JUGALBANDI ON GOVERNANCE

It is unusual for two distinguished former IAS officers with such vastly different experiences to combine forces and put down their learnings about governance. Lead author Nand Kishore Singh has worn several hats, the more recent one being chairman of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.

- Raj Chengappa

A member of the Rajya Sabha earlier, he held several posts while in bureaucracy, among them being secretary to the prime minister and revenue secretary. Currently, he is president of the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi. His co-author Pramod Kumar Mishra held several senior secretary-level posts both in the state and at the Centre, including being a Union Agriculture Secretary. Post retirement, he was first secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then from 2019 onwards his principal secretary.

Their book, titled Recalibrate, is a literary jugalbandi with an exceptional collection of insights on a range of subjects dealing with India’s governance and development. With two Black Swan events in quick succession—the Covid pandemic and more recently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—causing tremendous global turbulence and uncertainty, nations including India need to recalibrate the way they governed themselves. The crux, as Singh points out in his opening essay, is the need for a new social contract between citizen and the state. The big challenge is to further human development and well-being even as the envelope of carbon space and natural resources begins to narrow.

RECALIBRATE: CHANGING

PARADIGMS by N.K. Singh, with select insights from P.K. Mishra

RUPA ₹795; 344 pages