India is not alone in the unsatisfactory outcome of reforms in the power sector. A recent review of transition economies in Europe has observed that “power sector reforms in the transition economies have proven difficult. The current sectoral performance portrays that formulated policies did not effectively understand the functioning of market economy and the reform process itself largely
Who is Anna Hazare? Which section of civil society does he represent? What is he fasting for this time? Will Anna enter politics, form a political party or just support ‘clean’ candidates of other political parties? Does Anna believe in democracy and parliamentary procedures, and respect the constitution? Does he endorse the call of core members of his India Against Corruption team
Western media has described Monday’s failure of northern grid as the world’s worst power crisis in recent years. We will wait for another day to see what they have to say now after we achieved the feat again in less than 24 hours – this time on a much larger scale. Tuesday’s failure of northern, eastern and northeastern grids have plunged over 19 states into darkness. Wh
Electoral reforms have been a topic of discussion for several years now. The provocation for this particular piece is the 52nd report of the parliamentary standing committee on law and justice, in whose jurisdiction the election commission of India (ECI) falls. The report, presented to the Rajya Sabha and laid on the table of the Lok Sabha on May 21, is actually on the demand for grants for 201
By questioning every established institution, Anna and his Team A are on a suicidal path. But there`s no law to stop them. Hence the tragic derailing of the war against corruption. Attempting to commit suicide by a person is an offence under the Indian penal Code. But what if some persons are causing a movement to commit suicide? We still don’t have a law to deal with such
Anil Swarup is director general, labour welfare, with the ministry of labour and employment. He heads the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the flagship programme of the ministry. In an interview with Samir Sachdeva, Swarup, an IAS officer (Uttar Pradesh cadre, 1981 batch) speaks about achievements of RSBY and how the use of information technology and smart cards has helped beneficiaries.
In all fairness, it is the underarm that matters. So they say. Those who set our social agenda (i.e. the advertising and marketing people) have spoken. And their verdict is clear – keep your underarm fair and you will land the man of your choice. So far they have been silent on men keeping their underarms fair and landing the women of their choice. But like that other fairness cream, it i
Just as the euphoric hype over India’s chances of a few medals in London Olympics (which opens in a couple of days) was building up, a newspaper story of Santhi Soundarajan, India’s silver medallist in the 800 metres event at Doha Asiad in 2006, has burst the bubble. Santhi, celebrated for her second place in a tough field, was cast out after she failed a sex test. Stripped of her m
The Olympics is about to start and the skeletons have been stumbling from the closet. Huh! What is the big deal here? The skeletons were already there in the closet. It is just that, now, they are falling down. Definitely, gravity is at fault. The story is long, but let us begin from the Beijing Olympics 2008. Medals, honors, awards, rewards etc for the winners and a firm resolve
The human body is a maddeningly complex system that rarely reveals its inner workings to the outside world. Consider this. The average human being is exposed to a billion different kinds of bacteria, viruses and micro-organisms on a daily basis. Each of these invisible creatures can cause anything from a feeling of feverishness to a fatal brain haemorrhage. Yet most of us keep going on about ou
As the world is witnessing financial crisis, the international philanthropic aid might be shrinking to India and other countries but India has committed more funds to fight AIDS. “BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) increased domestic public spending on HIV by more than 120 percent between 2006 and 2011. India, too, has committed to increase domestic funding to
Former Army Chief General VK Singh, before stepping down, had written a secret letter to the defence minister AK Anthony saying Indian Army lacked a lot of basic warfare gear such as ammunition for tanks. He had also stated that the tanks in use were night blind as they were not equipped with thermal imaging sensors. The Army Chief stressed that the force had enough ammunition only for three-to
Working for over 10 years in various technical and leadership roles with Microsoft India, Mandar Naik currently holds the position of director, platform strategy, with the company. In his this role, Naik has been working on the emerging open source ecosystem on Microsoft’s client, server and cloud platforms. In an exclusive interaction with Samir Sachdeva, Naik talks about Microsoft&rsquo
There is a crisis in the country at all levels. Most institutions, elite or otherwise seem to be becoming more centralised, impervious to the feedback from below, lacking horizontal and vertical accountability and are also getting alienated from common interest. Why is such a spectacle being enacted? On one hand we see widespread upsurge of democratic aspirations all around the world, a
The Child Development Index released by Save the Children shows that Japan is the best place in the world to be a child while Somalia is the worst. The report also notes that while many countries in the world made remarkable progress in child health, education and nutrition – the three premises that form the basis of this report – India slipped by 12 ranks between 1995 and 2010. The
Book details The Battle for Employment Guarantee Edited by Reetika Khera Oxford University Press, 264 pages, Rs 695 MNREGS has been a topic of hot debate, even before the law was enacted. Critics see it as wastage of huge public money in ‘mud work’, whereas supporters think it answers the need to save the
Mamata Sharma, chairperson of National Commission for Women (NCW), had to associate herself with the Guwahati gang-molestation affair in a manner distasteful to her. She felt compelled to apologise before the media after Alka Lamba committed a faux pas by naming the victim at a press conference. Lamba, despite not being part of the NCW, virtually led its fact finding team to Guwahati. The only
Strange are the workings of the human mind. Just a few weeks back Rajesh Khanna was trending on twitter, massacred for his advertisement for Havells. There’s no question the ad had no business to be made. But the viciousness of its critics left your columnist trying to defend: `Don’t deny a man his right to a living; don’t just show case him in a time warp!’ Not
Perhaps it was Carlyle who said, “Give me a man who sings at his work.” Fatigue, or more simply lack of interest in the assigned work or office environment, is common. This happens perhaps because we do not question ourselves or introspect. Do we have an attitude where a humbler existence is felt owed to certain duty vested in us that empowers us to be useful to others? The question
When Kallol Dutta took over as chairman cum managing director of the Andrew Yule group, the public sector unit’s accumulated loss was around Rs 432 crore. In the headquarters and at other units run by the group, there was palpable despondency and dejection. Dutta, an engineering graduate from Kharagpur and a quintessential Bengali who loves football more than any other game, made an exemp
