The choice between use of public funds for development priorities such as health, education and nutrition on one side and the need to create a larger than life stature by riding on the need to uplift the self-esteem of the Bahujan Samaj by constructing statues of her own and her party symbol, elephant, on the other side – was very easy for Mayawati and led her to blow up a few thousand cr
The UPA government seems to revel in keeping the death sentences hanging and this is what is reflected in the affidavit it filed before the apex court on Tuesday to explain the delay in deciding the mercy plea of Khalistani terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar. Bhullar is a convict in the 1993 bl
Prime minister Manmohan Singh has said the country’s child malnutrition figures are matter of “national shame”. He has said that before and he said it again on Tuesday while releasing a report of ‘Hunger and Malnutrition Survey’, prepared by Naandi Foundation on Tuesday. [
Despite falling poverty and considerable growth, a third of children are stunted and despite higher enrolment, dropout and school quality remains critical. A report ‘Impact of growth on childhood poverty in Andhra Pradesh’ shows that programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have played an important role in increasing primary school enrolment to 98% of eight-year-olds but drop o
Child malnutrition may have fallen in recent years but 42 percent of the children under the age of five are underweight, according to the Hunger and Malnutrition survey conducted by Naandi Foundation. A report with the survey findings says that the growth of nearly 60 percent children is stunted. This has happened despite the economy growing at more than seven percent since the las
For those who don’t know: justice (retd) Markandey Katju is the closest we have to an elected conscience keeper of the Indian press. As veteran editor Kuldip Nayar reminded the Editors Guild AGM on Saturday, like all moral conscience keepers, the Press Council of India (PCI), which Katju now chairs, wasn’t given control over anything substantive. It’s hardly surprising therefo
In the Indian Science Congress last week, prime minister Manmohan Singh bemoaned the fact that China had overtaken India on various indicators of performance in higher education. It is ironic that while China is ruled by a single party and India is a democratic country, the institutions of higher learning in China have more autonomy at all levels. In India, some of the institutions fear autonom
In Taoist philosophy, quiescence is described as a still state that is unlikely to easily change. Just as the stillness seems here to stay, life happens - forces of shade and light - Yin and Yang - arrive. These seemingly opposite forces churn the stillness, causing mayhem, till an altered quiescent state emerges anew. 2011 has been a churning of Yin-Yang forces over the Indian consciousness.
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
Poor airlines companies! First, they flew their lot directly into losses. Now, the DGCA wants to cancel some licences also?! Already in tailspin, Kingfisher Airlines was damned in a report by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) over several lapses in safety standards. The aviation authority says that the lapses merit a cancellation of licences. It has not spared the stat
In a hurriedly called press conference on Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party tried to wipe clean the egg on its face. A few hours after Mayawati’s tainted former minister Babu Singh Kushwaha joined the saffron party on Tuesday, there were 60 raids on his premises in UP, Delhi and Haryana. While the BJP questioned the timing of the raids, political pundits questioned the party&rsqu
Many years ago in Dubai when the Monday night squash league was fun I remember one match leading 9-0, 9-0, 6-0 and thinking okay, this is a cakewalk. Suddenly, the opponent changed tack and before I knew it he had won the third game and was cruising in the fourth. A team mate, yelled, “Come on, get on with it and show some bottle.” I didn’t, scrambling l
More than anything else, dignity seems to be in short supply the world over. Take dignity as a sum total of basic human rights, or the freedom to shape one’s future, and you will see why the world is angry, why the just concluded year witnessed so many street protests. Though ‘dignity’ seems more a state of mind than a piece of statistics, Social Watch Internati
There are two causes of dread in the gift-giving season. One is, gosh! What do I gift dear so-and-so, and its cousin, gosh! I hope dear so-and-so doesn’t give me that useless gift again. Then there is that unanswered philosophical question: when does the statute of limitation on the New Year end? Do you still stick out a hand, widen your eyes, put on a smile and wish everyone you meet a &
The standoff between the government and the civil society over the proposed Lokpal showed reluctance of the ruling establishment to design effective institutional mechanism to rein in corruption in the country. The recent discourses in development economics emphasise upon the importance of a good institutional environment that promotes transparency and accountability in administration, business
The world faces a growing dignity crisis, as many countries have not been able deliver on the basic indices of development like tackling hunger, infant mortality rates, malnutrition and poverty etc, says a new report released by Social Watch International. The “inaction” of the governments of these countries “and the mal-action of business as usual are amassing a
(This was first published in the September 16-30 issue of the Governance Now magazine. Given the way the debate on the Lokpal bill ended in the Rajya Sabha last night, we thought reviving this was timely.) "The parliament has spoken. The will of the parliament is the will of the people,” so said a visibly relieved prime minister in the evening on Saturday, August 27,
After 43 years of dithering on the anti-corruption bill, the Lok Sabha finally passed the newest version of the Lokpal bill late Tuesday. The bill, thus, is now past the first hurdle. However, an united opposition thouroughly lambasted the government in the house for bringing a `patently unconstitutional and deeply flawed bill` and for `violating the spirit of consenus. Going by
India is urbansing very fast and small towns are becoming cities, but the new urban centres are yet to put in place preventive measures to save lives and property from natural disasters, a World Bank report has wanred. “India’s growing cities will expose more people and property to hazards, with an estimated 200 million city dwellers likely to be exposed to storms and earthq
When Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, our former president, honoured the creative children from around the country on Nov 11 at the Ignite function at IIMA organised by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Honey Bee Network, he underlined the need once again for rethinking the pedagogy for future India. There is no doubt that children are generally born creative. Why should then schools and colleges
