TEc - Concrete jungles - Urban India

Indian cities remain mired in overwhelmingly towering challenges that defy any quantifiable scale. Ranging from unchecked population growth to a lack of or inadequate infrastructure to cope with ever growing multiple needs nearly everything is amiss. From the basic to the upmarket elaborate.
Despite the odds modernity has been seeping through layers of endemic corruption and institutional bad practices.
Successful individual projects bear testimony to this.
For the most part urbanisation in India is a random hit and run process where planning is as poor as its exact opposite is painfully true.
There are of course exceptions to this general rule.
It can fairly be said that concepts such as systematic urban planning and city management have not taken root.

If Surat should represent hope that things can be done differently then all city planners and urban managers from the rest of the country should be taking a hard look at it.

TEc - The tipping point - Portugal takes to the streets

It does look like a tipping point of some sort has been reached. Question is what tipping point is it?

I have long held the view that austerity was never the right word to define government policies already implemented or in the pipeline. The correct one would be adjustment made forceful on a country whose reliance on external finance became unbearable.
How could it not be whether in a single currency area or otherwise?

The sad thing is it all came to a head suddenly, starkly exposing how unsustainable the trajectory had become.
Of course there could and should be better tools from the EU/ECB to deal with the situation in as severe an economic downturn.
But the underlying issues - imbalances that built up over 15-20 years - had to be addressed sooner rather than later.

There has been a peaceful uprising in Portugal following the PM's latest announcement for the 2013 budget.
It is unlikely that the one measure now made the major bone of contention will get approved in its current form.
A compromise of some type will nevertheless have to be reached on ways to make Portugal's economy more competitive and better balanced between exports and internal consumption.

Quite a difficult balancing act but one that needs to take account of such simple concepts as take-home pay being sacred to any working person anywhere.
Especially when the government must first be seen to be digging into as yet no-go areas of deals struck with private companies in the past.
Tens of notoriously bad public-private partnership deals whose main financial burden falls to the State.
That means the taxpayer having to foot excessive bills over 30-40 years.

A spot-on observation on one of the most intractable problems in Portugal's electoral system. The obvious consequence being the downgrading of Democracy as you rightly point out.
Citizens in many countries hardly feel represented by the politicians they vote for even where direct elections are held. Let alone where they are clearly systemically misrepresented.
Democracies are indeed discredited to varying degrees because the main driver of all activity is found elsewhere not in Parliaments or governments anymore.
This would of course take us into a much wider argument on issues affecting political systems these days.

But yes I would agree the Portuguese electoral system is one such critical issue. I'm not sure it is the crux of the problem.

TEc - Not too little, possibly too late - The ECB takes action

Finally the ECB is beginning to sound like a Central Bank for all countries sharing the single currency. When called upon to deliver directly on its latest announcements then only will European citizens across the eurozone acknowledge they have not been thrown entirely into the frying pan of financial markets.
For all the specificities of which there are many the whole gambit boils down to this.

It is only fair to say Mario Draghi has made some solid statements on the ECB's readiness to uphold the Euro. He has spoken up consistently since taking over the ECB's top job from JCTrichet. Yesterday he made good on those statements by cobbling together a set of measures that redefine the ECB's role in the current Eurozone context.
However, it cannot go unnoticed that it took Spain's size and potentially Italy's - or nightmarishly both together - to force the ECB spring into action.
While small countries were targeted by bond markets eventually succumbing to the bailouts, the ECB in retrospect effectively failed to stand up for them in earnest.

The ECB has at long last seized its role as a Central Bank would for the Euro-17.

At national and EU level focus must equally shift to growth policies. Not a theoretical approach but a very clear and pragmatic one.
Importantly, to where sound economic growth is to be generated in the future across many countries.
Ultimately the only way for any country/economy to settle dues and refinance itself in the now all but shuttered financial markets.