కొత్త బంగారు లోకం (kotta bangaru lokam)

Kotta Bangaru Lokam, Maaku Kavali Sontam!

(This new golden age, shall be our very own!)

A TV show on the new snazzy Hyderabad International Airport used this headline. There was palpable excitement in the media and the general population for the new 'world-class' airport in the city. One can sense the optimism that this is only the beginning of things to come.

I had to go to Chennai yesterday, and I have seen the airport. So here's a first hand report!

The drive to the airport was smooth. It took less than an hour to reach there in the early hours of the day. On some stretches of the road, you just glide along the road. It's that smooth. Things could definitely be better though, some stretches seem unsafe.

The airport itself was huge. The other airport gave no personal space. This one has separate gates for every flight. There was enough place to sit. There were book-stores, coffee places, breakfast places and the service was polite and costly.

I thought to myself -- Is this an Indian airport? It feels like a western one!

And that was a moment of epiphany for me. The airport did not feel Indian!

For all its glass facades, escalators, lifts, it lacked the Indian essence. The old airport thrust in your face the very colourful "Incredible India!" campaign. Yeah, this airport had the mandatory picture of a caparisoned elephant, but it was the only one I saw. I missed the riot of Indian culture in the airport.

Some stalls had caucasian women serving customers.

TV channels showed HBO movies. I missed tollywood and bollywood.

I had made up my mind, that this airport was not Indian.

When I returned from Chennai, I tried to reinforce this idea through everything I saw. On the whole, it did not feel Indian.

Then, as I came out of the airport towards parking, I noticed something - the very Indian red stains of pan colouring one of the majestic pillars.

The old airport is dead. Long live the old airport!

I passed

One of the first wishers said, "God is great!"

And I agree!

uttishTa Bharata

Over the last two days, I finished watching about twenty episodes of 'Chanakya'. I started watching the series to take my mind off the imminent results, which btw, were supposed to be out yesterday. But, it turns out UPSC was just being a tease.

The main theme of the series so far, has been 'uttishTa Bharata', which I think translates to 'wake up India'. This came as a surprise to me. To me Chanakya is synonymous with Arthashastra. But, Arthashastra played only a minor role so far in the series.

With Alexander's impending invasion of India, Chanakya exhorts the 'janapadas' to rise above their regional chauvinism and strive to serve 'ma Bharati'. He cautions his students to the danger of dividing residents of India on the basis of 'janapadas' (like Magadha, Lichchavi, Malav, Kekayi, Gandhara etc.) He advocates bridging people across the country through 'sanskriti' - which is above the local language and customs. He believed that only a unified India could rise to the challenge posed the Greek invaders.

In effect, what he has exhorted is the 'federal sentiment' - a prerequisite for states to come together to form a nation. It's the sentiment that binds America into a nation, and the lack of which leaves the EU only as a confederatoin.

However, none of the textbooks I used have cited Chanakya as one of the foremost proponents of the federal sentiment in India. Has the director used his creative license to ascribe more to Chanakya than there was?

Social audits and social sciences

Summary:
1. Social audit through NGOs is promising to be an effective tool for eliminating grass-root corruption in India.
2. India under-funds its social sciences programs in universities. Expanding Govt. support for the universities could have the beneficial effect of furthering social audits and thereby improving our governance.

Post
Here is an account of India's inefficient civil services. It makes for an interesting read. On the whole it presents a picture we know well - political interference and corruption plague India's administration.

Though the article calls it "a band-aid on a corpse", technology can play an important role in eliminating corruption and providing quality services to citizens. E-seva centres are but one example of how citizens can benefit from technology. Our police forces require immediate upgradation in terms of its technology usage, given the danger to internal security from various sources.

Given this, the lack of adequate budgetary provisions for technology upgradation in administration is saddening.

The article also points out how social audits help make the administration accountable to the citizens. Social audits are audits of government documents by social organizations. In the implementation of welfare programmes like National Rural Employement Guarantee Scheme, social audits ensure that the beneficiary list rolls are not fudged, that the payments to beneficiaries are adhering to statutory norms etc. NREGS, according to some social audits, has been effective in delivering its goods to the intended target beneficiaries. And, this scheme has been successful because of social audits.

Hence, there is a need to strengthen the system of social audits of welfare programmes in India. Clearly, citizens at the grass-roots lack adequate awareness about their rights and Government obligations to conduct social audits. Can we rely on the handful of NGOs to conduct social audits, popularize discrepancies and ensure redressal where necessary? Clearly, no.

Social audits, to be meaningful, should be conducted by the civil society independent of the Govt. and impartial to political parties. Hence Govt. funding NGOs to incentivise conducting social audits is a warped idea, and may not succeed.

However, if the Govt. chooses to fund universities and research programmes with a social audit component, it could have multiple benefits. Our universities are under-funded, research opportunities are scarce, especially in social sciences like Public Administration, Sociology, Anthropology etc. Enhanced Govt. funding to universities will first give a fillip to studies in these fields, and bring out research publications addressing issues that are uniquely Indian. Peer-reviewed publications and prestige of universities would deter any major manipulation of data from social audits.

Recently, the Govt. announced that it would set up multiple Central Universities in the country to address the lack of higher education infrastructure in the country. It is a laudable move, but much more needs to be done, and we need to fund universities to unleash the 'academic spirit' so dormant in our country.

Hence, I make a case for clubbing social audits and social science funding in India.