Tragedies make for great stories and they can hardly escape drama. Greek philosopher Aristotle while revealing the defining elements of a tragedy said that tragedies should be “expressed in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear”. When tragedies are punctuated with sub-plots, where people are killed by their own families and that t
In 1974, engineering students in Ahmedabad protested a mess fee hike. They came out on streets, and they started receiving widespread support – against the backdrop of runaway inflation and an allegedly corrupt state government of Chimanbhai Patel. In no time, the protests snowballed into a statewide agitation, called Navnirman Andolan, which Wikipedia claims to be the only protest of its
Increasingly governments worldwide as well as in India are focused on providing citizen services and safety in the most seamless manner that can assist in development. The other name to this can be given as smart cities. An important aspect however remains the reach and coverage of government systems to the masses. While in the past, physical limitations (number of personnel or
The question of economic inequality was always a pressing one, but last year it threw up an unlikely best-seller, Capital by Thomas Piketty. Before and after Piketty, there has been a growing body of literature on the theme (a long list can be found at: inequality.org/books-inequality), including Joseph Stiglitz’s Price of Inequality and Angus Deaton’s The Great Escape for non-exper
Service tax is a tax levied on providers of certain service transactions (excluding specified exempted categories). Service providers pay the tax and recover it from customers. It is charged to individual service providers on cash basis, and to companies on accrual basis. This tax is payable only when the value of services provided in a financial year exceeds `10 lakh. As has been mentioned in
A short tract by Michael Walzer, a leading political theorist better known for his masterpiece ‘Just and Unjust Wars’, should be of interest to the Indian readership. The American public intellectual poses the question that has become all the more relevant lately: How do we explain the shift from the values and ideals that won India independence to a different set of ideals that too
As I leaf through ‘Nature Without Borders’, I am reminded of my visit to the Velavadar national park in Gujarat a few years ago. For a small national park of only 29 sq km, Velavadar packs a punch. It harbours the endemic blackbuck, the endangered Indian wolf; is the largest roosting sight for Montagu’s harrier in the world and the finest place to see one of the rarest –
The pre-1993 executive-led system of appointment of judges lost favour with people for trampling upon judicial independence. The post-1993 judiciary-led collegium system faced criticism for lack of transparency and accountability. The trust deficit continues to be a challenge with the new system under the national judicial appointments commission (NJAC) raising fears on both counts.
Do we in India have the concept of privacy? The supreme court is hearing a bunch of petitions that have objected to Aadhaar because it infringes on citizens’ privacy. The government has said ‘right to privacy’ is not a fundamental right. It does not figure in the constitution, of course, even if the apex court has read ‘right to privacy’ as part of the all-importan
India’s malnutrition is back in international news, and for rather intriguing reasons. Some nasty articles have appeared in one of the most prestigious international magazines, the Economist – ‘Sparing Mr Modi’s blushes’, in the June 27 edition, and ‘Of secrecy and stunting’, in the July 4 edition. Regardless of its pretentions, the Economist appears to
Once the Congress lost its majority in parliament long ago, it had to reconcile itself to forming coalitions and sharing ministries. The Congress liked to keep important ministries like home and finance; its allies, enjoying a few uncertain years in power, preferred lucrative ministries. Their favourite cash cow was the railways. Corrupt ministers promoted corrupt bureaucrats. That is how the r
The media make parrots out of us. Instead of working things out for ourselves, we are taught to repeat formulae by rote. The formula on Greece is well known. It went on borrowing as if there was no tomorrow. Such wise and kind uncles as the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank kept lending to it, and urging it to mend its ways. But it did not. So it went bankrup
Perhaps the most overlooked comparison in Asia is that between India and its civilisational sibling, Indonesia. These two eclectic democracies have more in common than India and China, yet they are only rarely hyphenated. While China’s per capita GDP in 2013 (adjusted for purchasing power parity) was at $9,800, the equivalent for India was a mere $4,000, putting it much closer to Indonesi
“The top 30 defaulters are sitting on bad loans of Rs. 95,122 crore, which is more than one-third of the entire NPAs of public sector banks.” That is the tailpiece in an article in the Economic Times of June 11, 2015, titled “RBI in favour of developing better strategies to deal with bad loan problem”. That also happens to be the standard quote in the flood of articles o
On assumption of office, prime minister Narendra Modi had emphasised the governance mantra, “maximum governance with minimum government”. In the formation of the government he kept the cabinet size initially to less than 10 percent of the strength of the Lok Sabha as against the 15 percent ceiling under Article 75 of the constitution. Political leaders while finalisi
The specialist vs. generalist debate in India’s civil services resurfaces periodically. One has seen a chief of the electricity board, an excellent engineer who managed his power plants and transmission systems extremely well, totally clueless in matters relating to power policy. One has also seen a first-rate irrigation chief engineer taking over as secretary of the irrigation department
Earlier in this column, I had discussed what governments can learn from businesses and vice versa. This piece is not about that per se. But yes, there is a definite shift in expectation from technology in business. And it is time that happened in the realm of governance too. The early phase of IT adoption saw emphasis on efficiency through automation; the next phase was all abou
Bad news is good news; media revel in news of crisis and catastrophe. No news is bad news; some space has to be filled with news if anyone is going to look at accompanying views and ads. But if there is no news, pseudo-news can be invented, also known as speculation. Speculation is possible all round the year on weather, for luckily, India is situated far enough from the equator to have pronoun
There is considerable talk of judicial accountability in the nation, but it does not address the key parameter of time-bound justice. Of three persons in prisons two are under trials, most of whom may not have committed any crime. Right to Speedy Justice which has been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right is violated daily in the courts. Justice delayed is injustice.
In August 2014, the Narendra Modi government, aiming to connect billions of Indians, announced an ambitious Digital India vision. The programme aims to deliver all government services to citizens electronically by connecting rural areas with high-speed internet network. The project has even attracted support from the likes of Facebook and Google to usher in this new era of connectivity in India
