Here is what I wish to government do in next 5 years.

Monopolize Violence

Most important job of a government is to monopolize violence.

Government in last 10 years has done a decent job on securing our borders, eliminating threats of terrorism, and reducing Naxalism.

However, this government, as well as all the governments before it has done terribly on eliminating mob violence. Any group, based on ideology, religion, profession, or other categories can bring our cities to standstill. We have had protestors occupy streets for months. We routinely see violence against religious celebrations.

Irrespective of your political/religious affiliations you have to agree that there is just too much of mob violence.

Just last year we saw little kids demanding beheading of a person. Little kids.

You can look at evidence and you will find unlimited number of examples of mobs running rampage of all religious, political, and ethnic groups. Even in a small state like Manipur, gangs can acquire modern weapons and unleash a level of violence that can only be compared to a war.

A modern factory was destroyed by workers to settle pay dispute instead of going to courts!

If you had a minor traffic incident, it is very common for situation to devolve into mob violence.

All of this has to stop!

1. Do not let anyone occupy streets. Not for prayers, not for religious processions, not for protests.
2. Declare stone pelting an act of terrorism. Any structure that is found to support stone pelting, destroy it.
3. Increase quality and quantity of policing.
4. Make necessary judicial reforms to bring swift justice to people who incite violence.

Energy

The most effective thing government can do to make India into a developed economy with thriving manufacturing and service sector is provide cheap and abundant energy.

The only scalable way to achieve this is nuclear power. Solar, wind, hydro are all good supplements. But unless we invest heavily into nuclear fission reactors and research of fusion reactors we will never have enough energy to scale it.

Judicial reforms

Any functioning government is not working well if it takes years, or decades to provide justice. It reduces overall trust in the system if disputes can not be settled. It is very difficult to enforce contracts, which essential means people with economic and/or street power have lot more leverage over those who do not.

Does the supreme court really right authority to adjudicate on bail pleas? Or mandate facial masks? Or decide which trees can be cut and which can not?

Make clear lines of separation between executive and judiciary. Reform the public interest litigation framework to stop legal activism by third parties.

Governments are the biggest litigators in India.

Reduce bureaucratic waste

We have one the largest footprint of bureaucracy. Only Germany may be larger.

It is impossible to go to a dealership with say Aadhar and PAN card and drive off with a vehicle fully registered and compliant.

To run a small business with less than 50 lacs in revenue, we still have to get TAN, PAN, DIN, KYC, EPFO, GST, and many other compliances.

Why is all this necessary?

Ideally, a person should be able to start and run a small business without even needing an accountant. For example in Australia I was able to do a side hustle without ever needing an accountant for a business that generated AUD 150K in top line revenue. It took me less than 30 mins to register the business and open a bank account, all online.

Why can’t we achieve this in India? In India it took better part of 2 months to get that, after close to 100 signatures! Explanation often is that people will take advantage and game the system. We can not thrive as a country if we design our systems to make it more difficult for crooks to take advantage and in the process make it difficult for vast majority of honest law abiding citizens.

Almost always these insane levels of bureaucracy leads to corruption and waste of financial resources.

Education and government

Why are these two topics interlinked?

Look at the number of exams government or its subsidiary conducts to recruit.

This is madness. This is complete and utter madness.

The fundamental reason behind why we are not doing well in number of governance areas is these exams.

Problems with current system

1. Does not attract top tier talent.
2. Does not remove low performers from their posts.
3. Most recruits have no real world experience.
4. Good ideas do not spread quickly across the government organization. We still have been able to replicate Indore model of clean cities in the last 7 years.

One way to solve this is by scrapping the system altogether. A very radical way to do this is model the government recruitment like any private enterprise.

1. If you have relevant degrees (say MBA), and minimum experience required for a given post, you can apply for a 5 year contract.
2. Government can spend 6-12 months in training new recruits.
3. Provide internship opportunities to prospective recruits.
4. Permanent posts only after successfully completing contract.

Miscellaneous

1. Sell every non-defense sector PSU. Each and every one of them, starting with BSNL.
2. Even in defense sector PSU find ways to transfer knowledge to Indian companies. If we can build a nuclear submarine, we should have a thriving ship building sector.
3. Only way to support vulnerable class is via cash. Let people decide whether they want to spend the money of gas or clothes or food. Government has no business in dictating behavior. Make it impossible for even state governments to provide freebies.
4. Reform tax code for individuals.
5. Only 2 GST rates. Rate is either zero or X (12.5%?). No cess. Focus on increasing top line and not skimming.
6. Reduce size of large states like UP, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, WB. Ideally no state should have more than 30 MPs.
7. All metro cities should be states.
8. Expand railway network and invest in truly high speed railways with > 250KMPH. average speed. Given the demand for railways, it should not difficult to find private investors from Japan/EU to help build these out.
9. No retrospective government actions.