Background In August 2010 the Government of India tabled a Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking approval for a legal framework whose objective is to protect persons making a disclosure about wrong doing in State agencies. Given India’s recent history of victimisation including murders of honest and upright public servants who dared to make a confidential disclosur
On the day the results of the Delhi election were announced, I wrote an article, Redefining Aam Aadmi (read it here), to mark the turning point in India’s political history. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had rapidly achieved remarkable results among Delhi citizens in promoting trust, solidarity, and hope a
The Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE), an apex body of central government-owned public enterprises, has a mission to improve overall performance and to strengthen effective and sustained engagement of these companies with all stakeholders. Leading the organisation at present is director-general UD Choubey, a former chairman and managing director of GAIL (India) Ltd. In a
The globalised world demands skilled manpower to convert growth opportunities into jobs and stable incomes. With millions of new job-seekers entering the job market every year, skill development has become one of India’s urgent priorities. The 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) has highlighted skill-building as an imperative need to reap India’s so-called demographic dividend. India
Batch after batch, in teaching corporate social responsibility at management institutes, I have egged students to debate the misplaced sense of social responsibility in the way government uses its oil companies in its efforts to balance cost impact on critical sectors and sections of the society. Against my hopes, every time, students have debated it just like our politicians who have kept the
India’s growth may be in early stages of an upward trend, according to a projection by the UN World Economic Situation Prospects 2014 but it warned that the recovery would be slower than previously expected. The report mentioned that India will grow at 5.3 percent in 2014, while it projected marginal increase in the growth prospect for the next year. “India is likely
I am ill-read. I don’t know a ‘good’ book from a ‘bad’ one. And but for the wife, who is far better read than I, the bookshelves at home would have been stacked with a Chekhov or a Dostoevsky or a Tagore next to Leon Uris or a Andrea Camilleri or a Satyajit Ray (not to say, for the life of me, that any of them are either good or bad). And then, perhaps, a copy or t
Excerpts of interview with Akash Agarwal, country head, EC council. EC-Council is the world’s largest certification body for Information Security professionals. Agarwal handles EC Council’s business operations in the area of information security, trainings and certifications for business acceleration. Here he talks about the threat of online (in)security and how knowledge about them
It is almost as if the next Indian elections are going to be based on Riot vs Riot. Like the 1984 riots linked to the Congress will be pitted against the BJP stigma of involvement in the Godhra riots of 2002 and the trading of insult will rise to a piercing crescendo. It is like my daddy is bigger than your daddy has become the leitmotif for the next power era. Now that the
The quality of learning in schools in rural India has declined and remained neglected in the nine years of the UPA government, says the annual status of education report (ASER) 2013 prepared by Pratham, a non-profit organisation. While there has been a lot of improvement in infrastructure, a continuous decline in learning levels is seen since the right to education act (RTE) has been im
In a complex country like India, where imaginative leaders are needed to make the best of emergent realities, Manmohan Singh failed to provide that thrust. Prof Valerian Rodrigues, who teaches political science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, tells Trithesh Nandan that the prime minister made everything centralised, leaving enormous burden on the next prime minister. Edited
Can a chief minister go on strike? Can he drive up to the federal government in an official car and publicly protest? What is happening in Delhi? Is this what Kejriwal meant by ‘sweeping’ clean? Is the man really going on strike because the police did not frisk four Ugandan women on the high handed orders of his law minister Somnath Bharti. Frisk, frisk, cavity sea
Does Arvind Kejriwal require security, and if yes, under which category from X to Z? That could well be a debate on media – of the social, traditional and 9 o’clock talk TV variety. But it becomes a bit of a glitch when politicians (both from government and the opposition) start dancing to the tune, almost ready to tap min SMS answers to some online poll, and even courts and
Will history be kind to Manmohan Singh? Yes, believes Prof GK Chadha, former vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and now president of South Asian University, who was one of the earliest students of Manmohan Singh. He spoke with Trithesh Nandan at length about the prime minister’s legacy. Edited excerpts from the interview: Do you thin
Dr Ajay Kumar is a 1985 batch Indian administrative service (IAS) officer of Kerala cadre. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Kumar was heading the IT department in Kerala as principal secretary before taking over as joint secretary of the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY). When he joined DeitY, the department didn’t have electronics division. He was instrumental in the
On July 21 last year, The Times of India wrote that entertainment channels can be fined up to Rs 30 lakh for violations of the programming code. "This move was formalised in a meeting of the IBF (Indian Broadcasting Foundation) board held on July 19. Any channel found violating the advisories or guidelines or repeatedly flouting the programme code can be fined to the tune of Rs 30
The newly-elected government of Delhi claims it is not political. On numerous occasions, leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have denied having anything to do with rajneeti; they claim they are here to serve the people and janta ki sewa is what they are going to do come what may. Yesterday, even after contesting on a reserved seat, Rakhi Birla, a dalit MLA from the party,
Professor Rajat Moona is a graduate in electrical engineering from IIT Kanpur and holds a PhD degree in computer science and automation from IISc Bangalore. He is a teacher and a scientist with several patents and research papers to his credit. As the director general of the centre for development of advanced computing (C-DAC), he has been instrumental in finalising the specifications for Aakas
Most crimes are a function of the kind of people we have in our society. The occurrence of crime will not stop even if you have honest and efficient policemen in good numbers. While investigation of crime and bringing offenders to book is a function of the police department, its deterrent value to stop crimes is limited. To give an example, if Tarun Tejpal did something in the lift, what could
Till a few years ago, polio was not uncommon in India. But there has not been a single case of polio in the last three years, and India will be declared polio-free in March 2014. Rotary International, the service organisation working for humanitarian causes, has also contributed in large measure to this achievement. Gary Huang, the president-elect of Rotary International, was particularly impre
