Am I the only one who feels they are overdoing the choreography for the Sachin finale? Like, not only adding pressure on to the man but making his final showing into a kind of a circus? The venue, the hype, the 200th Test record, the suitably arranged home ground choice, the return of the tired Windies – all of it is a bit unfair and not in the finest traditions of the sport. Bet
Talking to large rallies of people with scores of everyday problems, pains and sorrows -- to a farmer, a labourer, an unemployed youth with so many dreams -- is no easy work. It is all the more difficult if you are a descendant of a ruling family whom everyone looks at with awe. Rahul Gandhi is looked at with such awe – when he talks with people in villages and on streets or lifts a load
India has moved two spots up on the global hunger index (GHI) released on Monday worldwide compared to last year’s ranking. The new ranking may cheer Indian policymakers but the problem of a huge chunk of children below the age group of five being malnourished persists. "India and Timor Leste have the highest prevalence of underweight children under five more (which is) than
Growth “wallahs” (the Reserve Bank of India and the finance ministry) routinely underestimate the interlinked role of land, water and housing in development. In the Indian context, these are critical for a long term growth strategy. Our growth czars are disingenuous in routinely deriding the use of equity markets and foreign investment as valid indicators for economic health but are
The National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is an attempt to bring broadband connectivity to the remotest corners of the country by connecting 2,50,000 gram panchayats in a network. To oversee the project, a special purpose vehicle, Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), was created. Under it three agencies, BSNL, Power Grid Corporation of India and Railtel, were chosen as the implementing enti
Disruptive innovation (DI) is a force multiplier in business and technology. Value creation is all about getting there ahead of the competition. DI annihilates the competition, not by doing the same things better but by doing them differently, thereby changing the rules of the game. The recent greats in this line of business are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. The Mahatma an
There is a lot that Rahul Gandhi, a.k.a. The Prince, is doing right. Despite the cruel, crass hashtag world of social media, where he will continue to be referred to as #Pappu at least in near, foreseeable future, the Congress party vice-president is batting for quite a few things that are righteous, and democratic (read the latest issue of Governance Now for more on “Our insider in the s
The goonda raj, unleashed in Delhi from 1975, pulled the rug from under the principled politics of the previous three decades. Even the followers of Gandhian turned Socialist, JP Narayan and Lohiya succumbed to achieving ends without giving a thought to the means adopted, assiduously emulated and enhanced the bad practices of the sole national party of the times. This has been the leitmotif of
Just 285 km from Kargil, Kupwara was in news over the last two weeks amid a host of other headline-worthy items – Lalu Prasad’s conviction, the battle over and now against Telangana, Rahul Gandhi’s intervention to do away with the ordinance on criminalization of politics, former army chief VK Singh’s claims that the army pays certain Jammu and Kashmir ministers for certa
Elections are round the corner. Babus are petrified of taking decisions. But the government is burning the midnight oil to grant “relief”, under the guise of “protecting consumer interest”, to Reliance, Tata and Adani to compensate for the poor planning and foresight of these companies. The central electricity regulatory commission (CERC) decided in April
Abhayanand, who took over as Bihar police chief in August 2011, has been looking at some out-of-the-box ideas to curb crime, corruption and black money. In an interview with Pankaj Kumar, he explains his theory: if economic crimes are committed for sake of money, and criminals get away with it by exploiting loopholes, then the solution is in making crime unprofitable. He has fo
Why vote? It is not unusual to find this sentiment being expressed. When we use the expression `not unusual`, there is no exaggeration because even for a high voting percentage of 75, one out of every four subscribes to this line of thinking. Of the three who do vote, discounting the ones who vote on caste lines, religious overtures and patriarchal dictates there isn`t much left to be counted a
Citizens of India are losing trust in politicians, and this finding comes at a time crucial assembly elections have been announced and general elections are not far either. India is placed 115th among 148 countries on this count in the Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014. The report, released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), notes that public trust in politicians has been e
In India the conventional media, especially print, is still growing well, but media futurist Gerd Leonhard has a word of caution for this sector. He says India may face the Brazilian situation tomorrow. The South American country was also witnessing the same story until last year when the middle class switched to new media such as the internet and newspapers became obsolete. The Swiss e
Two newspaper articles recently caught my attention. The first quotes the father who killed his daughter and her boyfriend in the Rohtak district of Haryana for eloping as saying, “Whatever I did was right and for honour. If others also follow the same path, such things (love marriages) won’t take place.” The other article points out that more Dalits are marrying out of caste,
If Rahul Gandhi’s gate-crashing into Congress’s own Ideas Inc department, and saying his government was wrong in trying to save convicted MPs and MLAs through an ordinance, were moves that eventually strips Lalu Prasad Yadav of his membership in Lok Sabha, Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is not making the displeasure public as yet. Call it political co
RK Dubey took over as Canara Bank chairman early this year bang in the middle of a slowdown. But a few months into his stewardship, his bank made bold to drop its lending rate to 9.95% because of “better efficiencies” while others hung on to rates of 10% and 10.25%. In this interview with B V Rao and Imran Qureshi, he talks about the challenges befo
Everything was going all right with the world, a nation breathing in the supreme court’s verdict on a citizen’s right to reject the criminals masquerading as smiling poster boys of political parties out to do all that is good for you and at the same time hyperventilating on the need for the country’s president to reject autographing an ordinance that rejects the apex court&rsq
Can you enumerate key outcomes (from citizens` perspective) of decades of e-governance initiatives in Maharashtra? From citizens` perspective, it is convenience. They should be able to avail government services with the least number of trips to the government office without paying bribes and within a given time frame. Wh
We reproduce here a letter Shailesh Gandhi, former central information commissioner, has written to the chairman of parliament standing committee in the matter of the proposed amendments to the RTI act. 27/09/2013 Shri Shantaram Naik, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee Sub.: RTI amendment Bill Dear Sir, The undersigned would
