"I had a father and
mother, who were devout and feared God. Our Lord also helped me with His grace.
All this would have been enough to make me good, if I had not been so
wicked."
—Saint Teresa of Avila
(Spanish, 1515-1582)
Word for the day
Anecdata (n)
Anecdotal evidence based on
personal observations or opinions, random investigations, etc., but presented
as fact.
Malice towards none
The super success of Hindi
action movie Baghi 2 shall leave many ponderable behind!
First random thought this morning
In past few years, the mainstream media seems to have developed
this tendency of defining social anger and civil unrest as too parochial.
The headlines often refer to any incidence of civil unrest as a
constricted phenomenon. For example, "Dalit Anger"; "Farmers'
Unrest", "Kashmiri Strife"; "NOIDA Resident's Ire";
"Journalist's Protest"; "Tribal Discontentment", etc.
It would be better if all these localized expressions of anger and
unrest are seen as manifestation of a larger malaise that has permeated the
Indian populace at large, i.e., lack of adequate opportunities &
capabilities to satiate the elevated aspirations.
Taking growth to the last man - 2
Indubitably, the thought of
bringing millions of people left out of the growth process into the development
mainstream and making growth totally inclusive is truly a noble thought. There
could be no argument against it.
The problem however is that the
program accepts the status quo as sacrosanct and proposes to work incrementally
taking the extant position as the base.
In my view this reduces the
chances of success by 50% and lengthens the process by say another 50%, even if
we assume that the execution of the plan will be impeccable and bureaucracy
will perform contrary to its reputation.
In my view, the solution lies in
breaking the status quo and taking the road not travelled.
First and foremost, the government
should commit to the Panchayati Raj institution and devolve maximum possible
powers to the local bodies. With this primary condition met, the following may
be considered—
(a) The ownership of public resources should be earnestly handed over
to “the public”. Instead of few feudal ministers controlling the resources, the
trusteeship of all the natural resources should be vested in the local
council. The local people should determine how these resources should be
exploited. Industry based on these resources should be developed on
co-operative model with equitable ownership of local people.
(b) Urbanization (provision of adequate civic amenities and
connectivity) and industrialization should be managed at town/village level
instead of further promoting India-Bharat divide. 7,00,000 urbanized villages
would be much more productive than 700 cities with inadequate infrastructure.
(c) Local councils should be empowered to decide appropriate taxation
structure and incentive formulae to achieve the objective of social, economic
and gender equalities, sustainability and development.
For example, each local council
shall determine which are the minority communities, or socially and
economically backward classes in that locality and extend reservation
accordingly. Similarly, each local council shall determine the development
priorities and allocate resources accordingly. Given the diversified
demographic, ecological and socio-economic profile, efficient policies for
energy, education, employment, industrial development, ecology conservation etc
could be worked out only at the local level.
(d) The role of the Central and State Governments should be restricted
to managing dispute resolution, and developing model rules and regulation that
may be adopted by local and district councils with appropriate modifications.
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