Dear Readers,
I would like to announce that this blog invites your submissions on topics of your interest. We invite you to share your ideas, observations, your perceptions of state policy in the respective fields you work in.
If you need to submit a post, please do so by sending an e-mail to searchforsolutionsindia[at]gmail.com. Your e-mail should contain the post, your name and e-mail address.
Happy posting!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Landscape after the Battle
I was only a by-stander during the recently-held LokSabha elections and had only two predictions. I expected that the ManMohan-led UPA would just about scrape through and if that did not happen regional parties and bosses would hold the trump cards; consequently, the PM would not be from the north.
But, like most previous elections, this poll also had its own surprises and the UPA did well enough to find itself dazed by success. Good. Here is how I look at the outcome.
The people want a learned, decent, efficient and clean PM.
It is excellent that the economist-PM will not have to run a three-legged race with frigid partners (left parties) and will be able to expedite economic policy making.
All the self-appointed king-makers and self-proclaimed candidates to the PM's office have been shown their place-at the bottom.
Maharashtra is getting freed of the cloak and dagger politics of Pawar and the West Bengal political milieu might be liberated from the double-talk of the Left.
I see only one negative signal at the moment--behind Dr. Manmohan Singh the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is looming very assertively. But that is in the future.
The aftermath was expected to be dull and has not proved me wrong; the PM has gone Shakespearian--forget and forgive, and got together most of the old-gang in the same roles. So the agenda is going to be old-wine in new bottle and we must pull up our socks.
Also , let us not be carried away by the popular interpretation that the age of coalitions is over and the national parties are coming back. Both major national parties have fared well or badly mainly due to strong regional factors and splits or alliances--The MNS in Maharashtra, Praja Rajyam in AP, TMC in WB, the grand(so-called) Yadav-Paswan alliance in UP and Bihar to name the most prominent.
So our job on this blog calls us in a slightly different scenario. Let us start by making an attempt to draft a fresh agenda for the new PM.
But, like most previous elections, this poll also had its own surprises and the UPA did well enough to find itself dazed by success. Good. Here is how I look at the outcome.
The people want a learned, decent, efficient and clean PM.
It is excellent that the economist-PM will not have to run a three-legged race with frigid partners (left parties) and will be able to expedite economic policy making.
All the self-appointed king-makers and self-proclaimed candidates to the PM's office have been shown their place-at the bottom.
Maharashtra is getting freed of the cloak and dagger politics of Pawar and the West Bengal political milieu might be liberated from the double-talk of the Left.
I see only one negative signal at the moment--behind Dr. Manmohan Singh the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is looming very assertively. But that is in the future.
The aftermath was expected to be dull and has not proved me wrong; the PM has gone Shakespearian--forget and forgive, and got together most of the old-gang in the same roles. So the agenda is going to be old-wine in new bottle and we must pull up our socks.
Also , let us not be carried away by the popular interpretation that the age of coalitions is over and the national parties are coming back. Both major national parties have fared well or badly mainly due to strong regional factors and splits or alliances--The MNS in Maharashtra, Praja Rajyam in AP, TMC in WB, the grand(so-called) Yadav-Paswan alliance in UP and Bihar to name the most prominent.
So our job on this blog calls us in a slightly different scenario. Let us start by making an attempt to draft a fresh agenda for the new PM.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Our intent
WHY this Blog?
'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
The best lack all conviction, while
The worst are full of passionate intensity.'--W B Yeats
The above lines, composed 70 years ago ,still hold good for the Indian predicament while the country is faced with a Lok Sabha poll and power-obsessed politicians lay bare the worst inside them. Leadership tends to degenerate into populism, governance into corrupt status quo, media into hype and hysteria, discourse into cacophony, radicalism into compromise (sleeping with the enemy ?). Intolerance, regionalism, nursing narrow identities hold the people and the system (such as it is) to ransom at almost without notice.
The democratic Tantra has been mastered to (im)perfection, while the mantra is lost.
Do we really deserve all this ? Should we have allowed the present politicians and their chamchas to hijack the agenda for a new, vibrant,secular,democratic and liberal India. Is it not high time that we came out of our self-imposed helplessness and applied, committed ourselves to the task of defining the agenda and taking it to the people so that elections will cease to be an expensive rigmarole of
replacing one incompetent coalition by another?
Politics has to be taken to the real issues of the people - poverty, disparity, unemployment, ill-health, illiteracy,lack of opportunity and subjugation to the touts and brokers of the establishment. For this the entire political economy has to be redrafted. The key fields of agriculture, industry,trade, communications,infrastructure development, energy, education have to be properly studied and rejuvenated with practical innovations.
Aping the so-called developed societies should stop forthwith; so should cease the glorification of images from the past. We need not look far behind; nor need we look far ahead; we must look discretely into the' here and now' and come up with practical, creative solutions to the problems of India.
I am launching SEARCH for SOLUTIONS-INDIA as a humble beginning to end the isolation of intelligentsia from the steering of the country.
Let us start with sharing our ideas,observations,our perceptions of state policy in the respective fields we work in. Let us not separate this exercise from our livelihood or our liking--because we have to start the reassessment of the system at the point of our interaction.
Use this blog space to communicate with like-minded ,restless members of your profession so that over a period of time (hopefully not too long) a comprehensive critique of the policy will emerge and pave way to the draft of a new policy which can then be taken to the people with the help of the various media.
If we do this exercise for a period of three to six months, we may
presumably have a separete blog for each field -searchforsolutionsindiaagriculture- for example.
There are no conditions to the membership. Experience, knowledge, an analytical mindset, brevity and lucidity of expression should suffice.
A positive outlook and a strong belief that the search for solutions
exercise is certain to succeed is a must--though skeptics are also
welcome as they will always help to raise the standard of ideation.
Let us start the march to ensure a FUTURE for ALL.
'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
The best lack all conviction, while
The worst are full of passionate intensity.'--W B Yeats
The above lines, composed 70 years ago ,still hold good for the Indian predicament while the country is faced with a Lok Sabha poll and power-obsessed politicians lay bare the worst inside them. Leadership tends to degenerate into populism, governance into corrupt status quo, media into hype and hysteria, discourse into cacophony, radicalism into compromise (sleeping with the enemy ?). Intolerance, regionalism, nursing narrow identities hold the people and the system (such as it is) to ransom at almost without notice.
The democratic Tantra has been mastered to (im)perfection, while the mantra is lost.
Do we really deserve all this ? Should we have allowed the present politicians and their chamchas to hijack the agenda for a new, vibrant,secular,democratic and liberal India. Is it not high time that we came out of our self-imposed helplessness and applied, committed ourselves to the task of defining the agenda and taking it to the people so that elections will cease to be an expensive rigmarole of
replacing one incompetent coalition by another?
Politics has to be taken to the real issues of the people - poverty, disparity, unemployment, ill-health, illiteracy,lack of opportunity and subjugation to the touts and brokers of the establishment. For this the entire political economy has to be redrafted. The key fields of agriculture, industry,trade, communications,infrastructure development, energy, education have to be properly studied and rejuvenated with practical innovations.
Aping the so-called developed societies should stop forthwith; so should cease the glorification of images from the past. We need not look far behind; nor need we look far ahead; we must look discretely into the' here and now' and come up with practical, creative solutions to the problems of India.
I am launching SEARCH for SOLUTIONS-INDIA as a humble beginning to end the isolation of intelligentsia from the steering of the country.
HOW?
Let us start with sharing our ideas,observations,our perceptions of state policy in the respective fields we work in. Let us not separate this exercise from our livelihood or our liking--because we have to start the reassessment of the system at the point of our interaction.
Use this blog space to communicate with like-minded ,restless members of your profession so that over a period of time (hopefully not too long) a comprehensive critique of the policy will emerge and pave way to the draft of a new policy which can then be taken to the people with the help of the various media.
If we do this exercise for a period of three to six months, we may
presumably have a separete blog for each field -searchforsolutionsindiaagriculture- for example.
There are no conditions to the membership. Experience, knowledge, an analytical mindset, brevity and lucidity of expression should suffice.
A positive outlook and a strong belief that the search for solutions
exercise is certain to succeed is a must--though skeptics are also
welcome as they will always help to raise the standard of ideation.
Let us start the march to ensure a FUTURE for ALL.
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