Replacing longawaited Finance Minister Mr

As all of the targets of terrorism and the innocent savagely killed, what is now the "nine-eleven India" cannot that generate revolt, sadness and compassion. However, the attack to the nerve centre of the financial capital of the India is a very serious warning for the country. Not that it was unfortunately the first attacks on Mumbai. But the adage that a "bad news is never alone."

After five years of less rational exuberance, all economic indicators had already turned red from mid-September. The real economy was especially signs of coming into depression, in the words of the wise commentator Ashok Desai. Automotive sales experienced a decline of 20 to 40 in November according to manufacturers and national icon of two-wheelers, Bajaj, has just announced a drop of 51 of its domestic sales. But, beyond these indices, the terrible attack on Bombay was a shock for three reasons.

The first concerns the now fairly general consensus on the administrative incompetence of the country. In carefully weighed words, Ratan Tata has appointed to the second day of the Taj Hotel headquarters: "There is no crisis management in this city." A week before, one of the greatest figures of the meteoric rise of Indian computing, Nandan Nilekani, published a book of 530 pages, "imagining india", in which he describes the multiple crises that passes through the India by total dysfunction of his administrations: education, urbanization, basic infrastructure, etc. For the leader in it outsourcing is precisely of having never really succeeded in computerizing the Indian administration, including its security services.

The second concerns a geopolitics to the incalculable economic consequences. It comes to relations with Pakistan and, indeed, with the bulk of its immediate neighbors. Confusion in vogue between terrorists and Pakistan leads once more threats to troop movements extremely important to the borders with Pakistan. That between the extremists and islam in General crack the Indian unit, the second Muslim community of the world. The ambiguity with which neighbouring States seem to play these extremist movements to weaken a giant who would like to be hegemonic on its immediate periphery delineated, of course. More serious Finally, the link established between the extremists "outside" and "Interior", whether they are Islamists or naxalistes (an Indian version of revolutionary Maoism), shows that the wounds are deep in a subcontinent with 40 of the world's poor. The "war on terror" that many members of the affluent Indian middle class calling resembles the infernal cycle of violence, well known in some parts of the globe. He has never led to economic development.

The third reason directly concerns the economy. Short term, the shock of the 26 November is likely to precipitate which was initially as a cyclic reversal. The combination of a more severe than expected global crisis and a crisis of confidence now domestic but also international should encourage a much more powerful reaction of the central Government. Some monetary policy implemented actions are quite powerless, as shown in the latest figures on credit and the hoarding of households. Replacing long-awaited Finance Minister ("Mr. 8 ") by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, himself could unfortunately do not have the expected effect. "The Tiger of liberalization" of 1991 is no longer the same man, the elections come, and mainly the problem is no longer the same.

This time it stimulate demand to stop a depressive cycle start. But the task is delicate without specifically effective administrations, but much also part of the business community more greedy than Trente in his attitudes. The real question will therefore move and, notably, in the general elections in the spring, on the balance sheet of the record growth of five to six years. The India of well-to-do Bollyworld has many classes de de "de ", beaucoup earned but not systemic reform The attack on Bombay sounds like a "wake-up call" for the country to considerable resources.