We could call this the Governance Revolution (taking a cue from Thomas Friedman who coins various terms and tries to popularize them - the latest being ET for Energy Technology).
All across the board, well entrenched methods and structures are being overturned. For example:
- The Right To Information (RTI) Act has made big inroads into the opacity of the government.
- A brand new income tax code is being circulated (click here for the draft). This is a bold move aimed at simplification of the entire income tax regime.
- There is a towards a generic Goods and Services Tax (GST) to replace a maze of taxes such as octroi, stamp duty, entry tax, central sales tax, state sales tax etc. If this succeeds, the long lines of trucks at state borders will become a thing of the past.
- There have been highly significant amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), somehow missed by most of the mainstream press (see here). The need for these is apparent from a report of the National Police Commission that 60% of the arrests are unnecessary and unjustified. Also given the big delays in India's judicial systems, many people languish in jails for no fault of their own, awaiting trials that can take decades.
- The school education system is being re-thought, and hopefully higher education will also get a re-think.
- The Unique ID project, handed to ex-Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, is a big step in the right direction. Under Nandan, it is sure to be professionally executed.
The full impact of these changes has not yet been felt, but I am very hopeful. Even more than the changes themselves, the courage to change is most remarkable. Legislation otherwise tends to be a one-way process: it has a tendency to simply create more and more complicated and senseless structures. So this is new and very welcome!
One gets the feeling that the central government is being run by professionals, not ideologues or crooks or ultra-nationalists or caste-warriors. Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Sam Pitroda, Nandan Nilekani - these are people that we can identify with. These are not the typical politicians we had gotten used to. This too is new and very welcome!
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5 comments:
The common man in India has never received a good return on his investment. The investment in trust and simplicity, eternal Indian values. The way the political and bureaucratic classes have usurped the rights of the aam aadmi has been spectacular. It need not have been so, had such progressive legislations appeared earlier. My take is that by 2020, a lot of systemic anomalies will be removed, and I.T. will play a very crucial role in brutally opening things up for everyone. Babudom beware! Your days are near.
Hello Sir,
Hope is a good thing, and keeping this good thing in mind I am waiting eagerly for this revolution to come.
But in my opinion common man needs to be more aware of the various laws and provisions made by government for the common people.
Thank you
Pankaj Gangwani
True, Pankaj, which is why I have written this post. The tragedy is that even the "uncommon" educated man does not typically exercise his mind over these issues, preferring instead to focus on making money or on what "Saifeena" wore yesterday. :-)
What is your stand on the opening of so many new IITs and IIMs in the country? Doesn't it dilute the brand name created over the years? Ivy Leagues are not created every other day. Also from marketing point of view (for the companies who are willing to open research center in India like Boeing)what makes more sense, try creating new brands and leaving IITs and IIMs where they are or what has happened i.e. more IITs and IIMs?
One way of justifying is: these brands does not stay back for India's progress for larger paychecks so why should India care about brand! But is this a good enough justification?
I used to get hot under the collar about the opening of new IITs. Especially when in the US, I have enjoyed the tremendous halo of the IIT brand. I did not want it to get diluted in any way.
But then I had to remind myself that when I joined IIT in 1989, the student intake was already several times what it had been in, say, the 1980s. So, were I joining IIT today, I would have seen things differently.
In the final analysis, there are valid arguments for exclusivity just as there are valid arguments for accessibility. There are many other policy areas regarding regarding education on which I have much stronger opinions.
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