blog@Yantrajaal

Now that I have grabbed your attention with a couple of big and high sounding words let me justify their use in the title of this post. In any discussion of the Indian State, the first image that pops into our mind is that of the parade with which our armed forces salute the State -- through the person of the President -- on Republic Day. The spectacular nature of this parade, the precision with which the contingents -- both military and civilian ones -- walk, move, act and enact various scenarios is of course something to be proud of but the tragedy of the parade lies in the fact that it has no relation to the way the State actually works outside the parade route. Were we to move away from Rajpath and step into the dungeons of any sarkari daftar , the reality that will confront us is terrifying. Decrepit and stained with betel juice and with piles of dusty files covering innumerable empty desks, government offices -- whether central, state, municipal, panchayat or public sector ...

Pratap Bhanu Mehta's article in the Indian Express on the devil being in the detail of educational reforms is very interesting. It makes us look around for successful models and one that strikes the eye is obviously the Stock Exchange mechanism -- that is perhaps one of the most successful model that has emerged from Indian reform process. To see if this model can be used as a reference, let us see some of the regulatory issues that a "company" needs to address before it can transact business and earn money. At its minimum, a company must adhere to the conditions of the Companies Act and register itself with the Registrar of Companies. We note that the RoC does not really approve or reject the application on the basis of the quality of the companies products or that of its promoters. All that the RoC ensures is that the company meets certain basic disclosure norms in terms of ownership and financial issues. The focus is on accurate disclosure -- or transparency -...

With Pakistan succumbing to the Taliban and the US blindly stumbling around in an economic graveyard, we in India must start looking out for ways to defend our way of life from the misery that is engulfing the neighbourhood -- but the question is what and how ? No political activist in any party -- whether the Congress, the BJP or any of the satraps now jostling for an opportunity to loot the country after the elections -- has any clear idea on how to ensure the security of life and limb and so it is up us to try to figure out a way forward. When India was threatened by food security in the sixties and seventies, we used technology to pull us out of the mire. Despite the adverse impact on the environment, the massive use of fertilisers and irrigation techniques -- the Green Revolution -- helped us evade the immediate crisis of mass starvation and allowed us to live and fight another day ! Today it is physical security from terrorism that is emerging as a threat as big as the food secur...