Institutions need self-correcting mechanisms, says Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the country's institutions need to develop "self-correcting" mechanism to deal with the challenges being faced by the "noisy democracy".

The minister was referring to repeated disruptions in Parliament and also the problems being faced by the judicial system.

"Our institutions, media certainly vigilant, election commission performed considerably well, judiciary independent -- doesn't face external crisis, at times faces internal crisis.

"Parliamentary system again the same. Being a noisy democracy, we face internal challenges these days and these are institutions where we have to look for a self-corrective mechanism," he said.

The minister was speaking at a function to launch Seven decades of independent India: Ideas and Reflections book co-authored by Vinod Rai.

Both the Houses of Parliament have been witnessing disruptions since March 5 when the House re-assembled for the Budget session after recess.

Referring to developments at economic front, he said the nation has reached a stage when it would be possible to effectively deal with the problems of poverty in the country over the next two decades.

"...over the next at least two decades we can be confident about a reasonably high rate of growth which will eventually help us to face one of our most major challenges which is fighting poverty," he said.

However, he said security at the borders and also insurgency would continue to remain a challenge.

"These are areas where India has to display now its real strength and potential to overcome these two challenges in next two decades. That is, the challenges to our security on the issue of insurgency and how eventually while we are growing on one hand, get rid of the menace of poverty," he added.

Jaitley also said that the country has faced a number of crises in the last seven decades, but at the same time showed resilience to overcome those challenges.

"We have seen during this period, democracies getting toppled, economies getting shattered, systems getting discredited, institutions collapsing. But I think the inherent resilience of India was that the internal system of checks and balances that we created," he said. PTI JD CS SBT