"It is not my mode of thought that
has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others."
—Marquis de Sade (French, 1740-1814)
Word for the day
Serendipity (n)
1. Good fortune; luck
2. An aptitude for making desirable
discoveries by accident.
Malice towards none
If it is Not Ok to identify and
discriminate between rioters and miscreants by religion, why is it OK to do so
on the basis of occupation?
In past
two decades, I might have read a zillion reports about the looming water
crisis. So much so that it has become a common belief that the next major
global war will be fought for water resources.
I think
water scarcity is an overrated threat, just like peak oil was.
I am
confident that sooner than later, desalination will become affordable, just
like long distance communication and solar energy. Besides we would have
discovered agriculture & cooking methods which are less water intensive;
sanitation techniques that make our washrooms water positive; and many more
such things.
3yr Agenda vs 5yr plan
The incumbent government has initiated some material
changes in the long established institutional framework and administrative
machinery of the country. For example, the Planning Commission, that was
functioning as a nodal central agency for preparing and implementing five year
development plans and coordinating the development efforts with various state
governments has been disbanded. With this the practice of formulating
centralized 5year development plan, that included setting development &
growth targets, division of execution responsibilities between the center and
various states and resource allocation, has also been abandoned.
It may be noted that though set up through an executive
order, over the years, the Planning Commission had become an unanimously
acceptable institution for setting the policy framework and guiding and
supervising the development process.
The Planning Commission has been replaced by an
advisory body named the National Institution for Transforming India or NITI
Aayog wef January 2015. In May 2016, the Prime Minister Office advised the NITI
Aayog to "prepare a Fifteen Year Vision, Seven Year Strategy and Three
Year Action Agenda documents".
NITI Aayog accordingly issued a draft Three Year
Action Agenda in April 2017, that will be finalized by the governing council of
the Aayog and then presented to the Prime Minister. I shall be discussing this
draft agenda paper in some detail in my subsequent posts.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not
arguing here for Planning Commission of NITI Aayog per se. I am also not
commenting upon the efficacy, desirability, success, or otherwise, of the
Planning Commission, that worked for over 60yrs, framed twelve 5yr plans and
executed them. I am also neither judging the NITI Aayog, nor making any
prophecy about its future.
I just want to highlight the conundrum that the
government's decision to abolish long established institutions like the
Planning Commission and UGC, presents. For example, the Planning Commission's
job of making a 5yr plan more or less coincided with the tenure of an elected
central government. Inarguably the development is a much longer term process
and requires planning for decades in advance, breaking it into five year term,
at least theoretically, allowed every governments to pursue its agenda, in
accordance with the popular mandate, for its 5yr term. The system worked well
without any significant discontinuity in the economy.
The point to ponder is that if NITI Aayog has to make
an Agenda for the balance term of the government, and a strategy for the next
term, provided PM Modi gets it, and a vision for 15years, how is it different
from the Planning Commission added with Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and
Vision 2020. If it was only people, the same people could have been hired at
the Planning Commission. If it is control and dominance (that was perhaps not
possible on a 60yr old institution), it is a major risk, the incumbent
government has decided to take. For, the precedent will not go unrepeated and
untried by various future governments, to the detriment of the country and its
people.
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