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Isn't it true of our situation too ?

27 July 2010 - 12:02pm — E.R. Ramachandran
GovernanceUrban Development

 

Isn't this true  of us too? Probably few thosands vs. One Billion++.....

AIMA conference on PPPs - a report

22 July 2010 - 2:10pm — murali772
Governance

The following is my report on the "All India Management Association (AIMA) Conference on Public Private Partnerships: Issues of Governance", held at Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore, on Friday, the 16th July.

Open Data progress - met with dept. of Sericulture

16 July 2010 - 1:07am — silkboard
Governance

So after 2 months of pause - we have been struggling to work meeting dates with some govt depts we have spoken with - we kicked this off with a meeting with Manivanan, who now heads dept of Sericulture.

Counting the poor - how many do we have?

15 July 2010 - 8:40am — silkboard
Governance

Public Agenda dear, here is that intellectually ruminating discussion we said we will have soon. How many poor people do we have in our country? The debate, and understanding the number is important because the classic quote goes - "you can't fix what you can't measure". If you can't count your poor, you can't check how your poverty alleviation programs are working.

Two important things around which disagreements arise are 1) How do you define a poor household? 2) How exactly do you count people using the poverty definition you accept?

First of all, the two popular stats that are quoted to start a discussions like this

  • Arjun Sengupta - 77% of Indians lived on less than Rs 20 a day.
  • Suresh Tendulkar co. - Poverty ratio at the all India level ... 37.2% in 2004-05. Rural poverty ... 41.8% and urban ... 25.7%. Criteria, spend per person per month. Rs446.68 in rural areas. Rs578.8 in urban. (see http://www.dnaindia.com/i...)

Some other notable stats:

Right is there; but, no information

14 July 2010 - 3:23pm — murali772
Governance

Following (in italics) are the relevant excerpts from the New Indian Express report:

The government may have enacted a law empowering citizens to demand information from public authorities, but five years later many government departments are yet to take the “first step” towards proactive disclosure. Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI act mandates that all authorities under the purview of the law must index, catalogue and computerise official records to be easily accessed by the people. So far, however, few departments have paid heed to the provision, says K A Thippeswamy, Karnataka State Information Commissioner. The progress, he said, has been “almost negligible”. “They (departments) do not even have a record room to keep  documents,” he said. “They were supposed to do it within six months of the Act coming into force. But it’s been five years and they are yet to do it.’’

The under-valuation extortion racket

12 July 2010 - 3:44pm — murali772
Governance

My flat, part of a multi-storied complex of 124 flats, located in Koramangala, was registered on 16/02/05. From about a year after registration, many of us owners started receiving notices from the 'under-valuation cell' of the Dept of Revenue, GoK, alleging under-valuation in the assessment of stamp duty payable. Even as our Association, headed by me in the capacity of the President, was trying to figure out as to how to handle the matter collectively, many lawyer-brokers started approaching us with packaged deals to 'sort out' the issue, a typical offer quoted being for totally Rs 21,000/- per owner. Of this, Rs 7,000/- was to be made out to the government by DD, and the remaining Rs 14,000/- was to be paid to the lawyer-broker in cash, of which Rs 7,000/- was supposed to be for the government officials involved. The association took the stand that if the demand had any merit, the members will pay the entire amount by DD, but to the government only, and perhaps some nominal costs to the lawyer.  

Citizen participation in governance

7 July 2010 - 2:55pm — idontspam
Governance

Can non IAS/Politico citizens add value to governance?

Dozens of dapperly dressed young people gathered to attend a conference entitled, "Exploring Spaces for Young Indians in Government."

Suri, who is spending the summer assisting the office of Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Technology, is among the growing ranks of young Indians who are showing an increasing interest in exploring careers in public policy and government - areas in which Indian civil servants have had a historical monopoly.

Counter-intuitively, the majority of the attendees were young people comfortably ensconced in private sector jobs. If these two things are anything to go by, then it strongly signals a slow but steady shift in the years and decades to come, towards a younger, more inclusive and level playing field in India's governing fabric, which will ultimately bode well for its nation-building project.

Consumer Court experience

2 July 2010 - 4:31pm — murali772
Governance

Given the choice, very few amongst the middle and upper classes in the country will ever want to have anything to do with the government or its agencies, plainly because they lack the basic 'technology' of handling them. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the government is omnipresent in our country, providing as it is all vital services like power/ water/ gas supplies, and railways/ bus transport services, etc, and, somewhere or the other, you'll necessarily have to cross its path, whether you like it or not. This has given birth to a flourishing 'middleman industry' across the country, with members from the highly respectable fraternity of CA's and lawyers at the upper end, to plain touts at the lower end, providing an array of services across the spectrum. But, all these come at a cost which the aam aadmi can ill afford.

Accountability of our emergency helplines

2 July 2010 - 1:09pm — deepakar
Governance

Here's my experience with the Police emergency phone number, 100, that makes me pray that nobody ever has any emergency.



Last Saturday, I was returning by train from Thanjavur. While the train was waiting for a clearance to enter the railway station, I heard some commotion outside. Two guys, at least one of them very drunk, were fighting. The inebriated one was lying on the tracks (and hardly moving) and the other man was beating him up. This was at 4 AM and it was still pretty dark. Sensing danger to their lives if a train happened to approach on that track the passengers from my coach urged them to move away from the rails. Since they didn't pay heed, I decided to call the police helpline 100.



My first reaction when the lady answered the phone was surprise at the complete lack of urgency in her tone and voice. I explained the situation to her, and she asked me to call the railway police. There was no answer from that number so I dialed 100 again and got to speak to the same lady. This time she asked me to call the general railway helpline 197!

UID_Bill_second_3.6.10

UID Draft Bill, UID_Bill_second_3.6.10. To be attached to Vinod's wiki post where he is collecting feedback for sending to UIDAI.

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