July 30, 2009
After almost two decades, I have an occasion to walk across the bank of Chandigarh Sukhna Lake. I realise that it is ageing faster than I do. Silt seems to have choked its arteries, while dry patches show up like a boney rib-cage. It has gone pale. Its pristine glow is missing. Deforestation in the […]
Read MoreJuly 30, 2009
With the much valued media freedom having reached its acme and even extended itself to crude intrusions into private grief, ailment, distress and such personal matters which are ordinarily of no interest to the public, many questions agitate a thinking mind despite inherent respect for the institution. Basking under very weak defamation laws and their […]
Read MoreJuly 29, 2009
It is a fashion amongst the naive to wrongly perceive and lambast civil servants as guardians of secrecy. The hush hush image of senior civil servants is the result of the historical gag order enforced through the AIS Conduct Rules. Divulging information, expect in an impossibly rare scenario, renders a civil servant liable to disciplinary […]
Read MoreJuly 25, 2009
Terrorism has found its niche in the political scene worldwide. It has of late found its improvised manifestations in administration too. It all started in the recent times as a desperate autocratic response to long standing systemic evils in electoral process by T.N. Seshan by whimsically punishing civil servants with deterrent humiliation. The virus is […]
Read MoreJuly 25, 2009
Annual confidential reports, with the passage of time, are no longer annual or confidential, or true evaluation reports. A number of All-India officers find their annual reports recorded after a delay of years and years while the service and political superiors sit over them to hold extra-legal strings vis-Ă -vis the officer reported upon. Confidential they […]
Read MoreMay 6, 2009
Rather than striking at the roots of the problem, there is of late an increasing trend to render superficial legal remedies and lip service to deep rooted socio-economic challenges. Instead of embarking upon an effective systemic correction, knee jerk responses to the tragic reality of female feticide are akin to applying cosmetic remedies to a […]
Read MoreMay 6, 2009
The divine word pertains to the world of the heart and the soul, and not the letter of the law which suffers mortality either at the hands of the selective investigating agencies, or slips into a coma amidst jugglery of eloquent words performed in the courts by the master court-craftsmen. Any civil society hates moral […]
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