The overseas investment arm of the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), OVL has been witnessing profits due to higher oil output. In an interaction with Praggya Guptaa, OVL’s MD Verma talks about the company’s growth trajectory and the hiccups faced in between. Please share a snapshot of ONGC Videsh’s growth journey
The world over, the labour force has proportionately far more men than women. What does this mean in real, quantifiable terms? Here’s one way of looking at it that is quite astounding: according to the McKinsey Global Institute report for 2015, gender parity in labour force participation (LFP) alone could yield global growth of $12 trillion, or about 11 percent of the world’s estima
India is looking at a twin set of developmental challenges. First is the sustainability of the rural ecosystems for local prosperity including enhancing farmer incomes. Second is the sustainable development of urban spaces in the face of fast-growing burden on them. These twin set of challenges, however, are not dichotomous. Policy analysts have long focussed on a structural cha
In the discourse of governance in India, no term is as much abused as ‘police reform’. The question is: reform from whose perspective? Should it be focused only on elite Indian Police Service (IPS) officers or also include the constabulary? The answers to these queries lie in the grey areas. In its July 3 order, the supreme court, it seems, mistook reform for a
Narendra Modi has finally emerged as the architect of unity – of opposition unity, that is. Though it took the Congress and other non-NDA parties four years to learn this lesson, it has come just in time for the grand elections scheduled next year. So, one theory states: As the troubles on the economic and other fronts are piling up and the government is apparently losing its rapport with
Amid a welter of images of blood and war, it is easy to lose sight of how deeply people crave for good governance. The good news from Kashmir last fortnight was that people by and large welcomed governor’s rule. “People are very happy about governor’s rule, especially with this governor,” youth activist Touseef Raina observed a couple of days after the BJP withdrew sup
In 1988, at the peak of the Rajiv Gandhi-VP Singh face-off fuelled by media exposes, the most respected editor of those times, Girilal Jain, wrote a comment in The Times of India with the headline, “A Galahad of the Press”. It was a rare front-page editorial, and it continued over into an inside page. It clearly targeted Indian Express editor Arun Shourie for pursuing more act
Can you explain the concept of blockchain? How does it function? What kind of IT infrastructure is required for deploying it? Blockchain is a system for maintaining distributed ledgers [‘distributed ledger technology’ or DLT] in a way that allows organisations which might not fully trust each other to agree on ledger updates. Instead of using a central
In an interview with Governance Now, Anil Kumar Jha, special DGP, CID, Assam, who is also nodal officer for the CCTNS project, speaks of what the system in its present form has helped his state achieve. What is the current status of CCTNS in Assam and its outcome? In Assam, the CCTNS has achieved all key milestones in terms of project impl
The declaration communicated through the director general of military operations (DGMO) of Pakistan and India on May 29, 2018, to implement the ceasefire agreement of 2003 between the two countries in “letter and spirit” has opened up an opportunity to restore peace in the disturbed Kashmir valley. Indeed, the positive atmosphere generated by the 2003 agreement had not merely
Speaking to Governance Now, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani elaborates on the Sujalam Sufalam scheme to rejuvenate talavdis and desilt reservoirs and lakes. He also speaks on water, politics, and conservation. What makes the Sujalam Sufalam initiative unique?
As a nervous, young IAS aspirant in 1977, I remember being thrilled to see my name in the newspapers when the list of successful candidates was published. Indeed, I was hoping to be allotted my home state, Kerala, but knew that my rank in the exams did not make that possible. Yet, I cannot deny being a little shell-shocked, when, towards the end of our first phase of training, instead of God&rs
“The politician performs upon the stage: the historian looks behind the scenery.” This distinction, made by British historian AJP Taylor, was expected to come true when former president Pranab Mukherjee took to stage at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters at Nagpur on Thursday. That was not to be. Mukherjee, a schoolteacher in his formative years, could
Very few know that leading Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla is an activist of sorts when it comes to environment. She is an organic farmer as well and does her bit in spreading awareness about sustainable development. A former Miss India (1984), Juhi has banned the use of plastic in her home and office. For the IPL matches of her team, Kolkata Knight Riders, co-owned with Shah Rukh Khan, she c
India remains among the countries with the lowest public health budgets in the world. Its health budget stands at around 1 percent of the GDP. This historical lack of emphasis on the health system is most pertinently captured in former health secretary K Sujatha Rao’s 2017 book, ‘Do We Care? India’s Health System’. The manifestations of the lack of financial and te
A 1977 batch IAS officer, Jha has written a book, ‘Urban Essays’, and co-authored ‘Towards People Friendly Cities’ published by the UNICEF. He was the editor of the ‘City Development Strategy for Hyderabad’ published by the UN-HABITAT. The urban development expert talked to Governance Now about ways to make Mumbai a sustainable city.
A practising orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Patil is a minister of state for home, urban development, law & judiciary, parliamentary affairs and skill development for the Maharashtra government. In an interview with Governance Now, he talks about sustainable development of the state. Mumbai has the most expensive real estate. The city is also very dense and congest
What do Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, RK Narayan’s Swamy and His Friends and Charles Perrault and Disney’s Cinderella have in common? They were happy children who lived in a world free of unwarranted fear and risks. Heidi ran up the Swiss Alps without fear, Swamy and his friends played on the streets of Malgudi without having to watch their back and Cinderella had no qualms ret
When numbers forced prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to demit office on the thirteenth day, he delivered a memorable speech in the Lok Sabha, ending on a trademark wave of his hand and saying that they were going to the president to submit their resignation. It was an extraordinary day in the history of the Lok Sabha, marked by impassioned debate, but the most impressive intervention came fr
Just after the UP assembly election in 1996, I was among the scores of reporters waiting at Kalyan Singh’s residence, waiting to get the first inkling of the future course of the BJP. The party had secured the maximum seats – 174 out of 425 seats – but was short of the majority mark. Since TV cameras had still not taken over the public space for news coverage, the crowd
