India, April 25 -- Cash-driven welfare for electoral gains equals economic failure

Critics and observers have commented on the growing practices among the ruling regimes to dole out cash to woo voters, and take attention away from policy and governance failures. Now, a renowned global brokerage house, Bernstein, has written an open and stinging letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the same issues. Cash transfers, states the letter, side-steps genuine concerns among the masses that are related to the lack of jobs, and social security. They signal either the "ills of democracy," or "economic failure of the nation."

But this does not imply that regimes need to ban, or do away, with cash-led welfare schemes. The letter adds that the...