Transparency in governance and reigning in graft is at the core of the Public procurement Bill 2012 (“Procurement Bill”) cleared by the Cabinet on 12th April 2012. The Procurement Bill seeks to bring in high degree of transparency, competition and efficiency in the public procurement process alongside ensuring fair and equitable treatment to bidders. Does the Procurem
The gross enrolment ratio (GER), designates a nation’s total student enrolment at a specific level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of population in the official age group corresponding to this level. The GER in India’s higher education is merely 15%. Infrastructural facilities, competence of teachers and research activities are some other factors
Kahlil Gibran said, “All work is empty save when there is love.” The argument has also an antithesis. Too much love is a spoiler. Press Council of India chief Justice Markandey Katju suffers from this. He has made a habit out of his profession of decades. Now, he judges. And that’s become his favourite pastime. Being out of the courtroom has only worked to his advantage.
It was the dream of many contemporaries in school to work in NASA; space exploration had a glamour those days. I suspect that some of them actually made it there, going by two recent news reports: Painting asteroids and no-fly zones on the moon. It is not a line of dialogue that Brad Pitt or George Clooney might mouth with comfort. After all, when asteroids have threatened
[Prof Gupta writes about the need for an innovation park in Ahmedadad, where he and several organisations he has been working with are based. Of course, the argument need not be limited to Ahmedabad, it can also apply to other cities.] I normally don`t start a dialogue on a negative note ever. But permit me to say that I have failed to get powers-that-be excited about cr
The recently concluded two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul (March 26-27), a follow-up to the first summit in Washington in 2010, ended with a promise of meeting again in the Netherlands in 2014 for what will be the third and final global summit of this kind. The focus of the 2012 summit as the name suggested was ‘Nuclear Security’, a term not to be confused with
Travelling somewhere with my small cousin, Prabha Prakarshiki, is a nightmare for my uncle and aunt. She doesn’t sit still, runs in the train compartment, screams a blue streak in the airplane and asks her parents to sing songs to her until she is asleep. Looks much like any normal kid in the house. But autism makes Prabha special. Drooling, crying and responding in a spec
The silly season is upon us, again. Policy makers and experts have taken their positions debating threadbare whether the planning commission’s recent report claiming that poverty has fallen on the basis of NSSO data for consumption expenditure between 2004-5 and 2009-10 in consonance with the Tendulakar committee’s poverty line prescription – Rs 28 per capita per day in urban
Strange things are happening in the defence administration of the country. The dead past is now being dug up from the back of the graveyard just like the future was being fought tooth and nail in the court until sometime ago. The present tense is simply the writing on the wall. When an army chief crosses swords with a defence minister, perhaps such is the order of the day (the use of oxymoronic
In 2009, four members of British Parliament`s upper house — the House of Lords — were accused of accepting bribes to introduce motions for amendments that would have helped change the law to benefit a Chinese businessman wanting to expand a chain of stores in the country. Later, it was found out that the `Chinese businessman` was a front for another party and was completely fictitio
Just about a year ago, when Anna Hazare started his anti-corruption movement from Jantar Mantar, few would have predicted the reception he was to get: passionate support from masses across the country along with fierce criticism from some commentators. The movement became a platform for the expectations of the common man. Be it at the India Gate or at the Ramlila Maidan, the huge support the Ga
The recent 28th shodhyatra in Mizoram has been quiet cathartic for me. I had been aware of the need to conserve water and the proper practices we should follow in our daily life. But I must confess when I washed my hands in the morning, the tap used to remain open while scrubbing soap. It is difficult to do so now. I want to share the experience which has made me feel embarrassed about my own b
The supreme court on Tuesday dismissed the union government’s petition seeking review of its judgment in the Vodafone tax case - giving the much needed consistency and finality to its earlier said judgment. The fine print of the newest order is not yet available and thus reliance has been placed on newsreports. Following the verdict of the supreme court on January
A disconnect runs through the nomenclature, preamble, objectives and content of the National Food Security Bill, 2011. The Preamble goes beyond the Title and states that the Bill provides “for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable price….” Even on cursory reading, it is clear that
Justice Pranab, in the budget 2012, proposes clarificatory and retrospective amendments to Sections. 9 and 195 as if to restate the legislative intent regarding the scope and ambit of these provisions, thus far not expressed in the language/text of the provisions. Following are the proposed amendments to Sec 9 and other related sections of the income tax act:- (i) Amend section
The Election Commission of India as an institution enables the people of India to exercise their right to choose a government of their choice through free and fair elections, held periodically. The underlying assumption being that the participation of people in adequate numbers is guaranteed and the role of the commission is merely to facilitate and administer the election process. The reality
In the last few weeks, the international media has been flooded with articles asking "What is Iran thinking?” This is indeed an important question and I certainly don’t have an answer nor does my article intend to provide one. However, this article suggests that somewhere debates have lost sight of what I believe is the core problem and therefore to even try and understand what
When union steel minister Beni Prasad Verma was booed in Rahul Gandhi`s presence in his constituency in Gonda during the campaign, I asked a senior journalist friend who belongs to the city if he found it surprising. ‘No,’ he said matter-of-factly. “Had Rahul not been there, Beni would possibly have been roughed up,” he added. The poll results have reflected
Just when it became apparent that the BJP had fared badly in Uttar Pradesh where the party had pinned great hopes, party president Nitin Gadkari appeared before the press with his usual bravado. Given his penchant for doing politics in Bollywood style, Gadkari cannot be faulted for mistaking content for style. But he committed an unforgivable faux pas which is symptomatic of what ails the
UP may not have achieved headline-making growth rates, but it has gone a step further, by reducing poverty over a decade. Uttar Pradesh is often regarded as part of the backwaters of development in India. The picture, it seems, is changing and is changing fast. There are at least two threads of change, one that has been noticed by some and the other which has gone almost completely unno
