Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Understanding it all
Table of contents
04
07
09
12
13
15
17
19
21
23
24
26
No need for Feku of the Year award: Manish Tewari takes dig at Modi
28
30
32
Rahul, Modi are wrong: India is neither a beehive nor a filmi mother
34
36
to democratic governance
Modi has an interesting best practice compilation of
good governance thats bordering on democratic
governance. Its time that he worked on the missing
elements because democracy is our lifeline.
G Pramod Kumar Apr 9, 2013
He said, his government was focussed on outcomes and they were measured using socioeconomic impact studies. We havent heard any
other politician in India saying this before.
This results-based-management or RBM, as it
is called in international development parlance,
is essential in avoiding wastage of public money
through politically expedient fancy projects.
And he did mention that a lot of government
decisions are influenced by politics and frequent
elections. Coming to power has become a priority in this country.
Then, there were interesting one-liners: Government is file, governance is life; government
is all about power, governance is about empowerment.
Another overarching principle of democratic
governance globally is decentralisation. Its now
an established fact that decentralisation leads to
more efficiency, transparency and participation
by people. At Think India Dialogue, Modi was a
strong advocate for decentralisation as well.
He used the example of how government of India prevented him from laying gas-pipelines in
his state, citing jurisdiction, and how he had to
approach the Supreme Court. Within the state,
he said his local governments were free to do
anything they wanted until they had additional
financial requests.
He also focussed on participation by people and
consensus building the elements that ensure
inclusion. In this context, he proposed a new
model for PPP (public private partnerships).
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
That is where democratic governance is important. Equal rights to all, or equality in the eyes
of law, respect for human rights and participation by people in the real sense of the term are
the elements that will make democratic governance qualitatively different from simple good
governance. Democratic governance should be
good and inclusive.
Participation should provide people with the
right to question and socially audit the governments decisions, whether it is the construction
of a big dam or a police-crackdown. A leader
has to be a real democrat for these principles to
work, let alone flourish.
In summary, Modi has an interesting best
practice compilation of good governance thats
bordering on democratic governance. Its time
that he worked on the missing elements because
democracy is our lifeline.
wife who burns her finger trying to make chapatis for her husband and of another woman who
hastily abandons a sari sale to run home and
save her child from a fire.
Often our Indian leaders talk about womens
empowerment and they dont feel it. By talking
of stereotypical role of women making chapattis
and serving chai, he is being stereotypical himself, Agarwala told Firstpost.
The women in his audience, were clearly not the
women he was talking about.
Anjali Aggarwal, a Delhi-based entrepreneur
who attended the event, would still give Modi
a high score for his spell binding personality
and oratory skills, but she was not impressed
with the actual content of his speech.
Modi on Monday received much flak on Twitter for his speech which was meant to be about
womens empowerment, but, instead wound
up about all the stereotypes women are set
into of subservient wives, sacrificing mothers and cooking wizards . And its no surprise
that his core audience were disappointed about
him propagating the cliches of being an Indian
woman.
While women entrepreneurs, well-paid professionals and high-ranking corporate executives
gathered to listen to his speech on woman
empowerment, Modi narrated instances of the
strength of women with examples of the house-
Kolkata, agrees. She says, Modi is a smart politician after all and this may just be strategic.
Agarwala says Modi needs to walk the talk if
he is really serious about womens empowerment address the malnutrition levels in Gujarat, stop making derogatory statements like
the Rs 50 crore girlfriend one against Shashi
Tharoors then girlfriend, Sunanda Pushkar and
address the states extremely low female labour
force participation and poor health indicators
for women and give more women tickets to the
Rajya Sabha.
If Modi is making a speech like that, he has to
back it up and put his money where his mouth
is, Agarwala told Firstpost.
It was a politician talking but the Indian
male mentality peeked into his speech ever so
often, she said.
Singh had used this phrase when I had interviewed him for the business magazine I then
worked for. That was so much in line with the
philosophy of the Swatantra Party that Masani
had co-founded that I got him to deliver the
lecture.
There is no text of Modis address at the ThinkIndia Dialogue series for readers to judge for
themselves, but as speeches go, I rate Singhs
lecture higher. It put the issue in a historical
context and provided a perspective that Modis
chatty-jokey sermon did not.
independent research initiative, had once pointed out how some of the new Bills that the United Progressive Alliance had either introduced
or mulling the National Food Security Bill,
the draft Communal Violence Bill (the National
Advisory Councils version), the Lokpal Bill and
the Right of Citizens for Time-bound Delivery
of Goods and Services and Redressal of their
Grievances Bill would result in a large number
of new posts being created.
The Food Security Bill, for example, requires
the appointment of a grievance redressal officer in each district and for every state to have a
State Food Commission, comprising a chairperson and five members. The Grievance Redressal
Bill stipulates a 11-member grievance redressal
commissions at the centre and the states. The
Communal Violence Bill talks about an Authority for Communal Harmony, Justice and Reparation, at the centre and in the states, each with
a chair, a vice-chair and five members.
Meanwhile, the states primary responsibility
law and order and rule of law suffers because
of shortage of police personnel and judges.
Clearly, Singh hasnt managed to get his own
party to buy into his model of governance. Its
motto, on the other hand, appears to be More
Government with Little Governance.
Both Singh and Modi would bristle at this, but
there are many similarities between the two lectures, despite their contrasting world-views.
- Both spoke about the need to right-size the
government as against the more reviled concept of downsizing, with examples to show
that rationalising the workforce need not affect
the quality of government services. Singh got
jan swastha rakshaks (educated village youth
trained in primary health care) to provide basic
health services in villages; Modi got students
from engineering colleges to do internships with
departments that needed technical help.
- Both spoke of the need for effective decentralisation and devolution of power to the grassroots and how the country cannot be governed
from Delhi or state capitals.
- Both drew attention to how peoples involvement in governance leads to better outcomes.
Ms Walsh must have a delicate stomach. Kamala Harris who once said Obama looked like
a million bucks is not complaining about his
compliment. This is a storm in a very small teacup. Obama and Kamala Harris go back a long
time. He was at an event where he was goodhumouredly talking not just about Harris looks
but also how baseball great Jackie Robinsons
widow looked gorgeous at 90. And face it,
Harris, like Obama, is a very good-looking politician and cameras love both of them. Obamas
compliment was NOT sexism and its important
to acknowledge that. The Telegraph bemoans
in an editorial today this mix of political cor-
The governor said that she wanted this provision included in the Bill as it was passed hurriedly by the House without much political or
public debate which was necessary to appropriate the effect of the Bill. She also argued that it
may go against the constitutional freedoms.
And second, by making Rahul Gandhi their target for the day, they wished to convey that the
BJP intended to contest the next parliamentary
elections Presidential style, whether or not the
two parties go to the polls with with declared
Prime Ministerial candidates. It was with this
intent that the Gujarat chief minister made eloquent references to the BJP workers in Kerala
and West Bengal where he would hope to get
incremental popular votes to open his electoral
account.
I am an apolitical person:
Narendra Modi
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today sidestepped questions on his Prime Ministerial ambitions,
saying he is an apolitical person.
PTI Apr 9, 2013
Modi is desperate (to become Prime Minister). He has already accepted that he is a Prime
Ministerial candidate of BJP though the party
has said the decision will be taken by its Parliamentary Board.
He has, without decision of the Parliamentary
beats #ModiStormsFicci
While Narendra Modi spoke at Ficci conference, and
talked about womens empowerment, on Twitter
another battle was being fought. The hashtag, #Feku
which means one whos all talk and no substance
was trending on Twitter.
FP Staff Apr 8, 2013
We dont have anything to do with BJPs internal debates, difference and conflicts. On this
Madhya Pradeshs Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh
Chouhan) has already reacted saying BJP is being laughed at because of the ongoing race for
Prime Ministership in it.
When their own chief minister thinks so, nothing is left for us to say, he said.
To a question on BJP leader LK Advanis blogpost on follow up of the white paper on black
money presented by the government last year,
Tewari said queries of the opposition will be
replied, if necessary, by the Ministry concerned.
Advaniji had brought a stop work proposal
in Parliament. I was given the opportunity to
speak on the issue on behalf of Congress after
him and government had presented all facts on
the table of the House. After that if Advaniji and
opposition have any query then it will be replied
eminists are upset at Modis Ma behan mode of address coz they borrow
rhetoric of western donor agencies
and western academia, tweeted an indignant
Madhu Kishwar, upset with the #Feku naysayers who were busy making fun of Narendra
Modis, ahem, quaint speech to the FICCI Ladies Organisation. We presume that includes
the masculine kind like @BrownBrumby who
declared, The man who cannot see the role of
women beyond domestic chores is automatically
not fit to represent modern India. #feku
For those unacquainted with FLO, the organisation is comprised of enterpreneurs, professionals and Corporate Executives. According to
its website, The primary objective of FLO is to
promote entrepreneurship and professional excellence in women. FLO endeavors to enhance
the various skills of women through its educational and vocational training programmes,
talks, seminars, panel discussion and workshop
on a wide range of subjects like information
technology, taxation, insurance, venture capital,
stock market operations, accountancy, marketing, mutual funds, investment planning, entre-
iPad
Android
iPhone