CATEGORIES

Not yet tired

The 1959-batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS, Surendra Singh rose to become the Cabinet Secretary in 1994. He continues to be active after retirement

Need For Power Projection Beyond Doklam

China’s pull out from Doklam is a confirmation and acceptance of India’s assertive power in the region. But, India needs to speed up not only the modernisation of its military power but also integration of military in its geo-political and foreign policy discourse and implementation

Raising The Bar

Economic development in the 21st century depends on implementation of policies, programmes and projects. That, in turn, depends on how effectively we follow-up. In South Asia, India was first to implement a government performance monitoring and evaluation system in 2009 but it seems to be lagging behind Bhutan and Bangladesh now.

Merger Of Oil Companies Caught On The Wrong Foot

Investments depend on risk-taking abilities, especially for spending money on overseas ventures, and autonomy. The State-owned oil companies possess neither. Vertically-integrated oil majors make sense if these too are handed over to the managements.

What Are We Testing?

Prelim exams for IAS and other civil services need not get reduced to examining the warehousing capacities of examinees.

Art Of Knowing

WHY do I invoke Adiyogi or Shiva so recurrently? It is a question I am often asked.

it is the economy, no politics, stupid

elections over decades have been won piggyback riding on catchy slogans. and slogans that have caught the people’s fancy have been economic ones.

It's Time for Conscious Public Service Delivery

The bureaucratic, left-brain static model of the 20th century must transform to meet the demands of transparent and sustainable governance.

IDS, a misconceived idea

The problem of undisclosed income cannot be tackled by soft measures like IDS. The paltry collection shows that Indian people do not wish to avail such schemes despite threat of strong action from the IT Department.

The Anatomy of Surgery

THESE days the only topic of conversation in the Indian subcontinent and the surrounding SAARC region is Surgery. The last time when surgery was the cause celebre was in ancient India when Sushruta discovered the art of plastic surgery to reconstruct the noses of unfaithful females, cut off by suspicious husbands.

Health cultures

TRADITIONAL health cultures everywhere are founded on a basic premise: that the human organism is naturally geared for health. Since the body is made from within, it is fully capable of setting right most of its internal problems.

BSNL Buying Outdated 2G Technology

This is a story of a flawed business strategy being pursued by one of the most powerful, and allegedly a not-so-clean, CMD of a mega public sector entity. He has incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), reportedly got rid of his Secretary, allegedly caused a huge loss to the exchequer, and possibly crafted tenders to favour select foreign suppliers. Yet his juggernaut moves on. Despite several charges, Anupam Shrivastava continues, and thrives, as the head of the state-owned telecom major, BSNL. The reason: the blessings of a brother of his former boss, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the former telecom minister, and a powerful lobby within the PMO. In the recent past, Shrivastava allegedly caused a ₹1,000-crore loss to the exchequer as he released unauthorised payment to a subsidiary of a Chinese firm. He issued advance purchase orders to Finnish Nokia and Chinese ZTE to supply network equipment for the firm’s ₹6,000 crore national mobile network expansion. Critics charge that the tenders were drafted to favour the two firms. Recently, JS Deepak, the former Secretary (Communications) was shunted out because of the delays in the laying of optic fibre cables in the North East. However, the fault lay with Shrivastava, who had cancelled the tender. This article focuses on the CMD’s myopic vision to expand in 2G, even as the Indian private players, and other majors worldwide, aggressively move towards 3G and 4G.

Blessed Are The Poor

BJP’s deliberate efforts at establishing poverty as the chief element in the bio-data of its aspirants for high office

Tax Man

TN Pandey had some interesting experiences during his long tenure in the Indian Revenue Service

Implement With Caution

The idea of bringing able people from the academic or corporate sectors into suitable positions in government is basically sound, provided it is done with sincerity of purpose and transparency.

Signs of Congress Revival!

Apart from Ajay Singh, no major Congress leader stays in Bhopal. The elevation of Singh as the leader of opposition and unity shown by party leaders has energised the party cadre. But, will this unity show last?

All Options Open

Though development of its stealth aircraft, AMCA, has been put back by a few years, India has kept negotiation channels open with all the concerned countries and corporates.

TATA-Mistry Feud What Lies Behind?

The Ratan Tata-Cyrus Mistry story began on a wrong note, albeit in a subconscious manner. They both felt that since they had worked together for years, they understood each other and the bonhomie would continue forever. But, human psychology works differently—it changes rapidly when one is given powers, and the other has to give up his erstwhile powers.

Coming to Terms With Trump

New Delhi will surely work its way to US policymakers and secure India’s security, economic and strategic interests. But all the same, it is essential to know which door to knock for the right answer and optimum result in the next four years of Trump regime.

Richest Indian On Shaky Ground

There is a grave danger if there’s overregulation—it results in a strangulating bureaucracy. But there are pitfalls of underregulation—it makes those who should be more on their toes to relax and become complacent. In the first, it’s the businesses that suffer; in the latter, it’s the retail investors and poor customers who bear the burden. This is why as India tries to ease the way to do business, she should ensure that the watchdogs are on guard, and don’t abdicate their responsibilities. A classic case where the regulators seem to have gone to sleep is the rich-to-richer story of Avenue Supermarts and its promoter, Radhakishan Damani. Although, the company is performing well, and its stock is flying, there are danger signals that should interest the regulators and watchdogs. At the moment, they seem to be sleeping, and seem unaware of what’s happening. Alam Srinivas reports.

Niti Ayog Where Is The Transformation?

NITI Ayog has lost track of its mandate and is wandering in the wilderness. Global summits and taking agenda briefs from multinationals cannot deliver this transformation.

Demonetisation Hits Human Trafficking

Demonetisation scheme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2016 was aimed, among other things, to hit out at black money, parallel economy and criminal activities. As we cross the six-month threshold, Abhishek Narain analyses whether the decision has impacted the human trafficking industry which thrives on black money and is this move enough to have a long-term impact on the inhuman trafficking activities.

Turnaround Man

The man behind the world famous Khajuraho dance festival, PC Sen was also responsible in increasing MP Tourism’s budget and bringing Air India staff’s emoluments at par with the private sector.

Business Of Freedom

While revenues are increasing, earnings are being squeezed by rising fuel, labour and maintenance expenses. Finding alternative means to keep flying secure without the inconvenience of the current laptop ban, combating human trafficking, implementing the Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) and modernising air cargo processes were some of the serious issues on which 73rd IATA AGM deliberated at Cancun (Mexico) in the first week of June 2017. Anil Tyagi, Editor, and Anish Gandhi, Consultant Foreign Affairs, of gfiles flew to Cancun to understand the frank and daring deliberations of International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) 73rd AGM.

Paresh Baruah Rings Alarm Bells

With the demise of SS Khaplang, the legendary Naga rebel who abrogated truce with India in 2015, Indian security agencies have reasons to be worried. Now it will be Paresh Baruah, the reckless ULFA (Independent) boss who will call shots in the entire North-East where militants of different ethnicities have come together to wage guerrilla warfare.