to be a decisive stand is the question of allowing how much FDI in retail and other segments. Again with strong arguments both for and against, there needs to be judicial selective approach on this for specific verticals, and definitely, not at the pandering of only the MNCs or even the desi traders lobby.

With Modi's personal penchant for gadgets and gizmos, I sincerely hope there can be new policies on more bandwidth and schemes to increase the Internet penetration in the country. And especially, keeping in kind how effectively he used social media and Internet in his campaign, I hope he does this on a priority basis.

(rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in)