But if he is lauded overseas, Mr. Singh is now under attack at home, as critics blame his administration for indecision and inaction. His government is besieged by corruption scandals, runaway inflation and bickering among senior ministers. Amid the clamor, Mr. Singh has often seemed silent or aloof, even as his political enemies have portrayed him as the weak captain of a rudderless administration.

The loud criticism of Mr. Singh, who sits atop the coalition government led by the Indian National Congress Party, is partly the white noise of India’s raucous democracy, and partly a reprise of old complaints.

But the public perception of disarray is one reason the prime minister made a show of reshuffling his cabinet on Wednesday afternoon.

In a nationally televised ceremony from India’s presidential palace, the new members of Mr. Singh’s cabinet were sworn into office. Changes were made in several ministries plagued with poor performance or scandals during the past year, including those responsible for aviation, roads, sports, petroleum and coal. But the major figures overseeing foreign affairs, finance, home security and defense remained in place.

Many analysts say Mr. Singh must recharge his administration to tackle major issues like food security, power supply and infrastructure, as well as to push through reforms on land and governance. More than that, they say, he must seize the moment to address larger, systemic failures in governing that foster corruption and could eventually undermine India’s aspirations to become a global power.

Yet even as Mr. Singh reshuffled his lineup, most ministers were moved rather than fired. M.S. Gill, whose performance was sharply criticized during the staging of the Commonwealth Games, was downgraded to a lesser ministry overseeing statistics. Kamal Nath, who was regarded as ineffective at the critical roads ministry, was moved to the ministry of urban development.

For now, India’s economy is sizzling, growing at roughly 9 percent a year. Many economists are forecasting a long boom that, if handled properly, could transform the nation. Many Indian entrepreneurs have learned to thrive despite governmental dysfunction, but few analysts believe India can thrive long term if the government maintains the status quo.

“There are so many uncertainties over the next four or five years that if you don’t fix things while the going is good, it is going to be that much harder, later,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Center for Policy Research, a leading independent research institute in New Delhi. “Given the historic opportunity that India has, they are frittering away precious time.”

Mr. Singh, now 78, usually floats above the rancor of India’s daily politics. Trained as an economist, he is considered a father of the economic reforms credited for setting off India’s current boom. As finance minister, beginning in 1991, he dismantled socialist-era restraints and oversaw India’s transition to a more open, market-based economy. By 2004, after Sonia Gandhi had guided the Congress Party back to power, she made Mr. Singh her surprise choice for prime minister.

Indeed, Mr. Singh’s critics have long disparaged him as a caretaker prime minister beholden to Mrs. Gandhi, the Congress Party president, and to her son, Rahul Gandhi, the party’s heir apparent as prime minister. Yet Mr. Singh proved otherwise, especially when Congress Party leaders and coalition allies wavered on a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with the United States. Mr. Singh threatened to resign if the Congress Party did not back him on the deal — which it promptly did.

In the 2009 elections, opposition leaders in the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., depicted Mr. Singh as India’s weakest prime minister, but voters re-elected his Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. When the new government took office, public expectations were high.

Now, 20 months later, the Congress Party has suffered setbacks in elections in the state of Bihar and is wounded by corruption scandals linked to the Commonwealth Games, the government’s allotment of 2G telecommunications spectrum and other cases of official malfeasance.

Mr. Singh must no doubt operate at the mercy of the imperfections of India’s coalition politics. But his cabinet has witnessed periodic infighting, while the prime minister himself has seemed slow to respond to certain crises, his critics say.

When Kashmir erupted in violence and demonstrations last summer, Mr. Singh waited for months before strongly intervening. And though he has not been personally linked to any scandals, he has been criticized for his inability, or unwillingness, to crack the whip on corruption and push through reforms.

“In spite of a clean personal image,” said Nirmala Sitharaman, a B.J.P. spokeswoman, “he is heading a government that is responsible for unbelievable amounts of treasury loss.”

Sanjaya Baru, a former spokesman for the prime minister, said the scandals had come as Mr. Singh’s political influence already seemed diminished. He was forced to make a public reversal after making an overture to Pakistan that apparently exceeded the dictates of other Congress Party leaders. His signature achievement — the nuclear deal — was passed with a liability clause that may prevent many foreign nuclear suppliers from building power plants in India.  

via nytimes.com 

Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated today, Jan. 17, 2011, just two days after he would have turned 82 years old.

It’s a great day to revisit the “I Have A Dream” speech he delivered in 1963 in Washington, D.C. Scroll down to read the text in full below.

Want to see MLK Jr. himself deliver the “I Have A Dream” speech? You can watch it here.

Full text to the “I Have A Dream” speech:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

via huffingtonpost.com