Do it yourself

  Three of the major impediments to India’s sustainable development and faster socio-economic growth could be listed as (i) Blatant disregard for the law due to a pathetic justice delivery system; (ii) Jugaad mindset of people and (iii) total disregard for the social and regulatory compliance norms. Let me explain my point with the help of the following examples: Bail is acquittal I recently visited Chaubeypur Village in the Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. A decent sized urbanized village located about 25 km from Varanasi city, Chaubeypur is representative of the unplanned and unsustainable urbanization of numerous Indian villages. In Chaubeypur, I met Chote Lal (name changed) who is accused of 2 murders, arson, land grabbing, extortion, and rape of a middle-aged woman. Presently out on bail, he gleefully boasted to have committed some of these crimes. When I tried to discuss the law and order situation in the area with Vimal Saxena (Name changed), a lecturer at Law Col...

A visit to here tier two cities of Uttar Pradesh over last weekend was quite educating. I came back with few new learnings and stronger conviction in couple of themes that I have been following for past couple of years. We visited the temple of our family deity in Agra. The temple is being renovated completely from the inside. The donations for the renovation are being accepted in digital mode. The devotees, many of them from lower middle and poor families were pleased to pay Rs10-50 through UPI etc. It was very clear that people across the socio-economic strata have internalized the digital mode of payment. Another evidence of this trend was available at Fatehpur Sikri monument. The CNG bus that takes the tourists from parking upto the monument charges Rs10 as fare. The bus operator was accepting payment of Rs10 through digital mode. All tourists, villagers and urbanites alike, were happy to scan the QR codes. The monument entrance fees Rs45 per person, is payable only in digital ...