From teaching chartered accountancy to running a textile weaving unit, real estate baron Niranjan Hiranandani has rich experience. He has been part of different state and national bodies for habitat and low-income housing for long, besides drafting Maharashtra’s slum rehabilitation policy. After their state-of-the-art mixed-user townships across 200 acres in Powai and Thane, the Hirananda
One of the most recurring motifs in the legal academy is the potential of travesty inherent in judicial systems. The prison statistic released by the national crime records bureau (NCRB) for 2013 bears solemn testimony to this fact. India is still governed by the Prisons Act of 1894 in which imprisonment seems to be the raison d’etre of the penal system. With a peculiar mix of colonial la
The prime minister’s call to 77 secretaries to the government of India to support a transformation as they prepare their budget proposals is timely. Linking it with ‘outcomes’, identifying deliverables and regular review meetings will not, however, lead to a transformation in the absence of hard political choices, identifying national priorities and re-allocating budgetary res
Conservation architect, author, consultant to international and national bodies on heritage preservation and winner of multiple awards, including the largest number of UNESCO Asia-Pacific awards for heritage conservation, Abha Narain Lambah wears many hats. Her vast repertoire spans preparing plans for restoration of ancient to medieval sites, regional and urban conservation plans, urban
Jual Oram, the union minister for tribal affairs, is a veteran Odisha politician who created history when he became the first tribal affairs minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He was a face-saver for the BJP in Odisha in the recent Lok Sabha elections, winning the lone seat in the state. Oram discusses the Naveen government and the Odisha BJP with Shreerupa Mitra-Jha
Earlier this year, the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement [LARR] Act, 2013 was brought into force, replacing the archaic Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The new legislation, in the works for several years, is an effort to address the historical injustice dealt upon land owners facing unscrupulous agencies of acquisitio
Amit Jain was just another young Indian, working in an IT firm in the millennium city – Gurgaon – who dreamt of a decent life and sought a house for himself. And that decision – to buy a house – turned his life upside down. In 2010, Jain, then in his late 30s, waged a battle against “corrupt developers” after his apartment was “wrongfully” cancell
Petronet LNG Limited (PLL) is a joint venture of the government of India and leading oil and natural gas industry players – GAIL (India) Limited, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). Tasked with importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) and setting up LNG terminals in the country, Petrone
The old boys know it and so do the young upstarts. The world of the internet is never going to be the same. That’s the gist of two fascinating days of debates, discussions and breakout sessions at CyFy 2014: The India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance. Every single expert from almost every single corner of the networked world said the nuts and bolts of the internet governa
The Global Gender Gap Report, introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006, provides a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities around the world. The index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparison across regions and income groups and over tim
Chaudhary Charan Singh is arguably one of the most enigmatic political personalities of independent India. His political life, effectively covering five decades (1937-87), borrows the best from the freedom struggle led by stalwarts of the Gandhi-Nehru era, even as it leaves a dubious legacy for his political successors. Truly, this former prime minister is an enigma that gets adequately unravel
The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) recently released the draft policy on Internet of Things (IoT, interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded devices). To understand the technology better, Shubhendu Parth speaks to Dr Kevin Curran on how IoT can impact governance. Curran, who is known for his work on location positioning within indoor environments, pervasive
Some issues related to the pradhan mantri jan dhan yojana (PMJDY) have surfaced which even the RBI governor has flagged, like duplication of accounts. How do you plan to ensure effective implementation of the scheme and solving these problems? We are aware of it, but it might have happened because some people may have felt that by opening an account under PMJDY th
An electrical engineer from Delhi University, AK Purwaha, as chairman and managing director, has led Engineers India Ltd to new heights. One of south Asia’s leading design and engineering organisations, EIL has spread its wings further under him. From being an engineering solutions consultancy company focused on oil, gas, petrochemical and non-ferrous metallurgy industries, EIL has now di
The Narendra Modi juggernaut continues to move forward. With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerging as a victor in the Maharashtra and Haryana vidhan sabha elections, the Modi phenomenon is pushing political opponents towards political irrelevance. Setback for coalition politics The results of the vidhan sabha elections indicate that the electorat
I have always doubted the genuineness of the ‘audience-poll’ lifeline that Amitabh Bachchan gives his ‘hot-seat’ participant at his popular quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). I question the authenticity of the practice when the participant decides his answer on the basis of what the majority of the audience present at the show chooses to be the right answer.
What’s so auspicious about October 17, 2014 that the Narendra Modi government decided to go to the supreme court and filed an application stating that names of people with black money in foreign bank accounts cannot be revealed due to restrictions under the double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA)? It’s not as if the government, its ministers and mandarins, woke up yesterd
The monsoon clouds that had arrived earlier this year would soon be retreating, marking the end of yet another cycle of rain. Meanwhile, the cloud (computing) direction papers that the government of India had brought out earlier this year are awaiting an effective formation. Cloud computing seems to have moved quite a bit in terms of enterprise adoption ever since the government announce
Land is at the centre of the big debate in India, as more and more farming land is going to industry. But what if land is not necessary for farming? Though it sounds impossible, it has been done, and done successfully in places ranging from Dubai to Singapore. The man behind this technology, Dr Yuichi Mori, was originally doing his research in membrane technology used in healthcare, which he le
The Digital India agenda has created opportunities for many ministries and departments of the government to come together and develop integrated solutions. But many technology providers, and indeed even some policy planners, have begun to consider Digital India opportunity as synonymous to the development of smart cities and the “Internet of Everything”. In reality, t
