Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru considers his 'Five Year Plan' as the greatest show on earth. The Pandit is so much enamoured of it, that he refuses to listen to words of caution and brushes aside anyone who dares to offer his guidance.

The country is so vast, its poverty is so grim, and the need for the eradication of poverty is so urgent, says Pandit Nehru, that the plan should be carried through, at any cost.

The much expected foreign aid, has not been up to the mark—it comes in a tickling way.

And yet, the plan perilously perched on a rock of emotion, depends upon Dollars and Roubles.

Unless the 'aid' assumes good dimensions, the shape of the plan is bound to get distorted.

With the almost half-hearted help form foreign countries, a bit, ambitions plan is being propped up.

"The plan is not over-ambitious" says the panel of economists who probed into the problem, but they are not themselves either enthusiastic or confident.

The statement of the panel is more in the nature of cajolery, rather than an appraisal.

The plan is bound to succeed, the panel promises, but qualifies the statement, with 'ifs' and 'buts'.

If the foreign aid is forth-coming in decent dimensions, and if the Home front could supply its quota, the fund needed for the implementation of the plan could be built up, the panel says.

But, the panel has not gone into the aspect of finding out the possibility or otherwise of getting this fund.

The panel is not happy about the food position and points out that food will have to be imported.

That, that would be a strain on the resources available, is not a small matter. The economists further point out that Rationing of food will have to be introduced to tide over the difficulty. They also envisage a sort of compulsory procurement of food grains.

So, 'Tighten Your Belt'—seems to be the advice offered.

Mal-administration, corruption, scandal and a host of other evils are so rampant, that the masses are fast losing their faith in their Masters.

And if, as the panel suggests or warns, Rationing is to be re-introduced, it would be the last straw to break the camel's back.

But, come what may, says Pandit Nehru, the 'show' should go on—for he thinks that it is the greatest show on earth.

So was the Pyramid, says the 'Eastern Economist', and advises the Congress to draw a lesson from that.

The pyramids too were great public works executed by government with a single mind. For a time they operated to the benefit of the people to whom substantial employment was given. But when the Pharaohs drove the pyramids beyond the endurance of their people, and the capacity of the economy, they became instruments of terrible tyranny; in the end they demolished themselves and thus ended even Pyramid building, supreme urge of their mistaken lives.

No government with the need for accommodating its people dare ignore the lessons of ancient Egypt—wrote the 'Eastern Economist.

But the Nehru government refuses to heed to advices, or warnings for it is bent upon the one desire, to exhibit the greatest show on Earth!!

(02-02-1958)