BENGALURU: Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor on Friday said the Central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is boasting about free distribution of food grains to 80 crore people, but the scheme is in fact a failure. The Centre should have empowered people, instead of giving them free grains, he suggested. However, he kept mum when asked about the guarantee schemes, implemented by his party government in Karnataka.
Speaking at a seminar on “Thriving in Turbulence: How Nations Can Build Lasting Resilience’’ during the Global Investors’ Meet on Friday, he said people at the bottom of the pyramid have so little that one has to redistribute resources.
“Why is the Modi government boasting about giving 80 crore people free food grains? It’s actually an ambition of failure that we’ve not been able to empower them enough that they can afford to buy their own food grains,’’ he said. Later when a section of the media questioned him about Karnataka’s five guarantee schemes, which also include free grains, Tharoor kept quiet.
On economic turbulence, he said the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Bank are the institutions to look up to some extent. But each faces some challenges. At the moment, WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism has been crippled by ineffective American boycott. The World Bank is now increasingly seen as playing with the margins of the global economy and not the central issues and the IMF, of course, has more exposure to the private sector.
“Everyone says the UN is hopelessly ineffective because of the Ukraine war. I would turn around and say look at the UN’s good work in setting the global agenda on so many issues,” he said.
He pointed out that one cannot deal with environmental issues, human trafficking and drug abuse without cooperation. There are so many problems that require countries to cooperate and the UN and its agencies are still the first port of call.