substantive solutions to each one of today’s problems. Yet, unlike Chanakya’s strategy of setting up India’s first great empire by overthrowing one king and crowning another, Verma’s Chanakya has not even remotely prescribed anything that’s outside the four walls of the Constitution.
Varma, a 1976 batch IFS officer and a serious thinker for creating a new India, argues in this book that each coalition like UPA or NDA must publicly announce a common governance agenda, with indicative time-frames for specific deliverables. “This must be worked out prior to the elections so that voters know what rival political groupings are offering.”
And what should be done after a new government is formed? Varma’s Chanakya prescribes setting up of a five-member Governance Appraisal Panel (GAP) which will independently evaluate the performance of the government and submit annual report to the President of India. According to the suggestion in the book, the GAP should comprise a leading economist or a corporate sector personality, a distinguished journalist, a respected former bureaucrat, an academic of eminence in the field of governance, and a retired chief justice of India or a retired Supreme Court judge. And they should be picked up by a selection panel comprising Prime Minister of India, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India. The Economist termed his yet another best-seller “Being Indian: Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s”, as “one of the most subtle recent attempts to analyse the continent-sized mosaic of India”.
Varma also wrote “Love and Lust: An Anthology of Erotic Literature from Ancient and Medieval India” and “Kama Sutra: The Art of Making Love to a Woman”, the second one being his witty adaptation of Vatsyayana’s Kama Sutra.
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10 Chanakya quotes
Contrary to what the "intellectuals" understand of the voting behavior of the Indian electorate,the reality on ground is simply beyond comprehension of the english speaking and reading "intellectuals" seating on the ivory tower.Despite a non-performing BJD government in Odisha for over 12 years and promising populist policies of Congress at centre,in both assembly and parliament elections Odia voters have voted for BJD overwhelmingly.Some psephologists attribute the second consecutive mandate for UPA to MNREGA !!!Had it been the reality,the regional political satraps would have been tilling lands in their ancestral villages.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the need of hour is EEFECTIVE DECENTRALISATION.More powers to state and local governments.In the absence of effective urban governance,cities are going to be cataclysmic disasters in future.As an Odia I would like national parties like congress and BJP erased from my state.A democratic regional political party is the need of all states.Sycophants of ruling dynasties should not seat in judgment over the destiny of my state.
As for Pavan Verma,he is making a case for his smooth entry into politics.He is learnt to have made good rapport with Nitish and all set to enter the upper house.
Would like to send you my anti corruption module.. Where?
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