Interview

“We try to meet growing needs of industry”

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University was established by the government of NCT of Delhi in 1999. It is an affiliating and teaching university and awards degrees like BTech, MTech, MCA, MSc (environment management), MSc (forensic science) and MSc (criminology). Its registrar, Dr Bhaskar P Joshi, has done his masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Lucknow Unive

‘There should be a concrete plan to implement m-gov policy’

As managing director of Accenture’s health and public service business in India, Krishna Giri is responsible for all of the firm’s work for the national and regional governments of India. He discusses the potential of mobile governance in an interview with Samir Sachdeva. How do you see the emergence of mobile governance as an extension of e-governance, globally and

“While Cong collaborated with Maya, we fought against her misrule”

After a hectic schedule, Akhilesh Yadav, son of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, stopped overnight at the Shibli College guest house in Azamgarh. Since the district is known to be a Samajwadi Party bastion, owing to predominance of Yadav-Muslim social equations here, he was surrounded by a large number of supporters and also some local chieftains with not-so-clean rec

“In a PPP, government must be more partner-sensitive”

Lt Col (retd) HS Bedi is the founder and chairman and managing director of Tulip Telecom Ltd, which was started in 1992 as software reseller. Today it is a leading player in providing enterprise data connectivity to corporates and has hands-on experience working on e-governance projects across the country. In an exclusive interaction with Pratap Vikram Singh, Bedi talks ab

“Economics is two parts wonder drug and one part snake oil”

Dani Rodrik, the Rafiq Hariri professor of international political economy at Harvard University, is known as an original thinker on globalisation and economic development in the academic circles. His enriching analyses on globalisation are reflected in newly published book titled ‘The Globalisation Paradox: Why Global Markets, States, and Democracy can’t coexist’. In

`We are looking forward to linking Aadhar authentication with MSDG’

The unique identification (UI D) number will be instrumental in mobile banking, mobile delivery of services and mobile authentication. To know more about how UID will facilitate m-governance, Samir Sachdeva and Shubham Batra spoke with RS Sharma, director general of the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI). Here are the excerpts from the interview:

"Coal demand-supply gap will have to be met with imports"

Nirmal Chandra Jha, chairman of the Coal India Limited (CIL), has many plans that could further enhance the growth of the Maharatna public sector enterprise, which is the world’s largest coal producer. Jha, a postgraduate in mining engineering from the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, has a rich and diverse experience of over three decades in this industry. As the director (technical) of

‘Why only Tatas, why not give sops to dalit businessman?’

At a time when there are few dalit entrepreneurs, Hari Kishan Pippal has carved a niche in Agra. His journey from rags to riches is a story of discrimination, struggle, caste taunts and hardship. His companions were some public sector banks, which gave him loans to run the business. There was hardly any support from the government at a time when big businessmen like Tatas gets sops to set up fa

“Maya will be out of power”

Mayawati’s once all-powerful, favourite officer is now her bête noire. PL Punia, the Congress MP from Barabanki and the chairman of national commission for scheduled castes (NCSC), served the BSP supremo as her principal secretary over her three tenures as the chief minister. An accused in the Taj Heritage Corridor scam, Punia was later given a clean chit by the CBI. Yash Vardhan Sh

‘Competition policy will motivate everybody’

Youngsters today will have a difficult time imagining long waiting periods to get a telephone connection or buy a scooter. Today, the service providers are queuing up before the consumer. That is the power of competition. But much more needs to be done to curb monopolistic tendencies and promote genuine competition. The Competition Act was passed in 2002, and the Competition Commission of India

"Mr PM, you are punishing better-governed states"

When it comes to social sector indicators, Himachal Pradesh is one of the best performing states. However, that has not been a rewarding point for the hill state, says chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. Talking to Trithesh Nandan in his Shimla office, the chief minister rues the rough deal the centre doles out to the state. Dhumal alleges that the UPA governmen

“All Manipuris want is good governance”

While most of the rest of India may not care about the northeast, retired IPS officer Prakash Singh, who served long years in the region first as DGP of Assam and then as DG of BSF, feels strongly for it. The recurring blockades in Manipur coupled with the state and central governments’ apathy in dealing with it irked him so much that he filed a PIL in the supreme court alleging that

"BJP has done a lot for Uttarakhand"

Assembly elections are due in Uttarakhand early next year. The Bharatiya Janata Party dropped Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, who remained in news for all the wrong reasons, and brought in BC Khanduri to win the next term. The 77-year-old former army general (he was honoured with an Ati Vishisht Seva medal), known for his no-nonsense administration, had led the party to victory in F

"Retail FDI will boost food security"

Governor Martin Joseph O’Malley of Maryland, United States witnessed some of the fiery debate on FDI in multi-brand retail while he was in India on a seven-day visit. The governor was here leading a 100-member delegation for initiating business and economic development ties. The group consisting of businessmen, educationists and elected officials was the largest ever in it league to have

‘India matters to world food security’

India remains core to world food security plans, says David Phiri, head, policy assistance support service of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). In an interview with Trithesh Nandan, he justifies the high food prices but laments that Indian farmers are not benefitting from it. Edited excerpts… What ails Indian agriculture from Food and Agriculture Organisati

`India`s anti-poverty schemes shameful`

Professor Thomas Pogge of Yale University is leading a team of experts commissioned by the Oxfam to design an alternative index for calculating the number of poor people. Pogge, who believes most poverty figures calculated around the world are flawed, is also critical of the World Bank and the millennium development goals (MDGs) on extreme poverty concept. In an interview with Governance Now, h

‘Political will can make RTE a reality’

Kiran Bhatty is the national coordinator of the Right to Education Act with National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). She has worked in the field of education for several years and was earlier associated with the UNICEF. In an interview with Jasleen Kaur, she talks about the post-facto social audit, a pilot project, which is being conducted in 10 states, and of implementat

“90% Mumbaikars are outsiders”

Sanjay Nirupam, who represents the Mumbai North constituency in Lok Sabha, is in once again in a verbal duel with Uddhav Thackeray, on the controversial issue of ‘outsiders’ in Mumbai. Niruapam hails from Bihar’s Rohtas district and typifies both the promise and challenge of present-day Mumbai. In an exclusive conversation with Governance Now earlier, Nirupam shared his pe

"India is facing a stable famine situation"

Even as the top economists in the government concern themselves with 8 percent growth, they seem to be missing the urgent concerns. Health and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen talks of India`s nutritional failure and the ramifications it could have in an interview with Governance Now. Dr Sen says that large parts of the country are under the grip of a stable famine

"UPA considers Muslims fools"

Abusaleh Shariff does not mince words. The chief economist at the New Delhibased thinktank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) does not look for euphemisms when he criticises the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for ignoring the plight of the Muslim community. Shariff served as member-secretary to the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee to prepare a repor

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


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