Teachers Day - What courses can our Parliament run?

The entire legislative machinery is stuck, parliament is not functioning, important state matters and legislation related to economy, which have real material impact on the well being of large population of the country are pending. However, even in this situation political parties are able to push  a bill reserving quota, based on caste and creed, in promotions. You may ask - How low can they fall? Well, the digging is on.

When you think you have seen the lowest, they surprise you with their ingenuity of going even lower. Politicians should patent this process of finding newer depths to which one can fall. They can sell this IP to the corporates who are also falling over each other to get part of the spoils. In fact Indian parliament, as a whole, can probably run some courses, with formal degree and all, to share their collective knowledge of defrauding a nation and make some more money. I am taking a stab at the courses that they may want to offer -

a) Maximizing ROI - How to make multiple times the money you spent on getting yourself elected
b) The art of disguise - How to be religious but completely immoral
c) Self development - How to kill your self conscious
d) Innovation - How to find ways to make money where none seems to exist
e) Team work - How to team up with rival political parties of diametrically opposite ideology and make money

The candidates who pay premium on top of the regular fee will get the best seats in the parliament's visitor gallery to see the practical on the floor of the house.

I invite the readers to add to the above list of courses that our parliament could run. You see, on Teacher's day we must contribute our bit so that the great leaders could share with the rest of the nation their hard acquired practical knowledge of bleeding the country dry.

True Federalism

Is India not too big, too complex, too diverse, too varied to be driven by one set of policies and one vision.

Different parts of India are at different development levels, they are grappling with different set of problems, priorities are different. Trying to impose same set of policies whether economic, or for social development,  from a central command and control structure is not working. It is slowing those parts of the country that can grow faster and is compromising those parts of the country where focus has to be on the basic social development.

There is too much control with the center, it is time to restrict that and give states the authority  and responsibility to chart out the course that suits them the best and hold them accountable.

Let the center only handle defense, foreign affairs and ministries related to strategic research and development, for the country as a whole, rest everything including the finance and economic policies should be with the states. There is perennial fight going on between the center and the states with respect to dividing the tax money. Let the center only levy the minimum that is required to maintain the  ministries under its control, rest of the taxes should accrue to the state that is generating the commensurate revenue.

Today, numerous policies and programs are stuck just because not all the states agree to them. Even if the programs and policies are good, they get stuck because they seems to be pushed from outside (center) and because of partisan politics.  We can change that. The states should be able to decide what they want implemented and what they want to block. FDI in retail, insurance, policy on natural resources, reforms in banking, in agriculture, list goes on, all of these should get decided at state level. A mechanism must be created where even if only one state wants to implement a policy it should be allowed/enabled to do so, without waiting for the rest of the union to agree to it. It should be possible to create companies / business entities /legal entities that operate in a state, as if they are operating in an independent country.

This will make state governments answerable to their electorate. Today, bucks gets passed around, state governments blames center and center blames states, development and hence the people suffer. No one knows if the poor development in the state is because of faulty union policies or faulty state policies.

State elections should become more important than the union government elections. The political parties should focus more on putting their best candidates at state levels, they should focus on governing the states better, making them competitive, and improving the lot of people in the states that they govern. This will only happen if the states become more powerful and manage more of their affairs themselves.

I know the present state of the state governments and their governance record is pathetic. In fact, that is precisely the reason why I am suggesting, that we change the structure such that we take away their ailbi of always blaming the center for all the ills. The first principal of good governance and good management is to hold someone unambiguously responsible and accountable for it

It is clear and has been clear for a long time that our current system - both political and administrative - is broken,  what is required is overhauling of the engine and not just change of oil.

Literary Sojourn: Interview with B.L.Gautam - Man Behind "Khosla ka Ghosla" and "A Wednesday"

Man behind "Khosla Ka Ghosla" and "A Wednesday"      Literary Sojourn: Interview with B.L.Gautam

Hard Rain

http://scentofabook.blogspot.in/2012/08/it-is-interesting-book.html

Are we really smart?

As a race we don't stop gloating about the fact that we have a rich culture, have a  long histroy, that we concern ourselves with bigger and better things namely, why we exist, why we are born, how to reach nirvana etc etc.

We may be good at pleasing the Gods but we have failed the humanity. Proof of pudding is in its eating, the proof of superior intellect is in first managing the mundane wordly affairs seamlessly, something that people can touch and feel. We have failed miserably there. Our superior intellect can not guarantee that we provide basic amenities to our people.

Major part of country plunged into darkness. The funny thing is, everybody who is a somebody in this area, knew that this is coming, but nobody did anything. It is a known fact that most of the utilities that buy electricity - State Electricity Boards - are broke. These utilities can't invest in basic distribution infrastructure. They can't pay the power generation utilities, which in turn can't setup more power generation capacity neither can they upgrade their power transmission infrastructure. The cycle is broken. It is a known fact that politicians use promises of free electricity to get votes. It is understood that it is populism at its worst, that hurts country's long term growth, but it is still done. It is a known fact that theft of electricity is widespread and is done with full connivance of the utility employees. But it still happens with impunity.

Can we call ourselves smart? I leave that question for the readers to answer. But smart or not, we definitely are a prime example of a dysfunctional state.

Literary Sojourn: Book Review : Andy Leelu

Literary Sojourn: Book Review : Andy Leelu

Irrespective whose gun booms, it is our blood that spills!

CRPF gunned down Maoist.  17 people were killed. Debate is ragging whether these were Maoist or simple villagers. Irrespective whether these were Maoist or villagers, it is a matter of grave concern that we in our own country kill so many of our own citizens.

Why do people in the Naxal belt take to guns? How are Maoist able to recruit so many in their ranks? The reason is not difficult to find. Oppression, casteism, feudalism is rampant in rural India. Governance and rule of law is confined to books only. Law is used, and abused by the powerful as and when it suits them.

All of us have had our brush with the government agencies - whether law enforcement or otherwise -  one time or the other. We  know how difficult is it to deal with them, so much so that an average person does everything possible to avoid them. Keep this in mind, that we are talking about educated people in large cities where media is active. If this is the state of affairs in cities, imagine what it must be for the uneducated, poor people living in rural India. What recourse is left for them? Any self righteous person would take to gun to protect the honor and dignity of his own, his family and his community.

It is critical to address the basic issues that make people leave their regular life and take to gun. It is difficult for me to believe that all these people, who join ranks with Maoist have a deviant mind. It is tragic that the only way we seem to be trying to solve the problem is by having a bigger gun then them!