One is perpetually amazed at Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s propensity to keep hitting the headlines. Perhaps Major General IS Singha was blissfully ignorant of a section of the media’s proclivity to examine with a microscope anything pertaining to Modi. The biggest mistake he made was to invite Modi to inaugurate “know your army” programme. Nothing wrong in that
“King’s Speech” is the talk of the town. The movie has won four Oscar awards. “Based on the true story of King George VI, ‘The King’s Speech’ follows the Royal Monarch’s quest to find his voice,” says its official website. It provides as good an occasion as any for a few words on the power of words in
Since his appointment as secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy in July 2008, Deepak Gupta, an IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre (1974 batch), has been striving to create awareness among the masses about solar energy. He cherishes the dream of “Gaon gaon bijli, ghar ghar prakash, akshaya urja se desh ka vikas” (electricity in all villages, light
Gandhi was a vaishnav jan. So were his followers then. Today we have a gallery of Vaishnavi jans – the patrons of the PR agency called Vaishnavi, run by Niira Radia. They all last came together on one platform in Vibrant Gujarat in January, praised Narendra Modi and at least one of them said he was the third greatest Gujarati after the Mahatma and Dhirubhai Ambani. Obviously, it’s t
So I am flying back to Dubai yesterday and this man next to me is a professor and he hates cricket. I ask him why he hates it, I mean you might not like the game but why do you have to actively hate it. “Complete nonsense, two men standing in front of sticks and eleven others hanging around and millions watching, what a waste of manhours,” he says. &ld
While Indian women in politics have many global records to their credit, the country lags far behind the rest of teh world when it comes to the particpation of women in politics. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit may have been the first female president of the United Nations General Assembly and Indira Gandhi may have been one of the very few female heads of state in power for more than a decade with the t
The other day, my 85-year old uncle called from Lucknow. My father had told him that India Strategy Group was assisting Governance Now in Gov2.0. Never a great fan of government, his former employer, Uncle asked wryly what "Gov2.0" meant. As many of us handle the elder generation, I carefully skirted the question and focused on his medicines and morale. But yesterday evening, my fathe
Politicians love to hand out doles to the poor. That keeps the poor happy and the vote bank intact. Therefore, there is little incentive to go for fundamental changes that obviate the need for it. The UPA government is no different. In this year’s budget, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee promises a major policy shift in the subsidy regime. He has set up a task for
The gap between the people`s aspirations and what the union budget 2011-2012 portends is prosaically mile-wide, according to the Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA). While the budget has paid some attention to agirculture, infrastructure and climate change, it still fails to address most of the social sector demands. “The total budget outlay for social s
It was the last leg of my journey from work to back home. I was waiting at the Rajghat traffic intersection for the signal to turn green. Totally oblivious to my surroundings, I was trying to make a note of the pending tasks at work: my boss’s possible reaction to a particular article of mine or an important email I forgot to respond to. Then there were four appointments the next day and
India is fast becoming a haven for designer drugs, says a report released on Wednesday by Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) “India is one of the main sources of psychotropic substances sold through illegal internet pharmacies,” says the INCB annual report 2010. However, the report titled ‘Designer Drugs are Escalating out of Control&rsquo
An ambassador might be an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country, but lower down the food chain the definition of the diplomat seems to be undergoing a change. If recent revelations are to be believed, diplomats are sent abroad to speak their version of the truth, and express it in as undiplomatic a language as possible. Thus we know what diplomats think of world lea
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee skimmed lightly over the problems afflicting the agricultural sector – food inflation, inadequate agricultural production, declining soil fertility, massive food wastage – and made no mention of agrarian distress or debt-driven farmers’ suicides. Those expecting reforms in agriculture and the public distribution system were doomed to disappoin
While India touts its youth population as its biggest resource, the condition of adolescent girls in the country in the world, according to a Unicef report. "Almost 47 percent of the girls in the age group of 11 to 19 years are underweight in India, which is the highest in the world," says the report which considered three criteria -health, nutrition and education - to
I recently met a number of village community leaders and innovators who had achieved remarkable results in collaboration with the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation in Gujarat in dealing with the problems of drinking water and sanitation. If through transparency, honesty and self-critical attitude, public officials can achieve so much in this programme, then lessons need to be
What makes the work on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) appear in a different genre of scholarly work on gender, is that national budgets, policies and budgetary processes come to the centre stage of feminist scrutiny—an area that has hitherto been on the periphery of the gender agenda. Yet the gap between the pitch of the current spate of work on GRB and the potential that this line of
The media leaves little doubt about the dire straits that we find the tiger in today. Millions of dollars are raised at home and abroad to secure the future of this magnificent beast. But the people who are paying dearly for the conservation of the charismatic big cat are the unglamorous local people who have had to quietly forsake their homes and tradi
With opacity being de rigeur when it comes to state budget details, it is no surprise that the citizens remain dissatisfied with the spending heads public money goes down on. It is time that states stopped shrouding their budgets and allowed for greater access to the details for the public, Amitabh Mukhopadhyay, a director general at the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India tells
