Transparency in governance and reigning in graft is at the core of the Public procurement Bill 2012 (“Procurement Bill”) cleared by the Cabinet on 12th April 2012. The Procurement Bill seeks to bring in high degree of transparency, competition and efficiency in the public procurement process alongside ensuring fair and equitable treatment to bidders. Does the Procurem
Asian giants like India and China might be growing at more than seven percent in the last few years, but the fast growth has not been equal, said Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its latest outlook. “…While the region flourishes, the depressing reality is the march to prosperity has also seen a startling rise in inequality,” said the ADB in its latest outlook 2012. The
The gross enrolment ratio (GER), designates a nation’s total student enrolment at a specific level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of population in the official age group corresponding to this level. The GER in India’s higher education is merely 15%. Infrastructural facilities, competence of teachers and research activities are some other factors
Tom Palmer, a senior fellow at the Washington based think-tank Cato Institute, first heard of India when he was a kid. Whenever he refused to eat, her mother would say, “Eat your food, there are children starving in India.” Times have of course changed since. During his many visits in recent years Palmer has had to look hard to find the India of his mother’s description. He wa
Kahlil Gibran said, “All work is empty save when there is love.” The argument has also an antithesis. Too much love is a spoiler. Press Council of India chief Justice Markandey Katju suffers from this. He has made a habit out of his profession of decades. Now, he judges. And that’s become his favourite pastime. Being out of the courtroom has only worked to his advantage.
India and China will witness unprecedented increase in their urban populations in the next four decades, posing new challenges of providing jobs, energy housing and infrastructure to their people, a UN report said. The UN`s `2011 Revision of the World Urbanisation Prospects` said Africa and Asia will lead the global urban population growth in the next four decades with the largest increases exp
It was the dream of many contemporaries in school to work in NASA; space exploration had a glamour those days. I suspect that some of them actually made it there, going by two recent news reports: Painting asteroids and no-fly zones on the moon. It is not a line of dialogue that Brad Pitt or George Clooney might mouth with comfort. After all, when asteroids have threatened
[Prof Gupta writes about the need for an innovation park in Ahmedadad, where he and several organisations he has been working with are based. Of course, the argument need not be limited to Ahmedabad, it can also apply to other cities.] I normally don`t start a dialogue on a negative note ever. But permit me to say that I have failed to get powers-that-be excited about cr
India is among the lowest scoring countries on political finance regulation, according to a new report. Global Integrity Report for 2011 indicates that developing as well as developed countries, including the US, are equally struggling to effectively implement money-in-politics rules. Global Integrity is an international non-profit organisation which tracks governance and corruption tre
The recently concluded two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul (March 26-27), a follow-up to the first summit in Washington in 2010, ended with a promise of meeting again in the Netherlands in 2014 for what will be the third and final global summit of this kind. The focus of the 2012 summit as the name suggested was ‘Nuclear Security’, a term not to be confused with
Travelling somewhere with my small cousin, Prabha Prakarshiki, is a nightmare for my uncle and aunt. She doesn’t sit still, runs in the train compartment, screams a blue streak in the airplane and asks her parents to sing songs to her until she is asleep. Looks much like any normal kid in the house. But autism makes Prabha special. Drooling, crying and responding in a spec
The silly season is upon us, again. Policy makers and experts have taken their positions debating threadbare whether the planning commission’s recent report claiming that poverty has fallen on the basis of NSSO data for consumption expenditure between 2004-5 and 2009-10 in consonance with the Tendulakar committee’s poverty line prescription – Rs 28 per capita per day in urban
Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University was established by the government of NCT of Delhi in 1999. It is an affiliating and teaching university and awards degrees like BTech, MTech, MCA, MSc (environment management), MSc (forensic science) and MSc (criminology). Its registrar, Dr Bhaskar P Joshi, has done his masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Lucknow Unive
Strange things are happening in the defence administration of the country. The dead past is now being dug up from the back of the graveyard just like the future was being fought tooth and nail in the court until sometime ago. The present tense is simply the writing on the wall. When an army chief crosses swords with a defence minister, perhaps such is the order of the day (the use of oxymoronic
The common man is likely to trust non-governmental organisations (NGOs) more than his government, says a report published last month. The Edelman Trust Barometer survey found that NGOs are the most trusted institutions in the world, including India where they have faced charges of opaque funding and misuse of funds from foreign donors. Governments, across the world, were in disfavour of their p
As managing director of Accenture’s health and public service business in India, Krishna Giri is responsible for all of the firm’s work for the national and regional governments of India. He discusses the potential of mobile governance in an interview with Samir Sachdeva. How do you see the emergence of mobile governance as an extension of e-governance, globally and
In 2009, four members of British Parliament`s upper house — the House of Lords — were accused of accepting bribes to introduce motions for amendments that would have helped change the law to benefit a Chinese businessman wanting to expand a chain of stores in the country. Later, it was found out that the `Chinese businessman` was a front for another party and was completely fictitio
Just about a year ago, when Anna Hazare started his anti-corruption movement from Jantar Mantar, few would have predicted the reception he was to get: passionate support from masses across the country along with fierce criticism from some commentators. The movement became a platform for the expectations of the common man. Be it at the India Gate or at the Ramlila Maidan, the huge support the Ga
The recent 28th shodhyatra in Mizoram has been quiet cathartic for me. I had been aware of the need to conserve water and the proper practices we should follow in our daily life. But I must confess when I washed my hands in the morning, the tap used to remain open while scrubbing soap. It is difficult to do so now. I want to share the experience which has made me feel embarrassed about my own b
Indian cities lose almost 45 percent of their water supply, thanks to huge distribution and transmission losses, says a new study. “Rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge, protection of existing local water bodies, relocation of non essential water intensive activities (e.g. soft drinks or water bottling plants),” are the need of the day in cities, according to the study
