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MG DEVASAHAYAM 10 YEARS OF GOVERNANCE: NOTHING MUCH HAS CHANGED p40

ALAM SRINIVAS 10 YEARS OF ECONOMY: THE GROWING INEQUALITIES p44

years April 5, 2017 ` VOL. 11, ISSUE 1

FIRST STIRRINGS NC SAXENA

p58

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FAILING EMERGING STRIVING CONGRESS

MAMATA

NITISH

P GS KU T, MA A R DR UT SR E p4 AM OPI IVA AN ST 8 A

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ISSN 0976-2906

Challengers 2019

years

The Journey 2007-2017

years

CONTENTS

LETTERS editor@gfilesindia.com

08 Bric-a-Brac

ambika who, modi for fair media, yogi prevails, pranab think-tank

Cover Story 12 what lies ahead for the congress? 14 an inexorable slide 26 stepping up to the job 30 all eyes on mamata 38 JLYH UDKXO D OHYHO SOD\LQJ Ă&#x20AC;HOG Governance 40 Ă&#x20AC;UVW FRUUXSWLRQ QRZ SRODULVDWLRQ 44 10 years of growing inequalities 48 still waiting for a single tax regime 56 for a fair, equitable tax policy 58 First Stirrings

nc saxena, crusader for the downtrodden

62 Stock Doctor waiting for reforms

71 By the Way

khattar cleans up, julania rides high, lure of daman-diu, psebâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s woes

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Undeserving demands This is with reference to your cover story on the Jat agitation (gfiles, March 2017), I completely agree that though it has started off in Haryana, the agitation is an offshoot of the hastily implemented Mandal decision. The Jats have been seeking benefits of affirmative action accorded to Other Backward Castes (OBCs) since the Mandal Commission was implemented in 1991. Many studies have been conducted on this topic by the National Backward Castes Commission (NCBC), the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) and even by the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research (ICSSR). To get benefit of OBC status, a community has to meet three criteria: it must be socially, educationally and economically backward. Studies have shown that Jats meet the requirement of backwardness only partially. So then, one wonders what the hullaballoo is about. At least, what has been laid down in law, should be followed through to the last written word. Clearly, the Jat peasants are getting swayed by politicians and power seekers. They should guard against being exploited by vested interests because, in the long run, this is going to prove detrimental to their interests. SK Pande via blog

The continued agitation by the Jats in Haryana is merely a reflection of the general perception all over rural India, and Jats are no exception, that a government job is the ultimate in livelihood options. The desire for a government job only heightens the divide in the society when reservations become the deciding factor. As per capita land holdings decrease among Jat farmers and the negative rate of return on agricultural produce falls further, there is desperation for government jobs among the rural population. The escalating agrarian crisis has sowed the seeds of fear among dominant rural castes, who do not see their future in agriculture any longer because of the better economic prospects in urban areas. The problem needs to be recognised and addressed accordingly otherwise these disruptions will continue to damage the social fabric of our nation. Pratap Kumar via blog Congress unity a mirage The recent state election results have only confirmed the dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in national politics. Correspondingly, it has confirmed the absence of any other alternative. Your article (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Signs of Congress revivalâ&#x20AC;?, gfiles, March 2017) seems to be missing the wood for the trees. It states that in a rare show of unity, all Congress bigwigs from the State came on a dais to give a clarion call to the party workers to oust Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s government. It also said that after over a decade, the Congress workers looked galvanised and charged. I would like to point out that a single event does not make for a mass following or sustained belief. Clearly, the Congress is on its last legs and it has to show that it is doing something. But the effect is illusory. Seema M via blog

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

From the Editor

vol. 11, ISSUE 1 | APRIL 2017 Anil Tyagi | editor GS Sood | business editor Sheshadri Chari | roving editor Alam Srinivas | contributing editor Anish Gandhi | consultant, foreign affairs Narendra Kaushik | associate editor Rakesh Bhardwaj | editorial consultant Ramesh Sharma | bureau chief (north india) Ajit Ujjainkar | bureau chief (mumbai) Mayank Awasthi | sub editor Pawan Kumar | production coordinator Nipun Jain | finance Gautam Das | legal consultant Bushchat Media | edit & design Madan Lal | webmaster Abhisshek Tyagi | director advertising & marketing $1,/ 622' | 9,&( 35(6,'(17 0$5.(7,1* 36 685$/ | 9,&( 35(6,'(17 0$5.(7,1* e-mail: asps@gfilesindia.com delhi: e-mail: adv@gfilesindia.com mumbai: 48/C-1, Areshwar, Mhada, S.V.P. Nagar, Andheri(W), Mumbai 400 053 Chandigarh: SCO 5- First Floor, Zirakpur-Shimla Highway, Zirakpur, District Mohali Punjab CONTACT â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 0172-509368 e-mail: venu@gfilesindia.in kolkata: 1,/2< /$+,5, +9198300716652 ranchi: 0$1,1'(5 .80$5 6,1+$ +917461999985 $1,/ 7<$*, 35,17(5 38%/,6+(5 QG IORRU GGD VLWH QHZ UDMLQGHU QDJDU QHZ GHOKL Ä&#x192; +All information in gfiles is obtained from sources that the management considers reliable, and is disseminated to readers without any responsibility on our part. Any opinions or views on any contemporary or past topics, issues or developments expressed by third parties, whether in abstract or in interviews, are not necessarily shared by us. Copyright exclusively with Sarvashrestha Media Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction of any material of this magazine in whole, or in part(s), in any manner, without prior permission, is totally prohibited. The publisher accepts no responsibility for any material lost or damaged in transit. The publisher reserves the right to refuse, withdraw or otherwise deal with any advertisement without explanation. All advertisements must comply with the Indian Advertisements Code. Published and printed by Anil Tyagi on behalf of Sarvashrestha Media Pvt. Ltd at Polykam Offset, C-138, Naraina Industrial Area, Phase I, New Delhi 110028. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts in New Delhi only

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has completed 10 years of publication. With this issue, we embark on our second decade. It is an achievement in which we take some measure of pride. gfiles has consistently given its readers reports that are neither so arcane as to be unintelligible to motivated readers, nor so condescending as to insult their intelligence. gfiles was founded on what we believe is a sound premise: Our founding Chief Editor Inderjit Badhwar wrote in the first editorial: â&#x20AC;&#x153;gfiles is more than an information vehicle. It is an interactive and participatory platform for public servants to express their joys, sorrows, anxieties, hopes and ambitions. There is no similar forum. The content helps general readers to understand that bureaucrats are not robots but dynamic individuals who have to use uncanny dexterity and tact to deal with the daily pressures from politicians and influence peddlers to use governance as a milch cow for vested interests. We cut through rumour mills and help Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s civil servants reach out to one another and become acquainted with their issues, practical problems, everyday challenges and the intricacies of their working environment.â&#x20AC;? When we started gfiles in April 2007, governance as an issue was not much talked about in the media. We decided to fill this void and consciously took a decision to focus on programmes and policies of the government. The idea was to reach out to those working within the government and make the people aware of the complex issues of governance, particularly about the formulation and implementation of public policy. I feel that national media is still not focusing on hard core issues of governance as the thinking is that it makes news boring. On the other hand, it becomes the duty of Civil Services to open up more and discuss what they are doing, how they are doing it and what the intent behind their decisions are. This will not only curb rumours about their actions but also fill the gap between the deliverers and the delivered. The general perception that steel frame is hard to pierce should change and more sharing of information should happen. In 2007, when gfiles started, Civil Services was settled and at ease, the political agenda was clear and they were busy in implementing Manmohan Singhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream to liberate India from inspector raj. gfiles was not part of the government, so it was important to understand and let others also understand how and what the government is doing. So, we started talking to the Secretaries of Central ministries. Secretaries were happy to discuss the functioning of their ministries as this was a new idea. Second important aspect was putting the photos of secretaries on gfiles cover. That put the spotlight on the Secretary for a month within and outside the government and in demand among colleagues and batchmates. This was a novel ideaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;nobody had done so. gfiles did it. gfiles did 47 cover stories with Secretaries, including two Cabinet Secretaries of the Government of India. It was for the first time that issues of governance were brought into the public domain with close scrutiny. In April 2009, in the midst of the general elections, the then Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrashekhar spoke to gfiles for almost three hours and his interview was carried as the cover story. Our stand to focus on governance had been vindicated. The 2G scam, however, changed the whole paradigm of governance. One paragraph of the audit report of CAG and Supreme Court taking cognizance created furore among civil servants. It created a policy paralysis in the

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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government. Once I met a Joint Secretary and asked him what stops him from working freely in the government. He said there are 4 Cs and 1 R—CAG, CBI, CVC, Courts or an RTI inquiry after retirement—that don’t allow a civil servant to work freely. Most times, officers cooperate. But sometimes it is not possible due to the gravity of the task. This makes political bosses furious. The situation has become so complex today that secretaries of ministries stop performing a year before their retirement because they don’t want to be called back by the CAG, CBI, CVC, courts or face an RTI inquiry after retirement. The 2G and Coalgate scams have shattered the confidence of the bureaucracy. The ‘4Cs and 1R’ thus has become one of the major causes of policy paralysis besetting the government. gfiles has witnessed a major change in governance in last 10 years. Participative Civil Services is a bygone era. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, has changed the whole dynamics of governance. He is a very clearheaded Prime Minister and his social, political and economic agendas are very comprehensible. Now, only South Block thinks and directs. He is adaptive to all kind of ideas from within and outside the domain of the government. It’s now top-down approach in the government. Second most important development is that IAS and IPS are no longer the main tools to govern the country. There is a transformation in Central ministries; officers from Railways, Income Tax, Mechanical Engineering Services, Railway Traffic Services, Railway accounts Services, Defence Account Services and Central Secretariat Services have started serving as Joint Secretaries. It is the beginning of the end of hegemony of IAS, IPS and IFS in the Central government. Civil servants are still running the State administration efficiently and respective Chief Ministers still have confidence in running the administration through them. gfiles is not only a votary of good governance but has been equally vocal in exposing bad governance. In the process, we have highlighted and warned whenever the system was not functioning, or malfunctioning, or was taken for a ride by the vested interests. We have done exposes on NSEL scam of Jignesh Shah, Haryana land scam of Bhupinder Singh Hooda , Aircel Maxis deal, Vyapam and Dalia Scam of Madhya Pradesh, the NPA mess and Chief Secretary of Haryana DS Dhesi’s alleged involvement in allotting land to Priyanka Gandhi’s husband Robert Vadra , to name a few. gfiles is now not only known as print magazine, but it also established gfiles good governance awards (gfilesawards. com) in 2012. It has given good governance awards to 46

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top ranking civil servants till now and I wish it will grow by the day in the years to come. gfilesindia.com is digital vertical of gfiles which has a phenomenal reach—it attracts a million readers every month. Our widely read column, ‘First Stirrings’, has taken a shape in the form of a book titled ‘Memory Clouds’. The book is a compilation of 80 memoirs of senior civil servants, including three former cabinet secretaries, and is to be published soon. When we started gfiles, it was known as Anil Tyagi’s magazine; but now, after 10 years, I am known as the Editor of gfiles. When we started gfiles, we had no idea how it would work out. We were clueless initially, but the response gfiles got made us serious and compelled us to work hard. This is how a brand takes shape and makes an impact in an individual’s life. This journey would not have been possible had former Editor of India Today Inderjit Badhwar, former Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar, former Power Secretary Anil Razdan, former Haryana Chief Secretary Vishnu Bhagwant, former Secretary Internal Security (Home) MB Kaushal and our ace writer MG Devasahayam guided us during the ups and down in the journey. Also, it would not have been possible to bring out gfiles without my best friend Dr GS Sood’s advice. We disagree most of the times, but he not only my guide, but also a priceless friend. And, we cannot forget Dev Kabir Malik, who designed the gfiles logo and provided an impeccable identity to the magazine. There have been more than 100 colleagues who have advised me in this journey of 10 years. It is not possible to name all, but I thank them for their valuable suggestions which made gfiles a readable journal and potent tool of good governance. I am very thankful to Ms Yana Banerjee Bey who gave an editorial shape to gfiles, and now the Editorial team of Bushchat Media of Himanshu Joshi, Nomita Drall, and our experienced designer Manoj Raikwar, for bringing out a wonderful gfiles issue each month irrespective of all hurdles. gfiles could not get the advertisement support in the first three months initially, but it gradually picked up. It’s the only revenue model of gfiles and publishers of gfiles do not have any other vocation but to depend on advertising revenue. I am very thankful to all our advertisers who stood with us and made it possible to continue without break for 10 years. We hope the journey will continue further with their support. I must also say thanks to all the devoted readers, staff, board members, printers and supporters whose friendship and contributions have made this possible. I extend my most sincere and profound thank you to all. ANIL TYAGI HGLWRU#JÀOHVLQGLD FRP

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

Bric-a-brac more & less

No chai for Ambika congress family snubs soni

AVE you seen the eighth wonder of the Congress Party? If not, then just visit 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi and meet Ambika Soni, a Rajya Sabha member. What is her role, what does she do, how has she successfully grabbed four times Rajya Sabha nomination from Punjab and Delhi. It is a matter of research to know that how Soni survived for almost four decades without any political base in the country. She is a national leader who has not won any Lok Sabha election so far. She messed up everything as a Minister for Information & Broadcasting as she was not aware about the intricate nature of the media. Her lifetime desire was to become Chief Minister of Punjab, so she keeps on hobnobbing in the politics of Punjab. She fought the Lok Sabha election from Anandpur Sahib in Punjab to establish her legitimacy but lost to Prem Singh Chandumajra in 2014. She met a very hard working Congress family during the election. She did not keep track with the family after the Parliamentary elections even though one of the family members keeps on meeting her in Delhi regularly. Recently, Soni had to visit Mohali during the Punjab assembly elections, so she telephoned the family and informed them that she would like to have tea with them as they stay in Mohali. Soni could not believe when the family refused to host tea party. They simply told her that they don’t want to meet her and offer a cup of tea. This is the stature of this national leader.

All for fair reporting modi skips media conclave

EWS organisations earn extra revenue by organising conclaves: sponsors pour in money to get mileage with the VVIPs who grace these events. A handshake and a photo opportunity is perhaps supplemented with a chance to cozy up to the powers-that-be. Prime ime Minister Narendra Modi was to preside over one such conclave of a leading media house, whose editor some decades back used to fancy himself mself to be the second-most important man in India ndia after the Prime Minister. The news organisation’s on’s TV channel had been supportive of the BJP in the UP elections but its print products, particularly the one printed d on pink paper, had gone out of its way ay to boost the image of the Samajwadii Party and its young face Akhilesh Yadav. adav. The group had been allotted prime land and in the vicinity of Delhi for an enterprise rise by the SP regime. On the day of the conclave, which was billed as a Global bal Summit, the Prime Minister’s Office informed that Modi will not attend.

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

Efforts were made to calm ruffled feathers but to no avail. Posters of PM at the venue were taken off and it was tersely announced that the main speaker has been changed. On learning of the PM’s ire, most officers and ruling party persona quietly left the venue. As did tthe sponsors. It so transpires that the media group was not ent entirely to blame for the pro-SP tilt. During the Mula Mulayam-Akhilesh spat, apparently chagrined by tthe group’s Lucknow coverage, the then rulin ruling party of UP had summoned the group’s top b brass to the state capital and conveyed ttheir displeasure. As prime land was at stake, st a compromise was worked out. So Some publicity posters were also printe printed at reasonable rates to cool down Samajwadi tempers. After the PM ccried off from the Global Summit, the ma management of the media group went and sha shared the above circumstances. Amit Shah and Mo Modi responded by telling the media group that fair reporting is media; manipu manipulation and excuses of business ar are not good ethics.

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

Bric-a-brac

years

more & less

Dark horse wins the race Yogi rides on the mandate

OG Adityanath was a dark horse for UP Chief Ministership. It was all but OGI decided that Manoj Sinha, Minister of State for Communications, would be the de ne new Chief Minister of UP. Suddenly the rules of the game changed. For the first time, tim the BJP top leadership felt the heat of mandate. Union Transport and Shipp Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari had been given the responsibility for overseeing the selection of the Chief Minister. As usual, Gadkari took up ‘office’ in the fivesstar Taj Hotel. He reportedly even got 187 MLAs to sign their support for Sinha. Learning of this, Yogi rushed to Lucknow and he too put his “Dera” in the same hotel. It soon became clear that the Yogi pulled more weight. Home Minister Rajnath Singh was also monitoring developments; he immediately i sent two of his closest aides to meet Yogi. Clearly, one Thakur was impressed by another Thakur when it was conveyed that the Chief Minister wa had to have saffron lineage. Amit Shah was in touch with Gadkari. A phone call was made to Manoj Sinha from Delhi, where he was informed that he was no longer in the race for the Chief Ministership. After this, Yogi got a call from Shah and was tol told to reach Delhi to meet him the moment he landed. Shah told him to meet Modi. By the time Yogi reached 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, Modi was about to leave for Uttarakhand to attend the oathtaking ceremony. It’s reported that the duo spoke for barely two minutes. Modi congratulated him and said: “I am giving you a huge responsibility.” With that, Modi headed off to Dehradun and the victorious Yogi to Lucknow.

Now, a Pranab Mukherjee Foundation extending the presidential line

ORMER President of the US, Barack Obama, retired at the age of 55 years, the youngest president to retire at that age when the political lifee of many politicians starts. President of India Pranab Mukherjee will retire at the age of 82 in July 2017. Obama has launched barackfoundation.org. So, why should Pranab lag behind? Friends of Pranab ab da are keen to launch a Pranab Mukherjee Foundation. This foundation is likely to be propagate and educate the future generations on the ideals for which Pranab Mukherjee stood in his long political career. The foundation will also have various fellowships, and undertake research on foreign policy, defence policy, energy policy–areas where Pranab Mukherjee devoted his entire tire life. Faculty will comprise professors and lecturers. Many industrialists and business houses have begun to contribute from their corporate social responsibility funds. It is learnt that Omita Paul will be Chief Executive Officer off the foundation. Venu Rajamony, currently Press Secretary to the President of India, a career diplomat, may also join the foundation.

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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COMPLETES

10 years

years

YEARS OF PUBLICATIONS

THANKS to our esteemed Readers for being with us in this decade-long journey of

... about, for, of and by

the powerhouse that runs the Indian growth engine www.indianbuzz.com

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY xxxx xxxxx

CONGRESS

Future Tense

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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Why did the 125-year-old Congress party get decimated to 44 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 parliamentary elections? It did not happen in a day. It has happened with the BJP also; it too faced a similar fate when it behaved the Congress way. Who ruled India during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era? Only three people—wily Brijesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s adopted son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya and the late Pramod Mahajan. The BJP gave the slogan of “Shining India”; the voters knew who shone during those years and sent the BJP to oblivion. Whenever governments are governed through remote control, the political party and the government both collapse. The Congress came back with a bang, riding on the hopes of the disillusioned voter of ‘Shining India’. It was taken over by Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra and her husband Robert Vadra and Manmohan Singh. Rahul Gandhi stepped in to take charge of the Congress. Manmohan Singh brought Montek Singh Ahluwalia from the US to head the Planning Commission. The voter could not digest a leader in a democracy who did not have a State and a vote for 10 years. Robert Vadra was the new prince in the town. All the Ministers and Chief Ministers of the Congress-ruled States used to line up before Vadra. Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinod Sharma, father of Jessica murder fame Manu Sharma, allegedly minted money with Vadra. The situation was so horrible that Hooda could afford to ignore the command of Sonia Gandhi’s office. ‘Loot’ was the mantra, rather than ‘rule’. Manmohan was busy implementing the

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agenda of world forces, who have interests in India, though he had his own coterie. The Congress provided modern techniques to communicate with each other but forget to communicate with India. Indians thought aliens were ruling India; there was no connect with voters and workers of the Congress. gfiles is carrying a three-pronged story where Renu Mittal, a veteran journalist covering Congress for the last 30 years, writes, “Can the party stand up and say no to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership? That is the million dollar question facing partymen all over the country.” Whereas Subhabrata Bhattacharya, former Editor of Sunday and National Herald says, “Parivarmukt Congress is utopia. As much as BJP sans the RSS; Trinamool sans Mamata; Shiv Sena sans Thackeray; TDP sans Naidu, etc. AIADMK sans Jayalalitha is there for all to see. Thus a revamped Rahul-Priyanka led Congress may be the national party available to the voters and to the regional parties who chose not to align with BJP and NDA—which, as of date, seems well poised to dominate India’s political horizon for some time to come.” What if the Rahul-Priyanka team is not accepted to voters, will Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee make her way to Raisina Hills. Diptendra Raychaudhuri debates, “the only regional leader who can still have 30 plus MPs, and is capable of gathering the entire opposition, is Mamata Banerjee. But can she turn into a real challenger? Or, can she prove herself to be an acceptable leader of all like-minded parties (like Jyoti Basu in 1996 and 1999)? More importantly, can she match Modi’s new narrative?

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY politics renu mittal

Time for Congress to stand up to Rahul Until the party jettisons Rahul Gandhi and picks up another leader, there is no way the Congress can hope to capture power in 2019 when the party would face a larger than life Narendra Modi Jab se Mohan ghee khaya hai, gaon se nata hi toot gaya!

HESE days Congressmen use this famous advertising line to describe the state of affairs in their party. The reference is particularly to de facto Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, heir to the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic legacy. While Sonia Gandhi is still the Congress party president, she has for all practical purposes taken a back seat and given Rahul the party reins. Rahul and his brand of politics is seen to be elitist; he finds it difficult to connect with people (let alone with Congressmen). Rahul has the arrogance of an heir apparent, but the most damaging aspect of his politics is his dislike for politics and politicians. He thinks most Congressmen are crooks, out to get what they can. He finds the seniors outdated and has a particular antipathy for those who were close to Sonia. In the process, he has surrounded himself with nonpolitical men and women who have little experience of grassroot politics of rural India. Hence the reference to Mohan ghee!! As a senior leader put it, “Sonia Gandhi cannot do without Rahul. She is intent on promoting him whatever

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

be the cost to the Congress. And the party in turn cannot do without the Nehru-Gandhi family. That is their fate. That is their DNA.” After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia withdrew into a shell and refused to take over the reins of the Congress. ND Tiwari, who had never lost an election, lost the election after Rajiv’s death and lady luck smiled on PV Narasimha Rao, who became both the Congress president as well as the Prime Minister of India. During his regime, the downfall of the Congress organisation began. According to senior Congress leaders who knew Rao well, he hated the Gandhi family and wanted to put an end to their rule once and for all. He once held a meeting in Ramlila ground where this aspect became public. He said, “I am like the elephant. The eyes of the elephant are so small that he does not see how big and strong he is and how

Rahul has turned a deaf ear to complaints of corruption and mismanagement against leaders in his team. He has also ignored clear warning signs of the party’s slide in the States

powerful he is and can be”. Rao damaged the Congress for years to come when he sat and “actively” allowed the Babri Masjid to be demolished, breaking the faith of the Muslims of India in the party. When a Congress leader later asked him why he did this, he replied after five minutes of silence with just one line, “When I was in school in Hyderabad during the time of the Nizam, I saw bodies of Hindus lying on the streets of Hyderabad”. The Hindu in Rao was alive and kicking. His successor, Sitaram Kesri, was a man of little stature with no scholarly pretentions like Rao. But he was a street smart politician. One day he decided to withdraw support to the Deve Gowda government and told his driver to drive him to Rashtrapati Bhawan. When the driver and the gunman told him that he should have a letter in writing to give to the President, he asked them to go to AIIMS where he got himself admitted. It took him three days to find a man in the Congress who could draft such a letter. Pranab Mukherjee wrote the letter that was sent to the President but Kesri could not realise his dream of becoming the Prime Minister of India. He was removed as Congress

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and how political parties were run. But she trusted a few people who virtually took over the reins of the Congress and ran it for her. They discussed issues with her before decisions were taken— in short, firefighting on her behalf and in the process virtually running the party. Heading the list was Ahmed Patel, who became her biggest confidant and who ran the party on behalf of the Congress President. Always a back room boy, Patel was never in the limelight, did not give interviews, was merely the political secretary, but for all practical purposes the controls of the party rested in his hands.

The party lacks communication skills and has visibly failed in selling its hugely popular programmes and initiatives such as NREGA, loan waiver, GST, RTE, which have been repackaged by the BJP to its advantage

president by the powerful Congress Working Committee as Sonia was by then ready to take charge of the party. In 1997, Sonia unofficially became active in the party and in 1998 she officially joined the Congress. Congress, which had held sway over entire country for most part of independent India, was ruling only in four States at that time, but in less than a year the Congress was heading 14 State governments. During the short but eventful tenure of Kesri, the Congress had begun to disintegrate and got divided into five splinters. Congressmen had

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begun leaving the party looking for greener pastures. But the entry of Sonia, till then a mere housewife, changed all that.

HE Gandhi surname was the glue that Congressmen needed to bind them together. The party that had begun to shrink in States and was finding it difficult to win a majority at the Centre, was once again looking united and ready to win back its space under Sonia. But Sonia had her limitations. She knew little or nothing about politics

As a senior leader put it, “Ahmed Patel has the brains of a chess player and very few were smart enough to know who will be ousted with what move and who will be promoted.” Sonia was the face of the Congress party. She conducted herself with humility, had empathy for the common man and was able to connect with people on her various road shows and travels. Her behaviour was exemplary. There was not a whiff of scandal in her personal life. A Congressman who left the Congress because of Rahul, recalls how she had tears in her eyes when he went to meet her, which he interpreted as tears of helplessness. But, he recalls, she has been unable to

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stand up to Rahul and has given in to whatever he has wished for or desired. The year 2004 saw the Congress returning to power at the Centre. This is credited to Sonia Gandhi and her efforts to join hands with various political parties, forge alliances and it was the allies who propelled the Congress to come to power, beating the BJP by a whisker. Atal Behari Vajpyee’s shining India alienated the

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bulk of the poor people while Sonia was seen as the face that could connect with the poor and the common man.

ONIA chose Dr Manmohan Singh as the face of the government and this gave her an even higher billing as a woman who had no lust for power. Her giving up the prime ministership was seen as an act of supreme sacrifice, appreciated by

the masses who were used to power hungry politicians going to any extent to remain in power. Even Sharad Pawar, who had left the Congress on the issue of her foreign origins and had floated a separate political party, was ready to accept her as the leader and the Prime Minister of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which was cobbled together by Sonia. The Congress-led UPA remained in

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years

THANKS

to our esteemed Writers MG Devasahayam Vishal Duggal RS Mathur Prabhat Kumar Alam Srinivas Urmila Rao Col R Hariharan Atul Patne Vijender Jain Radhakrishna Rao Bisheshwar Mishra Rakesh Bhatnagar PS Bhatnagar Vilas Murerkar KTS Tulsi TR Ramachandran MK Kaw Gautam Sen Diptendra Raychaudhuri Narayan Menon Akasksha Narain Tara Patkar ǀĂŶƟŬĂ dǇĂŐŝ ^ƵŶŝů <ƵŵĂƌ 'ƵůĂƟ Om Gupta Ravindra Dubey Shahid Iqbal Chaudhary Raj Singh V Krishnaswamy Manoj Singh Dr GS Sood Neeraj Mahajan Jitender Bhargava Akhilesh R Bhargava Naresh Minocha Tony Tyler ^ŚƵďŚĂďƌĂƚĂ ŚĂƩĂĐŚĂƌǇĂ AK Verma Dileep Gandhi KL Dalal Vijay Sanghvi CB Singh Narendra Kaushik BN Uniyal Kalyani Jain A Madhavan Shailaja Chandra Narendra Kumar Ramesh Dixit Lt Gen Noble Thamburaj Seshadri Chari Ajit Ujjainkar Anil Bhat MM Goel Jagat S Mehta <ĂůǇĂŶŝ ĂƩĂ Surendra Singh Kant K Bhargava Subhash Mendhapurkar Amit Khemka ^ŚĂŶƟǀĞĞƌ <ĂƵů Deba R Mohanty Ajai Bhambi Prabhakar Menon Air Marshal Brijesh D Jayal Kamal Nath LL Mehrotra Air Marshal Vinod Patney Arun Lavania Krishna V Rajan Abhilaksh Likhi Sarita Bhatnagar K Swetharanyan Samir Sinha Niranjan Desai Pradyot Lal Reena Kaushal RK Pathania Prakash Shah GK Vasudeva Vivek Wadhwa Dr Dalip Singh Rahul Singh Gen. JJ Singh Sugam NK Jain Girish Nikam Punnet Nicholas Yadav Ashok Lavasa Shyam Saran ^ŚĂƚĂďĚŝ ŚĂŬƌĂďĂƌƟ Surinder Awasthi Gowher Rizvi Yogendra Narain Rakesh Bhatnagar Narendra Sisodia Devender Singh Rama Naidu RS Pandey AN Ram Sheshank / Manglembi Yogi Deveshwar S Narendra Umashankar S Narendra Sumit Bothra Rahul Singh :ǇŽƟƌĂĚŝƚǇĂ ^ĐŝŶĚŝĂ BG Deshmukh Mrinal Suman Md. Shafeeq :Ğī <ŝŶŐƐƚŽŶ NN Dhiman ZĞŶƵ DŝƩĂů B Ashok Kumkum Chadha Ashok Parthasarathi Prashant Hamine AND Haksar Lalith Weeratunga NL Rajah Yana Banerjee Bey Rajindra K Pachuari Dinesh Lakhanpal Ashwani Lohani GL Dhar Shankar Sharan Joginder Singh Gopinath Menon George Friedman GS Chawla BL Vohra Anil Chopra Karan Kharb HP Kumar Vincent Van Ross Ashok Mohan R Viswanathan Air Commodore Jasjit Singh Nilmadhab Mohanty Abhilash Khandekar Air Marshal Narayanan Menon Nandan Nilekani Poonam Dabas SC Nagpal RV Sharada Prasad Bhikhu Parekh BR Lall Ram Varma Fereidun Fesharaki Meera Krishnan C Uday Bhaskar WƌĂũĂƉĂƟ dƌŝǀĞĚŝ Kallol Dey Lt. Gen Ashok K Mehta AK Jain MK Shukla Adm. Arun Prakash Arun Kumar Vinod Kapoor Ali Riaz Lt. Gen Vijay Oberoi Kailash Satyarthi Lt. Gen Shankar Prasad Janardan Thakur Venu Gopalan T Sreedhara Rao ũĂǇ DĂŶŬŽƟĂ MK Mishra Nikhil Jaiprakash Gupta Arun Kumar Sanjoy Bhadra ďŚŝũŝƚ ŚĂƩĂĐŚĂƌũĞĞ Sunita Misra Singh Shastri Ramachandaran Yogesh Sharma Raja Sekhar Vundru Amitabh Thakur Maj Gen Ashok Mehta Pankaj Jain www.indianbuzz.com Rajendra KWWSV WZLWWHU FRP J¿OHVPDJD]LQH Bajpai Maj Gen Mrinal Suman BK Chaturvedi KWWSV ZZZ IDFHERRN FRP J¿OHVPDJD]LQH Harpal Singh Bedi

years

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power for 10 years. It won more seats in 2009, riding high on Sonia’s social sector programmes such as NREGA, loan waiver to farmers, and other propoor schemes. These programmes got the poor rallying behind the Congress. Manmohan Singh’s pro-reform agenda helped Congress expand its base with the middle classes deserting the BJP and voting the Congress back to power in 2009. So what went wrong with the Congress after the 2009 elections? How did the party’s tally crash to an unbelievable 44 seats in the 2014 general elections? And, why did the party

Ever since the huge defeat of the Congress in UP and Uttarakhand, only junior spokespersons are being fielded with all the seniors staying away. Both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have been keeping away with no word from them on where the party is headed and what road they intend to take now lose a large number of State assemblies like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, and later Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, Odisha and so on? Much of the blame for the party’s numerous defeats can be placed at the door of Sonia and, of course, later at Rahul Gandhi’s. Sonia has always been seen as a status quoist who has been afraid of rocking the boat, or taking bold decisions in terms holding people responsible for their acts of omission and

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commission. During her regime there was no accountability or responsibility fixed on office bearers for wrong decisions taken by them and this led to the Congress organisation sliding and becoming hollow from within.

ONGRESS leaders were so busy making money in ticket distribution, in appointment of office bearers, in getting transfers and postings done that little or no time was spent on building the organisation in States. Today, the Uttar Pradesh Congress is a weak, moribund unit. A mere paratrooping of leaders into

the State to address press conferences and rallies is not going to bring the Congress back to power in India’s most populous state. Ministers had no time for party workers. The loot and spoils of office were not shared with the workers. They were not allowed to participate in the running of the government. As a result, Congress leaders and workers did not step out of their houses in the crucial UP election. Some went to the extent of actively working for the defeat the Congress candidates. A section of Congress leaders celebrated party’s defeat and

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stature and importance. Soon it was reduced to an obituary making body which was called only when an important leader died and due respect had to be paid to the departed soul. During the 10 years of UPA rule, the CWC was replaced by the core committee, internally referred to as the super working committee, where a handful of leaders would deliberate on every issue and arrive at a decision. Many of these decisions turned out to be flawed. As a result, Congress leaders had begun to lose touch with the reality of Indian politics. Permanent amongst this select lot were Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel and Pranab Mukherjee. Some ministers, such as the then home minister Shivraj Patil and finance minister P Chidambaram or others, were called for CWC meetings whenever there was a matter pertaining to their ministry.

G expressed happiness that the leaders had been taught a lesson. Sonia finished the election culture in the party. Ever since she took over the reins of the Congress, elections to half the Congress Working Committee (CWC) were done away with and the entire CWC was nominated with the posts going to men and women who had Congress president’s confidence. Most of them had no links with the grassroots and brought nothing of relevance to the Congress table except that they were ‘yes’ men and women. Most of them were people who could not win an election but were thought

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qualified to run the party in States and give lectures on how elections are to be held. Over time, Sonia also made the CWC irrelevant. The CWC was once the apex decision making body of the Congress party. It used to be a forum where senior and important regional leaders were made members and before important decisions were taken, the CWC used to discuss and debate the pros and cons to get all sides of the picture. To minimise the importance of the CWC, small leaders of little or no consequence were made members of the CWC, diminishing its

ENERAL Secretaries of the AICC were seen to be puppets of the Chief Ministers and did their bidding. A classic example was Rajasthan where Mukul Wasnik was General Secretary of the State for nine years. All dissenting voices against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot were shown the door. They had no one who would listen to their grievances because Wasnik did whatever Gehlot wanted. The result was the rout of the Congress in the assembly polls with the party winning just 21 seats in a house of 200. But Wasnik continued to get promoted. He went on to mess up Bihar. There were public demonstrations against him. But, instead of acting against him, the party gave him the charge of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. General Secretaries were kept and promoted, no matter what their

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activities or what their report card may have said. A new practice was started for rewarding Chief Ministers who had lost their States, by making them General Secretaries in the AICC. So there was a full corridor of defeated Chief Ministers occupying big rooms in the AICC office. These included, Digvijaya Singh who had lost Madhya Pradesh to the BJP, and Vilasrao Deshmukh who had lost Maharashtra to the BJP. There was Ashok Gehlot who had lost Rajasthan to the BJP. Gehlot was inducted as a General Secretary in charge of large and important state like UP. But when the Congress won in Rajasthan in the next election, he was picked up again and made the Chief Minister. At the end of his tenure, he landed the Congress one of its worst defeats. The concepts of accountability and responsibility had become alien to the Congress.

N 2012, a General Secretary, who met Rahul Gandhi, was told by him that your numbers are all wrong and there is no way the Congress can win Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. The General Secretary told him that he could place a bet on the party winning both States since he was in charge. After winning both the States, the General Secretary went to meet Rahul again. But the party vice president did not have the grace to tell him that he was right! With the entry of Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi into the Congress tapestry through his business interests, Congress Chief Ministers found a new way of staying in power: Keep Vadra happy, promote his business interests and 10, Janpath will turn a blind eye to what is going on in their State. So there was Bhupinder Singh Hooda of Haryana who survived because of his close

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business relationship with Vadra. Despite continued killings of dalits in Haryana, no one could touch Hooda. Gehlot took the same path. Large amounts of land in the State were made available to Vadra and despite a large number of dissidents warning the Congress leadership that Rajasthan was slipping out of hands and most castes had turned against Gehlot, 10, Janpath turned a deaf ear to their warnings. So, while Vadra, who had begun with a small business of handicrafts, turned into a tycoon, reportedly

Sonia Gandhi has always been seen as a status quoist. During her regime there was no accountability or responsibility fixed on office bearers for wrong decisions taken by them and this led to the Congress organisation sliding and becoming hollow from within worth one lakh crore, with ministers and chief ministers ready to oblige him. It was not surprising therefore when 10, Janpath found it difficult to tick off Congress leaders and workers when largescale corruption became the order of the day. The Congress allies were not far behind. The telecom scam had huge repercussions and while the DMK Minister, D Raja, made merry, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turned a blind eye. The same was the case with the Civil Aviation ministry and the NCP. The reason was simple. The so called non-political Manmohan Singh was so keen to retain his chair that he was willing to overlook what was going on around him.

The wily Singh was quick to uncover and leak a scandal against Sonia and the Congress whenever he saw a threat to his chair or whenever he got a hint that there was a move by 10, Janpath to dislodge him from the Prime Minister’s post. It was either due to the US agenda which forced her hand or some other deep and dark secrets that Singh might have known, Sonia was always the champion defender of Singh even when senior partymen urged her to reconsider her decision about continuing him in the top post. The decision to split Andhra Pradesh landed the Congress in one of its biggest soups. But there also Congressmen decided to grab whatever they could get their hands on. There are reports of all big Congress leaders buying vast amounts of land in Vijaywada and Guntur just before the split of Andhra Pradesh in the hope of making a killing. The misreading and mishandling of the Anna Hazare agitation by Congress leaders and 10, Janpath cost the Congress dear in the run-up to the elections. Hazare is reported to be the B team of the RSS and he helped create a perception that the Congress was a party of deal makers and looters. This perception has stayed in the public mind in spite of common belief that public memory is short. The fruits of UPA’s policies, programmes and initiatives are being harvested by the BJP and Narendra Modi. The Congress could not sell and claim ownership of its programmes such as Aadhaar, Farm Loan Waiver, RTI, Insurance bill, GST or NREGA. It lacked communication skills. Singh chose to remain silent on most days of the year. Ministers were too drunk with money and power to bother about the party. As one wag put it, “the land had

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COMPLETES

10 years to our esteemed Advertisers

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been procured, the runway was completed with the best and latest equipment, but the poor quality of the aircraft gave BJP the advantage”. Today, the BJP is recycling most of the Congress schemes and initiatives and selling them with a new coating of saffron. Within the Congress, one of the biggest liabilities is Rahul Gandhi. His interview with Arnab Goswami on Times Now was one of the single biggest factors which cost the Congress the 2014 elections and the huge drubbing it got. Since then, Sonia has retreated more and more into her shell giving Rahul a free hand to turn himself into a leader.

UT senior leaders say Rahul is not cast in a political mould and he lacks political instincts. The problem gets aggravated with his ‘I know all, and I need to learn no more’ belief. Rahul is said to be rude and rough in dealing with senior ministers and is not ready to hear what they have to say about the state of the party. As a result, many senior leaders have withdrawn and left him to run the party on his own terms. One of Rahul’s closest advisors is K Raju, a former IAS officer who has no knowledge of politics. Being a dalit, Raju is reported to have advised him against an understanding with Mayawati in the UP polls. Sources say, a year ago, a proposal for talks came from a person close to Mayawati. Sonia approved it but when it reached Rahul, he put his foot down and insisted that Congress would ally with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. His decision to go with Akhilesh was opposed by most UP Congress leaders. But because Prashant Kishore, the man who was reportedly paid crores of rupees to run the Congress

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campaigns in UP and Punjab, wanted the tie up with the Samajwadi Party, Rahul ensured it was done. The UP campaign was a huge mess with Prashant Kishore wanting things his way, and Ghulam Nabi Azad pulling the party the other way. Kishore wanted to select candidates also and had spread the word around, but Azad put a stop to it. Rahul’s team to take on Modi in the next general elections consists of Deepender Hooda, Gaurav Gogoi, Sushmita Dev, Ajay Maken, Harish Chaudhary, Manic Tagore, CP Joshi, Randeep Surjewala, Rajeev Gowda and the likes of them.

Modi has succeeded in wresting the vote bank of the poor from the Congress, which was hitherto perceived as a party of the poor, weaker sections, minorities and the have-nots There are allegations of huge corruption against many leaders such as Harish Choudhary and Manik Tagore from the State they are handling. There have been innumerable complaints about Harish Chaudhary from Punjab, but so far Rahul has not acted on them. Manik Tagore has been included in the team to look after elections in Delhi along with Surjewala. There are complaints galore against Tagore from various States where he has been put in charge as secretary, but it is clear that either Rahul does not know, or he simply does not care. Surjewala has continued as the media chairman despite having deliberately had a hand in the defeat of the Congress supported candidate in Haryana RK Anand, which led to the

victory of the Subahsh Goel of Zee TV partly supported by BJP. Surjewala’s claim to fame is that he advises Vadra on his legal matters. According to media and communication experts Surjewala has no expertise in building media relations or advising the leadership on media matters. He is busy mostly giving bytes to television channels in a bid to stay in the limelight. Ever since the huge defeat of the Congress in UP and Uttarakhand, only junior spokespersons are being fielded with all the seniors staying away. Both Sonia and Rahul have been keeping away with no word from them on where the party is headed and what road they intend to take now. Rahul also damaged the party by dealing directly with Chief Ministers and not through the General Secretaries as has always been the practice in the Congress. In Uttarakhand, for example, AICC General Secretary in charge of the State, Ambika Soni, was mostly not in the loop as Chief Minister Harish Rawat reported only to Rahul Gandhi. This proximity to the top leadership made him so arrogant that he threw out most of his adversaries from the party and ensured defeat of his remaining detractors by putting up rebel candidates against them. As a result, the Congress faced one of its worst every defeats with Rawat himself losing both the seats from where he contested. The Congress central leadership has always tried to dump strong regional leaders in a bid to retain control over the party. When Sonia Gandhi was humming and hawing over making Virbhadra Singh the leader of the party in Himachal Pradesh to lead them into the polls, Virbhadra quietly had a meeting with Sharad Pawar and word was spread that he was joining the NCP. It was

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Rashpal Malhotra, Analjit Singh: Manmohan’s confidantes by RENU MITTAL

influenced by the Americans to retain Singh. But the contours of that aspect are still not clearly defined. ONGRESSMEN of all shapes Singh’s economic agenda of and sizes were aghast for reforms was often at variance with most of the 10 years that Dr the social sector programme of the Manmohan Singh was the Prime Congress President. But, despite him Minister of India. They couldn’t fathom unwilling to dish out funds for social why he was continuing since he sector programmes, Sonia insisted had little or nothing to do with the and invariably got her way with what political aspect of governance, had she wanted. no responsibility in terms of bringing The lack of articulation, the the party back to power, and no Rashpal Malhotra (above); Analjit Singh non communication with the stakes in the system except to ensure general public and the considerable his own survival. disconnect with the rank and file of Contrary to the popular perception the Congress were the issues which that Manmohan Singh was regularly damaged the party when it came to humiliated by 10 Janpath, the reality elections. Singh had his way in certain was that the good doctor had his key appointments, but many a time own agenda, his own coterie which it was 10 Janpath which overrode called the shots in the PMO, and a his decisions, like bringing in Pulok system which delivered possibly in Chatterji into the PMO or shunting consonance with what the Americans out NN Vohra from the PMO. desired. Dr Singh was a shrewd man The two parallel administrations who knew when to tighten the screws of 10 Janpath and 7 Race Course Road often functioned on 10 Janpath. One of the biggest influence on Singh’s PMO was independently of each other though publicly Sonia always Rashpal Malhotra of CRRID, Chandigarh. Along with him made a show of backing Singh on key issues. Sources were Kutty Nair, Analjit Singh and other powerful members say, whenever the going got tough for the doctor with of the Punjab lobby. Manmohan Singh controlled the SBI 10 Janpath not always tolerant of his ways and means, through Malhotra, who was a director there, and Analjit the Prime Minister used the unlimited machinery at his Singh, a director in the RBI with Singh controlling the command to leak out facts and scams, making it clear he RBI through him. The political disconnect in Singh’s PMO was not a complete pushover. Hailing from Punjab, educated at Cambridge, elected was a major factor in the collapse of the Congress after to the Rajya Sabha from Assam, from where he is still a 10 years of rule. Congressmen say there is still no explanation on why member, Singh’s karam bhoomi was Delhi. Congressmen Sonia Gandhi continued with the apolitical Singh for blame him majorly for the damage done to the Congress 10 long years, except maybe that she wanted a puppet during the 10 years of UPA rule and feel that he did Prime Minister who would continue at her bidding while nothing to stem the rot of corruption which pervaded 10 Janpath controlled most of the big deals made in the the ministries and the system. The only time he asserted government and monitored the transfers and postings. himself was during the nuclear deal, showing that if he Another theory doing the rounds is that Sonia was wanted, he could put his foot down.

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only a day before a press conference was slated that Ahmed Patel contacted Virbhadra, arranged a meeting with Sonia and an assurance was given to him that the party would go into the election under his leadership. It was only after this meeting that Virbhadra called off the press conference scheduled for the next day. Virbhadra went on to win the State for the Congress. Rahul was not in favour of making Captain Amrinder Singh the PCC President of Punjab. He was convinced that Pratap Singh Bajwa was the man who could win Punjab for the Congress. Captain contacted the BJP and made them a proposition that he would quit the Congress and they should leave the Akali Dal, and that they would split the seats 50:50. But that he would be the leader and the Chief Minister candidate. He also made it clear to Rahul that he was planning to quit the Congress and float his own party if he was not made the PCC President. The Congress succumbed and Captain went on to win the Punjab for the Congress.

N his authorised autobiography, there are details of a meeting between Sonia, Captain and Rahul. When Rahul was rude to him, Sonia pulled him up and said, “do you know who you are talking to. Captain was a friend of your father”. In most States, the Congress no longer has strong regional satraps who can represent the interest of the state and its people. And with the diminishing clout of the central leadership and the Gandhis, particularly Rahul, no longer seen as a vote getter or even as a political strategist, Congress leaders are naturally worried about what the future holds for them. A senior leader summed it up by cautioning the leadership on what lay ahead, “if the Congress does not

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The general perception in Congress rank and file is that Rahul is not cast in a political mould and he lacks political instincts regroup itself in the next one year or formulates a strategy to take on Narendra Modi, the party may go into oblivion for longer than the leaders think. Having worked on the OBCs, Modi is now in the process of winning over the dalits and other castes.” In a meeting recently, Modi said, “the BJP was seen as a party of traders and corporate. But I will ensure that it becomes a party of the poor and that large sections of the poor of this country come to the BJP”. It was not merely an idle threat since Modi has succeeded in wresting the votebank of the poor from the Congress, which was hitherto perceived as a party of the poor, weaker sections, minorities and the have-nots. Much of the political lexicon in the country has changed but within the premises of 24, Akbar Road, the Congress party headquarters, there

are only empty rooms and complete silence as the party waits for the leadership to finally wake up and decide what needs to be done. With Sonia out of the day-to-day political management of the party, not even meeting party leaders these days, the disconnect with the grassroots seems to be growing. The doors of Rahul’s residence and office are shut most days. He does not hold janta durbars to meet workers, common folk and party leaders. Rahul’s poor articulation and communication skills, a basic distrust of the Congressman, poor judgement in terms of his advisors and a penchant for relying on non-political people to formulate strategy or analyse events, situations and people has landed the Congress in deep trouble. Until the party jettisons Rahul and picks up another leader, there is simply no way the Congress can hope to capture power in 2019 when the party would face a larger than life Modi. Can the party stand up and say no to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership? That is the million dollar question facing Congressmen all over the country. g

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COVER STORY

congress shubhabrata bhattacharya

Time for Rahul to go for a purge A combination of Priyanka as the organisational head and Rahul as the parliamentary face could put Congress on a trajectory of comeback

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ANDIT Dwarka Prasad Mishra, a two-term Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, who emerged as an effective power centre in New Delhi in the initial days of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister (he brokered truce between her and Morarji Desai—making Desai agree to be Deputy PM; the truce was shortlived), once analysed for me and my deceased colleague Udayan Sharma the reason for the inefficacy of Congress in the initial days of Rajiv Gandhi as AICC general secretary. DP Mishra (his son Brajesh Mishra ran the show in New Delhi in the Atal Behari Vajpayee era) lived at 11 Race Course Road (now Lok Kalyan Marg) and from there the politics of 1 Safdarjung Road, the PM House of Indira Gandhi vintage, was manipulated. According to Mishra, who was in those days referred to as ‘Chanakya’, it is the right of every successor to demolish the power structure set up by the predecessor and build a new edifice. Jawaharlal Nehru dispensed with the favourites of Mahatma Gandhi—Ram Manohar Lohia, Acharya JB Kripalani, Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan and a host of stalwarts walked away from the Congress in the Nehru era. Lal Bahadur Shastri retained most of the Nehru structure in his short, twoyear tenure, during which a major war was fought but there were no electoral contests. When Indira Gandhi took over, aided by the likes of DP Mishra, she created a new power equation. The old guard were summarily eased out or challanged. The 1969 split gave Indira Gandhi a Congress behemoth loyal to her and bound by her thought. The triumph of 1971 and 1972 elections followed. Then came the Allahabad judgment and the consequential declaration of Emergency.

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The year 1975 saw Indira Gandhi slowly discard her inner circle and the ascendancy of Sanjay Gandhi. Mishra said that while it was the right of Sanjay to create his own coterie, it was perhaps not right for Indira Gandhi to let her chosen successor bamboozle her structure within her lifetime. Be what it may, post 1977 defeat the inner circle of Sanjay Gandhi (nicknamed “caucus” by the Left), tempered by the struggle against Janata Party’s persecution of the former ruling party, emerged as an effective tool. This team, which emerged stronger after the 1978 split in Congress, brought Congress back to power in less than three years of its

The tragedy of Rahul is that while there are murmurs against him and his charmed circle in some quarters of the party, no one steps up to openly criticise him. At best they strive to keep an ailing Sonia at the helm, perhaps against her wishes 1977 rout. Post Sanjay Gandhi’s death in an air crash, a situation arose when Indira Gandhi was surrounded by the inner circle of Sanjay Gandhi, with whom she did not relate much because they were a younger lot and had not been chosen by her. The emergence of Rajiv Gandhi in his earlier days created a further anomaly. The “world” of Sanjay Gandhi remained, around Indira Gandhi and her AICC general secretary son, Rajiv. Mishra cited this lack of connect to the woes of the party, when he interacted with us on a winter evening in 1982. Congress in 2017 is run by Rahul

Gandhi. But the “world” of Sonia Gandhi—essentially extension of the team put together by her late husband Rajiv Gandhi, cocoons him. Rahul has created his youth team, but the lever of Congress rests with the old guard and Sonia, who has been keeping indifferent health in recent years. And this fulcrum in recent times has been supplemented by an extra pivot in the form of Priyanka Gandhi. As there is no sibling rivalry, no rough edges have emerged. But efficacy of team building and collective action has been thwarted. Talk of parivar mukt Congress does not seem to go down well with the rank and file. Forty years back, in the aftermath of the 1977 rout, 125 Congress leaders of the level of MPs and MLAs met at 12 Safdarjung Road, the residence of Chandrajit Yadav, on March 27, 1977 (three days after Janata Government was sworn in) and demanded expulsion of Sanjay Gandhi. This move led to Siddhartha Shankar Ray (the man who advised Emergency and later turned dissident when Sanjay differed with him on certain issues) challenging Indira Gandhi’s candidate K Brahmananda Reddy in the election for Congress President in May 1977. Indira-Sanjay backed Reddy carried the day; Ray lost miserably. By the end of the year, Indira Gandhi split the party once again and filtered out an organisation which was vibrant. She had only one General Secretary, Buta Singh. Pranab Mukherjee became the Treasurer. AR Antulay joined the core team some months later. The tragedy of Rahul is that while there are murmurs against him and his charmed circle in some quarters of the party, no one steps up to openly criticise him. At best they strive to keep an ailing Sonia at the helm, perhaps against her wishes, so that their

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY

congress shubhabrata bhattacharya

A combination of Priyanka as the organisational head and Rahul as the parliamentary face could put Congress on a comeback trail

wilting fiefdoms survive. As a first step towards establishing his legitimacy in the party, Rahul may consider a purge—somewhat on the Soviet and Chinese Communist Party style, and sideline the deadwood.

F Rahul Gandhi wants to emerge as a serious contender to Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo, he must observe and absorb their style of organisational politics. Since 2014, new flowers have bloomed in the Lotus pond. Senior leaders of yore receive respect. And that’s about all. Power is in the hands of new faces. A succession plan is clearly visible in

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BJP. State units have nurtured emerging leaders. Chief Ministerships have been bagged by hitherto lesser known faces. Congress has immense talent pool—the Youth Congress, Mahila Congress, NSUI activities show new and enthusiastic cadres are emerging. The frontliners of Congress today were the Youth of the 1970s. In four decades, time has perhaps come for them to create space for the future of the party. The front rank of the Congress is made up of many eminent lawyers (so eminent that even while State units of the party agitate on an issue, eg, the Narada scam in Bengal, eminent

Congress-member lawyers argue the case of the other party in courts). Without meaning any disrespect to the lawyer community, it needs to be pointed out that the eminence and eruditeness of a lawyer is aimed at winning an argument. Resolution of an issue is secondary. Even if a case is lost, the eminence of the argument is not lost. Rahul may like to concentrate on the interests of the “client”—the ordinary Congress worker who looks up to him while relying on advise of lawyers. The judgment has to be delivered by him. Latin proverb, ultima ratio regum (final argument is of the King), may come in handy

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on this score. The choice of leader of Congress group in Lok Sabha perhaps was a turning point in the dwindling fortunes of the party. Even with two members, BJP had an impact in 1984. Amrinder Singh, who defeated Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, despite being a former Chief Minister of a major State was made deputy leader under Mallikarjun Kharge, who, while being a senior leader, had no past track record in opposition politics. Amrinder hardly attended the House. Kamal Nath, the senior most party MP and a known fighter of Sanjay Gandhi vintage, was sidestepped. Rahul choses to sit on the second row whenever he makes his seldom appearances. If Congress is to be the principal opposition party, its leadership in the Lok Sabha must be effective. In Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad provides eminent leadership. Rahul may consider donning the cap of party leader in Lok Sabha to give a cutting edge to the Congress image. With Kharge being proposed for the chairmanship of the all powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and with his services likely to be needed for campaigning to retain power in Karnataka, a change in Congress’ Lok Sabha leadership may be in order. The paradigm of politics has been changed by the Modi-Shah duo. Electoral strategy needs not the likes of Prashant Kishore alone. Boothlevel party worker is essential. Sanjay Gandhi had recognised the importance of the block committees. He organised a block presidents’ conference in August 1976 in New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. His associate, Ambika Soni, who planned the show is now a leading General Secretary of the AICC—she could share her experience and help Rahul rejuvenate the

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grassroots of the party. Congress is not an ideology-driven party like BJP or the Left. It’s a national party with pan-India presence which is unmatched so far, truncated numbers in legislatures notwithstanding. The Congress has always been an umbrella of ideas. To match Modi-Shah duo’s pragmatic populist propaganda, it must come up with a credible narrative which is based on feedback from the bottom. Economists may have divergent views on Modi’s demonitisation. But

If Congress is to be the principal opposition party, its leadership in the Lok Sabha must be effective. In Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad provides eminent leadership. Rahul may consider donning the cap of party leader in Lok Sabha to give a cutting edge to the Congress image politically it was what in cricket parlance is referred to as a “Chinaman”. Had Rahul Gandhi triggered opinion gathering at the block level, a clearer picture of the people’s reaction and aspiration would have been available. Congress as a national party could not fathom the impact of demonitisation in political terms while formulating its strategy. Similarly, feedback on schemes like Ujjawala, in which housewives became smoke-mukt were not obtained. While in power for ten years, Congress could not convey the efficacy of its schemes to the people. So much so when UPA’s Nirmal Bharat resurfaced as Swachch Bharat, it was lapped up as an innovation.

Congress has to learn how to communicate. And a plausible narrative is a must for this to begin with. There is clamour for the entry of Priyanka Gandhi in politics. She was in the backroom of the UP campaign strategy. Perhaps her mother’s ill health and an injury suffered by her son kept her from taking active part in the campaign. A combination of Priyanka as the organisational head and Rahul as the parliamentary face could put Congress on a trajectory of comeback.

YE-ELECTION to Phulpur Lok Sabha seat, which should take place before the year is out, could be an opportunity for Congress to recharge its sagging organisation in UP; the traditional seat of Jawaharlal Nehru should be contested in right earnest by his party. Winning or losing an election is part of the political game. Ability to put one’s best foot forward on the play field is essential. In Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, where Assembly polls are due next, the Congress will be face to face with BJP. Ditto in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Organisation in these States have to be rid of infighting, to begin with. Parivar mukt Congress is utopia. As much as BJP sans the RSS; Trinamool sans Mamata; Shiv Sena sans Thackrey; TDP sans Naidu, etc. AIADMK sans Jayalalitha is there for all to see. Thus a revamped RahulPriyanka led Congress may be the national party available to the voters and to the regional parties who chose not to align with BJP and its NDA— which, as of date, seems well poised to dominate India’s political horizon for some time to come. g (Author is a former editor of Sunday and of National Herald)

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY

politics diptendra raychaudhuri

Nitish or Mamata: Who’ll challenge Modi in 2019? Narendra Modi has scripted a new narrative of politics that has stymied the opposition parties. Uttar Pradesh election results prove this. Opposition parties are finding it difficult to challenge Modi and his style of politics. As of now, 2019 Lok Sabha elections seem like a cakewalk for the BJP. Only two leaders in the opposition—Nitish Kumar or Mamata Banerjee— show some promise in making things difficult for the saffron party.

S the dust settled, the fringe became the centre in Uttar Pradesh. Away from the duelling father and son, cleansed from the parties obsessed with cornering Muslim vote, the most populous State offered the saffron brigade a new laboratory. Quick to utilise it, BJP has welcomed the opportunity by installing Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow. The fringe is now given a chance to shape up as the next ‘Modi’! The same liberal media that is now all praise for Narendra Modi, cried hoarse the moment it heard a saffron-clad controversial priest was

Narendra Modi

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to become the Chief Minister of UP. They failed to understand the new narrative being scripted by Modi, his Man Friday Amit Shah, and the RSS. It’s simple: Keep a symbol of the political Hindu at the centrestage, create an environment where no one will have the courage to challenge the dominance of political Hindu, and then focus on development without discrimination while cultivating a pro-poor bias. Who symbolises it better than Modi or Adityanath? Adityanath believes (or should we say believed?) if the Muslims kill one Hindu, a 100 Muslims should be killed in retribution. Adityanath believes Mother Teresa was part of the conspiracy to Christianise India. And, the same Adityanath has one Yasin Ansari as an accountant and construction supervisor of Gorakhpur Math. A number of shops in the Gorakhnath temple precinct are run

by the Muslims who, in time of dire need, get help from the head priest of the Shiva temple. This head priest performs puja and does meditation during Durga Navratri, but breaks off if he hears of a train accident. So, isn’t the message loud and clear? “If they kill one Hindu,’ then there will be mayhem. If ‘they’ don’t, they will live in peace and have fair chance of prosperity. What we have here is a Hindu-dominated ‘sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic’. Call it whatever you want— communal, Hindutwavadi, Golwalkarian—this is the new narrative. And the people of UP have endorsed it. Adityanath was the most sought after leader in the campaign after Modi and Shah in UP.

Mamata Banerjee

Nitish Kumar

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY

politics diptendra raychaudhuri

He is the most popular face of BJP in the State. He cried in Parliament after being imprisoned by Mulayam Singh Yadav for about a fortnight. Now he laughs the proverbial last laugh. Still a Member of Parliament (probably will remain so till Presidential election is over), the Yogi will soon end his career as MP after 19 years, and that too at the age of 44. Gorakhpur nurtured him so long, and has now gifted him to the whole of the UP. In no time, he established his writ. The deputy chief ministers—there are two of them—have none of the two important portfolios, Home or Finance. A Yogi-raj has started following the footprint of Gujarat’s Modi, and with the blessings of Namo. This narrative people have chosen over the clichés. A father and son fighting for the throne of a family-based political party with support base largely confined to a single caste: does it sound an interesting political plank in 2017? Akhilesh Yadav knew, it did not. So, to outwit Mayawati and corner the largest pie of Muslim votes which he thought was key to overturning Modi’s rath, he joined

hand with Rahul Gandhi. For months before that, the vice-president of the Congress party was campaigning against Akhilesh and his misrule. In the election, the disappearing khats from Gandhi’s khatsabha turned into disappearing votes from the alliance. Meanwhile, Mayawati too raced for the Muslim vote. She fielded Muslim candidates proportionately much larger than their population. She got a chunk of Muslim vote along with her traditional Jatav vote, but lost some other dalit communities. Akhilesh too managed a large chunk of Muslim votes plus the Yadavs, but lost other Backwards. All these votes went to BJP, for it said it cared for the Hindus. Yogi Adityanath said it most loudly.

Politics, like nature, hates to nurture a vacuum. The situation now is like that of 1991, when after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination regional satraps came up to vie for the throne in Delhi

HE liberals are shocked. But what did they expect? The secular parties have, among their favourites, one Yaqub Qureshi, who announced Rs 51 crore award for the head of the Danish cartoonist who had drawn a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad. He never faced any inconvenience in ‘secular’ UP for such criminal intent. He was a BSP candidate from Meerut South on a BSP ticket. People made the BJP candidate, Somendra Tomar, victorious. He polled 44,000 more votes than the Islamist. Did the voters have any choice? Now in Yogiraj, this Qureshi has been hit. His abattoir was sealed within a few days of Yogi’s ascendance. Modi, or his ‘Man Friday’ Shah, knows well that in 2019 all the discarded forces, Mayawati-AkhileshRahul may come together. At the moment, their vote share stands at 51 per cent, while BJP’s (plus small allies like Apna Dal, SBSP and NSHD) at 43. They need to take away five to six percentage points from the opposition to have a smooth sailing in UP. With the caste cauldron near full for BJP with large chunks of upper castes plus non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav dalits, for further consolidation both Kamandal and Mandal has to be used. Subramanian Swami has succeeded to put Ram Mandir on track through court-mediated dialogue or hearing. The pot is boiling without creating communal tension. The raw Hindutva of mandir wohi banayenge is being replaced, and accepted, by majoritarian nationalism. This narrative can ensure, BJP-RSS top brass is hopeful, even 50 per cent vote for BJP plus in UP in 2019. Elsewhere in the country, this narrative is being established from Manipur to Maharashtra, and from Rahul Gandhi

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Haryana-Uttarakhand to Karnataka. Before UP, there was Maharashtra civic polls and Odisha rural polls where BJP recorded impressive gains. Even before that, last year, there were assembly polls in Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Assam. Divergent score sheets adorned the wall in different States, though BJP improved upon its previous position in almost all the States. Before that, there was Delhi and Bihar that BJP lost. But, all through, the constant remained the same: after its debacle in 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress is going down and down. It lost Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Assam to BJP, Delhi to AAP, and Kerala to the Left. As for Bihar or UP, the party is on life support provided by others. Before 2019, there will be elections in some more states: Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh towards the end of this year; Karnataka, Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland early next year;

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Call it whatever you want— communal, Hindutwavadi, Golwalkarian—this is the new narrative. And the people of UP have endorsed it. Adityanath was the most sought after leader in the campaign after Modi and Shah in UP. He is the most popular face of BJP in the State and, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Meghalaya in the last quarter of next year. As of now, the Congress is likely to lose Himachal and Karnataka and not likely to wrest any major State from the BJP.

F that happens, BJP will be facing the next Lok Sabha with two-third of Indians living in NDA-ruled States. With Modi’s clout growing, a

natural tendency of the voter will be to tag along Modi’s party. All this indicate one hard fact: the theme song of Indian political reality has already changed. A neither here nor there Congress plus Left centrism, carrying along with it the appeasement card, is fast fading away. A new brand of transparent, inclusive economic progress woven neatly with prejudiced, majoritarian nationalism is filling up the void. It is still somewhat nebulous and will take a few more years to solidify. It has started combining Mandal with Kamandal by being differently inclusive as juxtaposed with the inclusiveness of the Congress. Arun Jaitley was candid in TV interviews after the UP verdict: “We gave tickets to those communities who vote for us.” Cry as loud as you can, this is a winning recipe and BJP-RSS will not deviate from it. They will contain the Hindu Taliban, but not deviate from their political path unless the

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COVER STORY

politics diptendra raychaudhuri

Mamata’s advantages and disadvantages Advantages ł Roots firmly entrenched Mamata Banerjee has her roots firmly entrenched in the soil of Bengal. Unlike other regional parties, she does not require any help to retain power in Bengal and is more or less sure to romp home with 30+ seats (out of 42) during the next Lok Sabha polls. At the moment, political arithmetic of Bengal too is working in her favour: BJP is improving its vote share (from 4 per cent in 2011 to 10 per cent in 2016 assembly election), and the Left is sliding down (from 41 to 24), giving Mamata the advantage of a low opposition unity index. Unless some magical change occurs, Trinamool Congress is to have a smooth sailing for quite some years, till the BJP comes up with 30 per cent vote to challenge it in a threecornered contest. While TMC has about 40 per cent, the Congress has 10 per cent vote, and Mamata can count on that too.

counting on Laloo Prasad, AkhileshYadav and Arvind Kejriwal as partners. ł Bengal performing well Bengal has performed well under the TMC regime and its economy is growing despite of the fact that big industries are not coming. Bengal government’s pro-poor schemes like Kanyashree are a hit, and its performance in MGNREGA is impressive. Mamata, unlike the Left, has no team to propagate this success to the people outside Bengal. If she can arrange for it and flash her success in national media, she too can have the image of a doer.

ł Indomitable and ambitious Mamata’s greatest asset is her fighting spirit. Against all odds she continues to fight. She fought with the Left for 13 years with her regional party and finally trounced her opponent. No other leader has been so successful after leaving the Congress, except for VP Singh. She has national ambition too, and that may propel her to go after the BJP which has occupied central space of Indian polity for now.

Disadvantages ł Corruption charges engulf the party Alleged involvement of different leaders

ł Ready to take on BJP If BJP targets TMC in Bengal in a big way, as indicated by the party President Amit Shah in a post-UP poll interview, Mamata too is ready to go for an all-out counterattack. In an interview with a Bengali channel, she said she would like to take on Narendra Modi by touring other States and campaigning for other regional parties. This is sort of a renewal of her idea of a Federal Front consisting of different regional parties. At the moment, it seems, she is

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of TMC, including MPs and State ministers, in ponzi scams like Sharda and Rose Valley not only dented the image of the party, it has created uncertainty about the future of a section of its leadership. Its parliamentary party leader, Sudip Banerjee, is in jail. Now, after Narada cash-oncamera investigation transferred to the CBI by the Calcutta High Court, a fresh batch of leaders, including important MPs and ministers, have come under its purview. This may further dent the party’s second-rung leadership and its image. ł Adventurist by nature Mamata has no record of consistency in aligning with political forces at the national level. She has worked with Congress and BJP alternatively. Even now her future course for managing a national role is amorphous. Her appeal to make a Federal Front as a solid political entity has not succeeded either. ł No national network Her part does not have a national network like the BJP, Congress or the Left. And, the Left will not try to catapult her like it did in case of HD Devegowda or IK Gujral. A regional party without a prop at the national level has a lot of handicap. ł Conventional politics AAP brought in a wave of unconventional politics and succeeded to win Delhi and make inroads in Punjab. Modi too converted himself into an unconventional politician and picked up suitable issues including demonetisation. Mamata, being conventional politician, can count BJP’s failures, but cannot invent issues that can give her special status.

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Muslims start voting for them. The verdict of Uttar Pradesh is one of the many milestones in the process of such solidification that is being built through the dream of achche din, surgical strike and demonetisation. It is spreading even to the NorthEast where BJP now rules Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur. Contrary to what the media portrayed, Congress (a party solely dependent on Meitei vote) had no chance in Manipur once they fell short of majority. BJP has cobbled up excellent combinations in Meghalaya and Nagaland too. From AB Vajpayee to Modi, in just a decade, the party has transformed itself from a moderate, easygoing claimant to a skilful, aggressive winner. The PM is setting the agenda, be it demonetisation or the ‘raincoat’ jibe at Manmohan Singh or kabrstanshamshan debate, and Congress and its allies (from Akhilesh, Laloo Prasad to the Left) are just reacting, each time losing further ground. Usually, after a government completes half of its term, it happens the other way: the opposition launches one after another attack, and the government defends. Not so under Modi. Rahul Gandhi appears a hapless lad in the face of Modi’s onslaught. “Rahul is still not mature, his age does not allow him to be mature,” said Sheila Dikshit. No one says this about Shah, who was considered a mature politician even six years ago. For the record, Rahul is 46 and Shah 52. And so, 2019 will be knocking the door before Rahul matures. The situation is fraught with danger. Without a strong, intelligent opposition, the government can get away with murder, isn’t it? For example, demonetisation. Immediate goals of demonetisation have not been fulfilled yet. How much black money has been unearthed? Without any figures

available from the Reserve Bank, it is speculated only about Rs 50,000 crore did not return to the banks. That is a meagre 3 per cent of the total volume of banned notes. We have to wait to know how much comes through the new voluntary disclosure scheme announced after demonetisation. The process of amassing unaccounted money, now in new 2,000 rupee notes, has not been dented significantly. Fake notes are being spewed even from the ATMs. Terrorists are attacking Indian army in Kashmir at will, and ‘organised’ crowd is still helping them. But, changing the narrative, the PM has gone far beyond the immediate now. For sure, there is a strong possibility that once being threatened, Indian society will hereafter become more tax compliant. The government will enjoy the boon of higher revenue earnings and, apart from boosting infrastructure or irrigation, will channelise a sizable part of it to serve the poor. A sure-success recipe for 2019, it seems.

s it appears, as of today, 2019 is a foregone conclusion. Rahul is knocked out of the ring. Veterans like SM Krishna, a Vokkaliga leader of Karnataka (the BJP hadn’t one), are switching over to the saffron bandwagon. The proverbial doom’s day is gobbling down the Congress. So, the question is, will Modi have a walkover in 2019, or will there emerge a new challenger? Politics, like nature, hates to nurture a vacuum. The situation now is like that of 1991, when after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination regional satraps came up to vie for the throne in Delhi: Narsimha Rao from the Deccan, Sharad Pawar from the Maratha land, and Arjun Singh from Madhya Bharat. The only difference is that back then the fight was lim-

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COVER STORY

politics diptendra raychaudhuri

ited within the Congress and now it has been thrown open to the entire opposition. However the choice is limited now. Pawar and Mulayam are too old, down and out. Laloo Prasad is reduced to a marginal force. Navin Patnaik is not interested. Mayawati’s graph is fast declining. The Left no more enjoys the larger than life image like in the past, and, of course, cannot flaunt any popular face like Jyoti Basu. After Jayalalitha, no one from Tamil Nadu has any national stature. Arvind Kejriwal definitely nurtures a very high ambition, but getting even 20 MPs is still difficult for him. Akhilesh is out for next five years. So there are only two faces in the fray: Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee. Nitish is obviously the most prominent and acceptable face from the opposition. He somewhat foresaw the future and tried to unite all Janata factions to acquire some anti-Modi momentum a year ago. Such a new Janata Dal could emerge the singlelargest party after the BJP and the Congress (or, who knows, even get more numbers than Congress). His next effort would have then been forming a coalition of regional parties. But his efforts failed. Mulayam Singh and Laloo Prasad, obsessed to hold on to their family empires, were not interested. And then, the prudent politician that he is, Nitish realised the political appeal of demonetisation. He refused to join the bandwagon of foolhardy opposition to demonetisation. Now he stands a suspect in the opposition camp that neither understands the new narrative, nor wants to appreciate someone who believes in playing the role of a constructive opposition. The media, too, speculates on his future course, restricting his chance to emerge as the leader of anti-BJP forces. Nitish still has time to bounce back.

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But, he is hemmed in by his partner RJD in the State, both by its tantrums and its proneness to create anarchy. If he withdraws from the race, the only regional leader who can still have 30 plus MPs, and is capable of gathering entire opposition, is Mamata Banerjee. But can she turn into a real challenger? Or, better to ask, can she prove herself to be an acceptable leader of all the like-minded parties (like Jyoti Basu in 1996 and 1999)? More importantly, can she match Modi’s new narrative? Can she match Modi’s symbolism apparent from the latter’s

Modi, or his ‘Man Friday’ Shah, knows well that in 2019 all the discarded forces, Mayawati-AkhileshRahul may come together. At the moment, their vote share stands at 51 per cent, while BJP’s (plus small allies like Apna Dal, SBSP and NSHD) at 43. They need to take away five to six percentage points from the opposition to have a smooth sailing in UP

choosing Varanasi as his Lok Sabha constituency, or demanding ‘if there is electricity in Ramzan it should also be there on Diwali’?

AMATA Banerjee is a conventional politician, but can adapt to something in no time. Here’s an example. On November 8 itself, within a couple of hours of the Prime Minister’s announcement of notebandi, she turned to twitter to condemn it. There was no ambiguity in her stance as she demanded a rollback. All others vac-

illated. Except for Arvind Kejriwal, no one joined her in demanding a rollback. But after a week or so, Rahul started echoing every word of Bengal’s didi. Manmohan Singh dubbed it‘organised loot’. The joint press conference in Delhi she held with Rahul turned out to be her show. Others too (Akhilesh, Kejriwal, Laloo Prasad and so on) came up to lend her a launching pad. For the entire November and first half of December, she hogged limelight by doing what she does the best: Playing the role of a ruthless opposition. Back in Bengal, her party alleged a conspiracy to kill her was hatched by the authorities

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that made her plane, ‘low on fuel’, to hover in the sky over Kolkata airport! A few days later, she spent a whole night (December 2-3) at Nabanna, the new State secretariat at Howrah, to foil a ‘coup attempt’ against her by the Indian Army! But, her initial blitz invited the wrath of the central government in the form of renewed vigour of the CBI to pin down Trinamool Congress leaders allegedly involved in the Chit Fund scam. First Tapas Pal, the actorturned politician, and then Sudip Bannerjee, the leader of her party in

even referred to Singh to bail herself out on demonetisation: “I am a layman, not an expert in economics. But even someone like Manmohan Singh has called it ‘organised loot.” And then, it became all quiet on the demonetisation front. But, the people of Bengal are not discussing her silence on this count, for she has announced her own big decision in Bengal: a Regulatory Commission to stop the ‘loot’ of commoner’s money by the private players in the health sector, an authority that can be a model for the entire country. In an

the Lok Sabha, went behind bars. She fought this ‘vendetta politics’ for a while, even imagined a possible split in the BJP by a faction led by Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, and proclaimed she was ready to support a ‘national government’ led either by Jaitley or Singh. Thereafter, she realised the PM, was beyond her reach. By mid-February, she gave a clear hint of a truce by proposing that the Congress should take on the central government. “The Congress ... should keep their focus on Delhi in the interests of the country, instead of eyeing Bengal,” she said at a Calcutta Municipal Corporation event. She

open meeting (somewhat like Modi’s TV speech on demonetisation), she named the captains of private hospitals and hurled charges of overbilling, negligence, deteriorating service against them, and vowed rectification. Immediately, she got kudos from all sections. Like Modi’s demonetisation, Mamata’s Regulatory Commission has a villain and also throws up a dream of ushering in better days.

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ERE’S an interesting anecdote. Bengal provides free treatment to patients and gives all citizens medicine at much cheaper rate than prevailing in the market. The central

government has copied a lot from Bengal while forming its new Health Policy (like giving free treatment to the patients). It shows she too has many qualities that the PM possesses. She too can change the issue at will and still carry the people with her. Like Modi, she can venture into such a dangerous zone where no one else even thinks of going. That is why to some Mamata appears to be a perfect match for Modi. Like the erstwhile Gujarat CM, she is brash and confident, a fighter with the ability to bring down the mighty and never shies away from saying things without leaving any scope for nuances. But unlike Modi, despite such advantages, Mamata does not have a team of advisers well versed in the national scenario. She does not enjoy a network that can showcase her success in Bengal either. Forget about Modi, whose ‘success story’ in Gujarat catapulted him to the post of the Prime Minister, even the Left could do it, bragging Bengal was the ‘best’ State in India under Left rule. At one point of time, Chandrababu Naidu too successfully projected his developmental achievements throughout the country and earned the sobriquet ‘Chief Executive Officer’ of Andhra Pradesh. However, Trinamool Congress, that does not enjoy the benefit of having patronising intellectuals, has failed to portray even the right image of the State outside Bengal. However, it is compelling for Mamata to wage a war against the BJP for the saffron brigade has enlisted Bengal among their priorities for 2019. And who does not know the might of an injured tigress? However, it is too early to predict whether she will emerge as an all-India challenger in 2019, or be preoccupied with defending her bastion. g

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

COVER STORY congress mk kaw

In defence of Rahul Gandhi In politics, you win some, you lose some. Why not give Rahul the same rope that we extend to other pugilists in the ring?

HIS is an odd time to spring to the defence of Rahul Gandhi. But when the whole nation is going gaga over the dawn of the Age of Yogis under the brahmachari Narendra Modi, perhaps a piece in defence of the young challenger may not be amiss. Rahul’s primary sin is that he was born in the Nehru-Gandhi family, the nearest equivalent to a Royal Family we have in India. Modi does not tire of boasting of his own superior credentials as the son of a chaiwala and poking fun at the shahzada (prince). Did Rahul have a choice about the family he would be born in? If Hindu beliefs are to guide us, rebirth is determined by one’s karmas in the past life. Obviously Rahul must have earned a lot of punya in order to deserve this kind of family. And Modi…? Rahul is keenly aware of the name that he carries and the sacrifices that his family has made in the interests of the nation. Indira Gandhi died because she crushed the Khalistan movement. And Rajiv Gandhi was killed because he tried to support the Sri Lanka government in fighting the LTTE menace. In terms of education, he can boast of the best of schools and universities. While this gives him a head start compared to any competitor, it also accounts for his relatively poorer oratorical skills in Hindi as compared to Modi who spent a lifetime lecturing audiences in Hindi and Gujarati while working as a Pracharak in the RSS. His relative inexperience in han-

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dling administrative problems is due to a conscious decision taken by the family not to catapult him to a senior administrative position in the government till he had matured a little more in politics. He was also keen to bring about some fundamental changes in the organisational structure of the party. He wanted to enlarge the membership base as also to bring in fresh

blood in the leadership rather than follow the traditional method of inheriting your stature based on the stature already earned by the father. Although he has not been given any credit for these two campaigns, informed observers have felt some basic changes in the Grand Old Party that are likely to transform its future functioning.

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The trouble with our media experts is that they move in a pack, lest a rival channel should beat them to an exclusive story. The result is that they decide at any point of time how they would treat a certain leader. And then everybody else follows suit. Post-Godhra they decided to paint Modi in black colour as an arch Hindutva devil and Modi could not do anything right. Post-UP elections, they have discovered that both Hindus and Muslims have voted for BJP. Now Modi cannot do anything wrong. So much so, Modi did the unthinkable: he appointed Yogi Adityanath as Chief Minister of UP. Everyone is mystified. They cannot fathom how the voters’ mind worked. Those parties which lost at the hustings despite all predictions, are clutching at unlikely straws like doctored electronic voting machines. Even the BJP’s own experts have to manufacture scenarios like Muslim women voting en bloc for the party due to its stand on the triple-talaq issue. The simple fact is that in politics, nothing succeeds like success. There is a ready parallel in Justin Trudeau of Canada, who was treated like Rahul as someone who was too young, too

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green, as lacking in political strategy or finesse, and unlikely to win the elections ever. And this stripling of politics confounded his critics by winning an incredible victory in the 2015 elections.

AHUL has been accused of all kinds of unlikely things. He took a catnap in Parliament. It had to be pointed out that Deve Gowda, the eternal dozer, made an excellent Prime Minister. He was accused of not allowing the Parliament to work for two of its sessions and this criticism was mouthed by Pranabda. He coolly forgot that this brand of filibustering was invented by the BJP. He has been criticised for seeking photo opportunities by rushing to spots in the hinterland to sympathise with farmers or victims of inter caste hatred or whatever. But if he did not go, he would be accused of being an armchair politician. A Hobson’s choice, really! Currently, the entire media is sold out to the Modiview of history. Come 2019 and Modi will sweep the polls. He will rule till 2024, when he will pass the baton to Adityanath, who is being billed as the future PM. It is as

if the yuga of yogis has started. Witness the proposal of Shiv Sena that the Sarsanghachalak of the RSS would be the ideal choice for President. Even the prophecies of Nostradamus are being recycled so as to make a larger than life image for NaMo. They forget even recent history. Kejriwal won 67 of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi and suddenly the entire media included him in its panel of probables for PMship. In the recent elections, some admirers were prepared to anoint him as the CM of Punjab. The gathhabandhan of Bihar confounded many experts by making Modi bite the dust. One cannot really criticise Rahul and Akhilesh of trying out a gathhabandhan in UP recently. Perhaps the mistake was in the SP fighting its internal squabbles in public, not forming the alliance well in time, and not including Mayawati in the gathhbandhan. But that is politics. You win some, you lose some. And you live and learn. Why not give Rahul the same rope that we extend to other pugilists in the ring? g MK Kaw is a former Secretary, Government of India. (The views expressed are those of the columnist.)

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

GOVERNANCE

prime ministers mg devasahayam

Writing for a decade... in vain? For the people of the country, things refuse to improve, whether it is Manmohan Singh at the helm or Narendra Modi. While corruption and sycophancy led to the failure of Singh, autocratic decisionmaking and polarised politics raise concern today

ROM the second issue of gfiles, I have been writing in almost all issues, mainly on governance and civil services. I have lost count of the number of articles. But some of them stand out in my memory, particularly the two I wrote soon after Dr Manmohan Singh commenced his second tenure as Prime Minister in 2009 and another two soon after Narendra Modi became PM in 2014. The articles in 2009 were titled, ‘Prime Minister has a Mandate– He should Govern’ and ‘PM Must Guard Against Inbreeding Parochial Agenda’, respectively. In these articles, I had pointed out that elements conjured to bring Dr Singh to the forefront and he has become the symbol of a dormant collective aspiration for governmental stability, governance, administrative performance and decency in public life. For that I had suggested a simple agenda: Restructure governance system Jawaharlal Nehru had called for a Constitution “wherein all power

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and authority of the Sovereign Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of government, are derived from the people.” This reflected Mahatma Gandhi’s description of ‘Swaraj’ as merely a “courteous ratification of the declared wish of the people of India”. These Founding Fathers envisaged people-based governance with a bottom-up process that would give every one ‘a place in the sun’. Urgent steps should be taken to reform and restructure the governance system in accordance with the spirit of India’s constitution. Zero tolerance to corruption JP, hailed as the Second Mahatma, had said: “As I diagnose the root cause of the country’s critical state of health, I identify it unhesitatingly as corruption and precipitous fall in the moral standards of our politics and public life”. Political, bureaucratic and business corruption is far worse now and like the dreaded AIDS sucks up and destroys the basic value system on which a society is founded and has no

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cure if allowed to go beyond a certain stage. Morality in governance is possible only if there is ‘zero tolerance to corruption’ in word and deed. Rejuvenate urban governance Half of India would soon live in urban areas and settlements where there has been rapid decay of infrastructure and basic services. Root cause is weak urban governance and institutional mechanism not capable of efficiently delivering the diverse civic services. While launching JNNURM in December 2005, the Prime Minister had said: “Governance reform should be seen as a massive catalyst for change. Cities, unfortunately with some exceptions, have not been enabled to look inward and build on their inherent capacities, both financial and technical, and instead are still being seen in many States as ‘wards’ of the State governments. This should and this must change”. Let his actions speak now. Put basic governance on top of the agenda For a nation of 1,100 million people with 70 per cent aam aadmi living from hand to mouth, governance has a very distinct connotation. It is not facilitating a ‘billionaire economy’ through globalisation, with some crumbs trickling down. It is basic governance—creating and sustaining an ambience and atmosphere for the common man to work and live with equity, safety, security and dignity. Tragically, at the grassroots level, these elements of basic governance are being trashed at every turn. This should be set right and basic governance placed on the top of PM’s agenda. Avoid sycophants and sinecure-seekers Our Republic is tottering and waver-

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ing because the honest, sincere and genuine among her sons and daughters are being increasingly banished from public offices and councils and replaced by sycophants and timeservers looking for safe sinecures. This must change if responsible and moral governance is to be restored. For this, the Prime Minister should give up the rabidly parochial agenda that was being pursued in manning top government positions in Delhi and the kind of sinecures being dished out to compliant agenda-men.

EEDLESS to say, Manmohan Singh did not heed to any of these and everyone knows what befell him in 2014. Two articles—“India’s ‘Modi’fied Governance” and “Government versus Governance”—followed Modi’s elevation as Prime Minister. He had made ‘Governance’ as the new flavour of the nation with ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ as its mantra that had offered some new hope. These articles of mine dwelt on the kind of governance required if its basic tenets—participatory development, freedom of choice and improvement of service delivery— are to coalesce seamlessly. Certainly, not the centralised and State-centric style of governance that is prevalent now. What is called for is true ‘democratic governance’ because it is the sine-qua-non for growth with equity. Given the prevailing political system and governance culture, this appears to be more of a utopia. I had argued that before deliberating on specifics, we need to appropriately define the concept of governance. Though there are many, the best-established definition is one that refers to the governability of a polity or, in other words the capacity of

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

GOVERNANCE

prime ministers mg devasahayam a political/administrative system to govern efficiently and to provide the necessary conditions for economic and social development. The earlier notion was that governance concerned only the State, with society as mere appendage or at best beneficiary. Starting from early nineties, this notion has undergone substantial change and society is gradually assuming centre stage in the scheme of governance. The current governance discourse, therefore, should look at two contrasting notions and concerns—whether governance should be State-centric or society-centred. Under this distinction, the State-centric approach is concerned with assessing the political and institutional capacity of the State to steer society towards certain goals associated with the public good and also with examining the relationship between the role of the State and the interests of other powerful actors. By contrast, the society-centred approach is primarily concerned with the role of civil society in the governing process, and its relation with the state, through a variety of governance forms or institutional arrangements.

HE term governance refers to the decision-making and implementation processes in the administration of a country, state or organisation. At the country/State level, governance is the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of multifarious affairs. Governance comprises the complex mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations. Good governance is participatory, transparent and accountable. It

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is effective in making the best use of resources and personnel and is equitable. Basically, it promotes justice and the rule of law. In a democracy, as distinct from an autocracy, governance should be society-centred. It would include the government, which is its dominant part, but transcend it by taking in the private sector and civil society. All three are critical for sustaining human, economic and social development. Governments, represented by the ruling establishments in the Centre and the States, create a con-

In my articles in 2009, I had pointed out that elements conjured to bring Dr Singh to the forefront and he has become the symbol of a dormant collective aspiration for governmental stability, governance, administrative performance and decency in public life. For that I had suggested a simple agenda ducive political, administrative, legal and living environment. The private sector, represented by trade, commerce and industry, promotes enterprise and generates jobs and income. Civil society, represented by the voluntary sector, facilitates interaction by mobilising groups to participate in economic, social and political activities. It also resolves conflicts. Because each has weaknesses and strengths, governance is through constructive interaction among all three. In short, while governments in India have been reduced to politico-bureaucratic proprietorships, governance is a joint venture. This is a huge difference.

Being a joint venture, governance should adhere to certain functional norms and principles such as involvement of stakeholders in the decisionmaking process; transparency and accountability at all governmental and societal levels; citizen’s participation in the process of social and public welfare, economic growth and development; a balanced relationship between all bodies of government and civil society; social auditing of government programmes and policies; mandatory establishment of ombudsman institutions and their fearless functioning; civil supremacy over the armed forces and an efficient and non-discriminatory judicial system. Most important of all, there should be enough space for the civil society represented by the voluntary sector to freely express its views and opinions on the development agenda of the governments without fear or favour. Most of these do exist in India’s democratic fabric, but when it comes to their practical implementation there have been major failures. This is mainly due to autocratic, arbitrary and confrontational style of functioning of our institutions and instruments of governance—political, executive and judicial. This, coupled with a disjointed civil society that we have in the country, makes democratic governance a virtual utopia. Remedying this is the task cut out for the Prime Minister if the Modi mantra is to really work. But instead, the Modi government seems to have chosen the arbitrary and confrontational path with the voluntary sector. In a 21-page “secret” report titled, “Impact of NGOs on Development”, leaked out soon after this government took charge. The Intelligence Bureau named a long list of NGOs and eminent activists from well-known environmental and

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anti-nuclear groups as anti-national because they had the courage to speak up against the predatory development model pursued by the UPA government. With one fell-stroke, the Modi government alienated the voluntary sector, a key partner in the joint venture of governance! Since then the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;NGO-huntâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has been going on without remorse, with the exception of those pandering to the corporate/ fundamental agenda of the State. Significantly, in its attempt at targeting the voluntary sector, the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focus was solely on their

agenda will be still-born and end up alienating Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s masses! I had written that within four days of taking over as PM, Modi had set 10 priorities: Ĺ&#x201A; 7R UHPRYH KXUGOHV LQ HFRQRPLF growth and containing inflation. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R SXW HGXFDWLRQ HQHUJ\ DQG ZDWHU on fast track. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R UHIRUP LQIUDVWUXFWXUH VHFWRU IRU attracting investments and make India a global manufacturing hub. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R SURYLGH D SURDFWLYH SHRSOH oriented government and govern-

Governance has suffered because the focus today is on just managing votes

objections to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;development projectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in general and nuclear power plants, uranium mines, coal-fired power plants, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), POSCO and Vedanta projects in particular. The message seems to be that as long as NGOs donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t raise a dissenting voice against these â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;destructive development projectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much they can get away with. I had suggested that Prime Minister Modi needs to do lot of work to put the Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas governance agenda on track. This would call for repairing the distrust and alienation with the voluntary segment of the civil society. Otherwise, the Prime Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s governance/development

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ance putting people at the centre of development process. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R HQVXUH WLPH ERXQG LPSOHPHQtation of policy. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R PDLQWDLQ FRQVLVWHQF\ LQ SROLF\ Ĺ&#x201A; 7R SURPRWH WUDQVSDUHQF\ E\ adopting e-auctioning in government tenders and works. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R LPSURYH LQWHU PLQLVWHULDO co-ordination and clubbing of ministries where needed. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R EXLOG FRQILGHQFH LQ WKH bureaucracy. Ĺ&#x201A; 7R HPSRZHU DQG SURYLGH IUHHGRP to the bureaucracy and incentive to innovate. I had pointed out that the last two priorities would drive the entire exer-

cise, and the speed and sincerity with which the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;governance modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is to be implemented depends on bureaucrats occupying key positions in Centre and the States and the innovative way they conceive and deliver governance. I had also raised the question whether the IAS is equipped todayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mentally and intellectuallyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to be independent and innovative. Originally, it was a command oriented, revenue collecting administrative machinery which hardly called for any innovation. Due to a process of evolution and democratic/developmental compulsions, it has been under pressure to become an instrument of participatory, flexible, multi-sectored public service spanning government, corporate and civil society. And, this new concept of public service is characterised by change and dynamism more than status quo and constancy. But IAS had not responded to this â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;change and dynamismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; at the cutting-edge of administration where it was most needed.

RIPENDRA Misra, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, had then stated thus: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mr Modi does three things: he guarantees stability in tenure for as many as four to five years for competent officers, offers tremendous freedom to innovate and deliver, and takes personal ownership of all decisions.â&#x20AC;? But in the last three years, autocratic decision-making has become â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;personal ownershipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, politics is polarised, and governance straitjacketed with civil services reverting back to command-oriented culture. This does not augur well for the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future. But who cares? No need, because votes can be â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;managedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. That is what matters! g

The writer is a former Army and IAS officer. He is also former Administrator, Chandigarh Capital Project. Email: deva1940@gmail.com

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

GOVERNANCE

economy alam srinivas

A decade of paradoxes Good entangled with the bad, and growth and development coexisted with growing inequalities and developing devastation of the poor. It was an era of jobless growth, it was an age that welcomed investors and cronyism, and it was a period that saw the rise of new entrepreneurs and fall of others—that has been the story of India’s economy in the past 10 years

T was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair….” This part of the first line of A Tale of Two Cities by novelist Charles Dickens aptly captures the state of Indian business and economy in the past decade. It was full of contradictions—good

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entangled with the bad, and growth and development coexisted with growing inequalities and developing devastation of the poor. Businesses made money, their debt accumulated and threatened to landslide their vast empires. Consumers shopped madly, even as the poor faced shortages and committed suicides. It was an era of jobless growth, it was an age that welcomed investors and cronyism, and it was a period that saw the rise of new entrepreneurs and fall of others.

economy trick. Although economic growth dipped to below 4% in 2009, it hovered over 8% for the next few years, and even crossed 11% in one of them. This was when most global economies tottered, crashed, and went into paralysis.

Paradoxical beginnings In 2007, or 10 years ago, we should have anticipated the coming decade of paradoxes, ambiguities and inconsistencies. For it was in that year, although the worst happened in the next, that the economists and policy makers began to whisper about the coming crash in the US real estate market, which would have unimaginable consequences on the global financial sector. The latter, in turn, could endanger all the economies in the world, be it developed, developing and under-developed ones, and across continents. Needless to say, when the Financial Crisis of 2008 hit us, people talked about the Second Great Depression, or a future worse than the 1930s. Needless to say that is when we first noticed the beginnings of the Indian

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No one knew what happened. The popular theory was that India, which had become part of the global village since 1991, was shielded by external cataclysms. This was because her financial sector was closely monitored by the RBI, and never overleveraged itself. The banks and financial institutions were cautious, conservative and safe—one indicator was their minimal or zero exposures to derivatives, which were the main cause for the Second Depression and the failures of leading global financial giants. As Indian regulators, bankers and policy makers exuberantly patted each other on their backs and shoulders, the economy faltered in 2013. Yet again, no one knew what

happened. Four years later, it is yet to fully recover; demonetisation further impacted a quick upturn, which was anticipated when a new regime came to power in 2014. Lo and behold! Indians still patted each other—after all, we were the fastest-growing among big economies. Case of twin balance sheets S the Indian economy faltered and sputtered, but grew at “world-beating pace”, guess which was the worst affected sector? The finance and banking sector, which was considered to be shielded against external influences, was rocked by internal corporate turbulence. Since 2010, the bad loans or

non-performing assets (NPAs) of the public sector banks have zoomed. In 2016, they were compelled to write them off, which ripped apart their balance sheets. The tide portends to turn into a tsunami. Within the corporate sector, the situation is grim. According to Credit Suisse, over 40 per cent of the corporate debt is owed by firms that didn’t earn enough to pay interest, let alone the original capital. As the latest Economic Survey stated, it was clear that “India was suffering from a ‘twin balance sheet problem’, where both the banking and corporate sectors were under stress.” It added that India’s NPAs were higher than any other emerging market, except

As Indian regulators, bankers and policy makers exuberantly patted each other on their backs and shoulders, the economy faltered in 2013. Yet again, no one knew what happened. Four years later, it is yet to fully recover Russia, and higher than the levels seen during the East Asian crisis. Normally, this situation develops from a common path. During boom periods, the corporate sector borrows heavily to finance expansion and diversification. Then glitches in a sector or a few sectors force it to default, which hurts the banking sector. The combination impacts the overall growth—companies that can’t pay off their debts don’t invest, and those which can, cannot invest because the troubled banks are unable to lend. In India’s case, there were similarities and huge differences. The early 2000s witnessed a boom, but,

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GOVERNANCE

economy alam srinivas

as said earlier, India remained largely unscathed after the 2008 global crisis. This, said experts, indicated the prudent norms within the banking sector, which prevented excessive lending. If this was true, then why did the NPAs jump? If this wasn’t true, and India followed the classical route, then why is the impact so minor? For example, there have no runs on the banks, and no effect on interbank rates. More importantly, although growth is down from 8-10 per cent to 6-7 per cent, the economy seems to be getting along without major pressure points. In recent global cases, the twin balance sheet syndrome decimated economies in East Asia in 1997 and led to a huge depression in the UK and the US in 2008-09. Banks incurred losses, but their broader balance sheets remained intact. Companies suffered losses in some sectors, but overall growth didn’t peter out. Rise of new entrepreneurs HE sectors, which performed well, despite the problems with corporate debt, threw up several surprises. A few weeks ago, a little-known brick-and-mortar retailer, Radhakishan Damani, was valued at $5.5 billion, and crashed into the Top 20 List of Wealthiest Indians. A former broker, who was the mentor of India’s Warren Buffet, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the shares of his company, which owns DMart stores, were valued at Rs 17 each in September 2016. Twenty-two months later, he sold the same shares for Rs 299 each; when they were listed on the Indian stock exchanges, they closed at over Rs 600 on the first day. Instantly, Damani and his family became multibillionaires. They became richer than the well-known businessmen like Anil Ambani and Subhash Chandra.

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Even many of the new digital entrepreneurs, like the founders of Ola, are poorer. To put it in perspective, the Damani family’s wealth is just a fifth of the India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. By the 1990s, the traditional Indian business families—Dalmias, Modis and Bajajs were on the vane. Newer ones, like Ambani and Ruia, had become wealthier. The latter were generally first-generation entrepreneurs, with no or little business

Within the corporate sector, the situation is grim. According to Credit Suisse, over 40 per cent of the corporate debt is owed by firms that didn’t earn enough to pay interest, let alone the original capital. As the latest Economic Survey stated, it was clear that “India was suffering from a ‘twin balance sheet problem’, where both the banking and corporate sectors were under stress.” experience. By the later 1990s, the Top 20 List included IT (information technology) business persons like Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar. These were then joined by the new crop of digital billionaires. Over the past decade, the changes were faster; faces were replaced quickly and quietly by new ones. Of the Top 20 names in 2007, as per the Forbes list, eight weren’t present in the 2017. These included formidable names such as Anil Ambani, Kushal Pal Singh (DLF), Anil Agarwal (Vedanta), Tulsi Tanti (wind energy),

Grandhi Rao (GMR Group) and Anand Jain (Mukesh Ambani’s right hand man). They were replaced by an assorted lot—Hinduja family, Pallonji Mistry, Subhash Chandra, and the rejuvenated Rahul Bajaj. Resource curse and cronyism The recurring story, as if there was a never-ending curse on it, of this century in the country is an extreme and offensive form of resource curse coupled with cronyism. From spectrum, minerals and metals, coal to oil and gas, several industrialists have become rich overnight, thanks to discretionary favours doled out by the government. These, as it later turned out, helped the businesses by billions of dollars, and resulted in

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neurs, they became indigenous oligarchs—much like the Russian ones— and cheaply appropriated the limited resources. The government played along and propounded the logic that the aim was to benefit the consumers in the form of cheaper services. When the media, civil society and judiciary revealed the full extent of the scandals—with unending zeroes— it angered the people. The voters showed their wrath by voting out the government in 2014 and bringing in

similar official losses. It’s a story that reappears and persists across the globe. From Latin America to Africa, Central Asia to South Asia, nations that were blessed with huge natural resources ended up in the worst kind of Dante’s hell. The countries were wracked with the worst form of corruption, and led by powerful leaders who became dictators or left no stone unturned to appropriate powers. As a few individuals and businesses squandered wealth, the people suffered. Experts and economists dubbed it as the ‘resource curse’. Despite her democracy, and powerful supporting institutions, India became a willing victim of the same curse. As the new-found resources were sold out to private entrepre-

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The recurring story, as if there was a never-ending curse on it, of this century in the country is an extreme and offensive form of resource curse coupled with cronyism. From spectrum, minerals and metals, coal to oil and gas, several industrialists have become rich overnight, thanks to discretionary favours doled out by the government a new leader who claimed to clean up the system. After almost three years, it seems that only the rules of transparency and corruption have changed. The old corrupt were booted out, and new ones took the places. Jobless growth As the economy, businesses and businesspersons changed, what happened to the common people—both the poor and middle class? Their lives worsened; the worst was their inability to get jobs. It seemed that India’s growth was jobless for the past 10-15 years.

Even years of double-digit figures didn’t make much difference. Experts feel the reason is the lack of skills in general, and lack of specific, globally-required jobs. This explains this regime’s focus on skill development, and huge expenditure on this front. However, this needs to be monitored carefully. In the 1960s, education was viewed to be the real gap. Within decades, there came a time when India had graduates, postgraduates, and PhDs, but no jobs, or satisfying ones. Then came the furious growth in technical courses— engineering, medicine, law and, later, software. In no time, the lack of skills was exposed. Today, only 40 per cent of engineers are employed; the figure is lower for software.

HE same can happen in the case of the skills that are now being imparted through government schemes. The popular thinking is that new skill should enable a person to become self-employed. Or, there should be initiatives to let people become entrepreneurs with their start-ups. What is normally forgotten are the really high failure rates in such ventures! Imagine an India 20 years from now, which is full of failed, but skilled, individuals. In such a situation, civil rebellion and civil strife is a definite possibility. In the 1970s, JP led a huge protest by students and middle class, who were bothered by, among other things, lack of quality jobs. In the 1990s, the Mandal agitation and the Ram Temple movement highlighted the employment gaps, which forced new discussions and debates in the country. In some ways, the voters’ agitation and reaction in 2014 was related to jobs and earnings. The country’s politicians and economists will do well to remember this. g

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GOVERNANCE economy gst

Single tax a utopian dream The rollout of GST may encounter some difficulties for the reasons that GST has been split into CGST, SGST and IGST and the Centre as well as the State would be collecting the taxes. by DR ANUP KUMAR SRIVASTAV “In the interest of the prosperity of the country, a King shall be diligent in foreseeing the possibility of calamities, try to avert them before they arise, overcome those which happen, remove all obstructions to economic activity and prevent loss of revenue to the state.” -Kautilya

HE advent of GST is a very significant and historic step in the field of indirect tax reforms in India. By amalgamating a large number of Central and State/UTs taxes into a single tax and allowing the set-off of prior-stage taxes, it would mitigate the ill effects of cascading taxation and pave the way for a common national market. There may also be revenue gain for the Centre and the UTs due to widening of the tax base, increase in trade volumes and improved tax compliance. The GST would be applicable on the supply of goods or services as against the present concept of tax on the manufacture and sale of goods or

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provision of services. It would be a destination based consumption tax. It would be a dual GST with the Centre and UTs simultaneously levying it on a common tax base. The GST to be levied by the Centre on intra-State supply of goods and / or services would be called the Central GST (CGST) and that to be administered by the UTs would be called the Union Territory GST (UTGST). The GST would apply to all goods

Units with multi-location in various states and having their units spread out along the length and width of the country, would face the problem of multiple registration and returns as each State would like them to register with them. This in turn would lead to increased transaction cost as well as problems for entrepreneurs and the Make in India effort

other than alcoholic liquor for human consumption and five petroleum products, viz. petroleum crude, motor spirit (petrol), high speed diesel, natural gas and aviation turbine fuel. It would apply to all services barring a few to be specified. Tobacco and tobacco products would be subject to GST. In addition, the Centre would have the power to levy Central Excise duty on these products. The GST would replace the taxes currently levied and collected by the Centre – Central Excise Duty, Duties of Excise (Medicinal and Toilet Preparations), Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance), Additional Duties of Excise (Textiles and Textile Products), Additional Duties of Customs (commonly known as CVD), Special Additional Duty of Customs (SAD), Service Tax, Central surcharges and cess so far as they relate to supply of goods and services. The State taxes that would be subsumed under the GST are VAT, Central Sales Tax, Luxury Tax, Entry Tax (all forms), Entertainment and Amusement Tax (except when levied by the local bodies), taxes on advertisements, Purchase Tax , taxes

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on lotteries, betting and gambling, surcharges and cess so far as they relate to supply of goods and services. The CGST and UTGST would be levied at rates to be decided by the Centre and States. The rates would be notified on the recommendations of the GST Council. The list of exempted goods and services would be common for the Centre and the States. Taxpayers with an aggregate turnover in a financial year of up to `20 lakh would be exempt from tax. [Aggregate turnover shall include the aggregate value of all taxable and non-taxable supplies, exempt supplies and exports of goods and/or services and exclude taxes viz. GST.] Aggregate turnover shall be computed on an all-India basis. All taxpayers eligible for threshold exemption will have the option of paying tax with input tax credit (ITC) benefits. Taxpayers making inter-State supplies or paying tax on reverse charge basis shall not be eligible for threshold exemption.

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Small taxpayers with an aggregate turnover in a financial year of up to `50 lakh shall be eligible for composition levy. Under the scheme, a taxpayer shall pay tax as a percentage of his turnover during the year without the benefit of ITC. The floor rate of tax for CGST and UTGST shall not be less than 1 per cent. A taxpayer opting for composition levy shall not collect any tax from his customers. The composition scheme is optional. Eligible taxpayers shall have the option of paying tax with ITC benefits. Taxpayers making interState supplies or paying tax on reverse charge basis shall not be eligible for composition scheme. An Integrated GST (IGST) would be levied and collected by the Centre on inter-State supply of goods and services. Funds would be settled periodically between the Centre and the UTGST account to ensure that the UTGST portion of IGST is transferred to the destination State where the goods or services are eventually consumed. Taxpayers shall be allowed to take credit of taxes paid on inputs (input

tax credit) and utilise the same for payment of output tax. However, no input tax credit on account of CGST shall be utilised towards payment of UTGST and vice versa. The credU it of IGST would be permitted to be utilised for payment of IGST, CGST and UTGST in that order. CGS However, the rollout of GST may Ho encounter some difficulties for the encou reasons that GST has been split into reason CGST, SGST and IGST and the Centre well as the State would be collectas wel ing the taxes. With the e-permit coming into int play, the issue of bottlenecks border check posts still remains. at bor majority taxpayers now with the With m State government, which is not attuned to the ease of business, the attune chances of return of the “inspector chance at large. raj” looms lo

HE pendency of refund and rebate at the State government is huge and the same is not known to sanction the same. This may lead to squeeze of liquidity from the business thereby increasing the transaction cost. A number of States are facing connectivity problems, which may lead to business getting affected as they would not be in a position to enter the transaction with ease. Units with multi-location in various states and having their units spread out along the length and width of the country, would face the problem of multiple registration and returns as each State would like them to register with them. This in turn would lead to increased transaction cost as well as problems for entrepreneurs and the Make in India effort. Any order passed under the VAT Laws can be revised by the department even after five years (or six years in some States). These powers of revision don’t bring finality and

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

GOVERNANCE economy gst

closure to the tax implications of any transaction for a very long time. The procedure under the Central Indirect Tax Laws is different and provides an identical time frame to the taxpayer and to the department to file an appeal against any order of any officer of CBEC. This time limit is three months. However, the provisions relating to revision by the departmental officer have been retained in the draft GST Law at the insistence of the States. The GST Council needs to convince the States on this.

OREOVER, the CAG is required to audit various industries/other business establishments as part of their work, which are contributing to the Consolidated Fund of India. As far as the audit pertaining to the CGST portion of the indirect tax collected by the Centre is concerned, the same would be tabled before the PAC of the Parliament. The same would be deliberated upon and responsibility fixed. However, the problem on the SGST part collected by the Centre or the CGST part or IGST part collected by the States would be as to where the CAG should table the report – in the State PAC or the Central PAC? Would the State fix responsibility on State officials for lapse on their part? Besides this, in case of lapse pertaining to CGST on the part of the State officials, or complaints of harassment or integrity of the State officials, the Centre would not have any say and can only refer the matter to the State to look into and take action. The CBI or CVC would not have any jurisdiction over them. The officials being under the control of the States, the Centre can do little for lapses on their part unlike the Central Government employees of the

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CBEC which are in the control of the Centre and where the CBI and CVC have full jurisdiction. This may lead to dilution and harassment of the trade. The State government officials of commercial tax are not trained in audit procedures and lapses are bound to happen, as many matters are highly technical in nature. Such oversight collapses once the powers under IGST is delegated to the States and effectively leads to grant of power without any accountability. Constitutionally this may not be proper. IGST is a Union levy as per Art.

trade and industry and would be against the concept of ease of business and against ‘One Nation, One Tax and One Market’ concept. Delegation of IGST powers to the States means empowering the originating State to adjudicate on revenue which belongs to the consuming State and the Centre. Such adjudication would take place after the monthly fund settlement has taken place for crossutilisation of IGST against SGST and vice-versa. Therefore, from the perspective of designed philosophy also, IGST delegation to States does not seem to be rational.

269A. It has been decided to be crossempowered to the State Government officers by the GST Council under pressure from States, contrary to the opinion of Ministry of Law. IGST is primarily for inter-state trade. The States would start fighting over the said trade and taxation leading to increased dispute and hence burden on the Courts; the inter-state water dispute is a living example. This would not only burden the Courts but also lead to uncertainty, and in turn would defeat the whole purpose of the scheme for a simplified tax regime. This would unnecessarily burden the

The cross empowerment in Territorial Waters is another example of succumbing to undue demands of States. A supply arising in a Coastal State and reaching territorial waters is inter-State supply. Converse of such supply would also be an interState supply. It appears that Council has decided to classify the same supply as intra-State supply to continue with the old practice, which is not correct as there is no promissory estoppels in taxation law. Article 269A (5) does give powers to the Parliament to define, what constitutes inter-State supply; however, the use

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GOVERNANCE economy gst

of such power to convert inter-State supply to and from territorial waters which is a Union Territory into intraState supply in the coastal State may not be a fair exercise of such power. Even if it is assumed that such exercise of power is possible, there is a more difficult situation with supplies originating and getting consumed in the territorial waters. The draft IGST law has provided that supplies originating and consumed within the territorial waters be treated as intraState supply in the Coastal State to which the territorial water touches. Quite clearly such supplies are intraState supply in the Union Territory. Even under Art. 269A (5), no such powers vests with Parliament. Supplies originating and getting consumed in the territorial waters, which is intra-State within the Union Territory cannot be deemed as intraState supply in the Coastal State even by legislation, as no part of the sale takes place in the Coastal State and thus there is no nexus of any of the events of sale with the Coastal State. For a nexus to exist, at least some element of the four events namely, signing of contract, passing of property, delivery of goods or payment of consideration must take place in the State where it is proposed to be taxed. In the transaction under examination, no nexus exists with the Coastal State. Further, the provisions of Art. 297 of the Constitution provide that the minerals in the sub-soil of territorial waters belong to the Centre. It would need to be examined whether converting supplies within Coastal Waters to intra-State supply in the Coastal State infringes on such ownership of the Centre, when the minerals are extracted as extraction and sale would amount to supply under GST law. Finally, Article 245

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puts a bar on States from acquiring extra-territorial jurisdiction. Therefore, it may not be possible even by legislation to grant such rights to the Coastal States. Taxation powers constitute part of the basic structure of the Constitution and it may not be open even by legislation to convert intra-State supplies outside the Coastal State into intra-State supplies within the Coastal State. It will therefore be prudent to revisit the decision relating to Coastal Waters. Further, GSTN has majority private stakes and has been manned by non-IRS officers at senior levels. There are security and financial

The adjudication of cases and the Constitution of Appellate Tribunal is another concern post GST. As far as the Centre is concerned, adjudication is being done up to the level of Principal Commissioners. The same is not the case in the States, where it is assessment and not adjudication concerns in GSTN, which could have been avoided by giving this work to DG, Systems, CBEC. CAG and Home Ministry gave already raised concerns regarding GSTN. For any business house, their financial data is secret and sacrosanct. The GSTN would be capturing all the data of a business house including the transactions, PL account and ITRs, etc., which is of great importance to the rivals. Such data is vulnerable at the hands of a private player having no alliance to the government. Compromise of the same may be detrimental not only to

industry but the security of the country as well as a number of strategic manufacturing industries, which are into defence production.

HE adjudication of cases and the Constitution of Appellate Tribunal is another concern post GST. As far as the Centre is concerned, adjudication is being done up to the level of Principal Commissioners. The same is not the case in the States, where it is assessment and not adjudication. In the Centre, assessment is being done up to the level of Deputy Commissioner, besides the work of adjudication which is a quasi-judicial function and goes up to the level of Principal Commissioners. This is not same in the States. Thus, this would create legal problems as two sets of law may not be applied to trade/ industry placed on similar grounds and may be ultra virus in the eyes of law of equality, as enshrined in the Constitution. In States, Commercial Tax Commissioners do not assess at all and play only administrative roles. Functionality of the tribunal would also be a grey area. Then the issue of equality of officers selected trough PCS (Group B Non Gazetted) and UPSC (Group A Gazetted) would also crop up. The massive tax evasion in VAT in various States is also a cause of concern. The total collection of VAT across the States in 2015-16 was approximately `5,94,300 crore (as per the Finance Commission Report) and total collection of Central Excise and Service Tax in 2015-16 was approximately `5,00,000 crore. Central Excise is levied at the point of manufacture and VAT is levied at the point of sale. There is at least a 100 per cent value addition from the point of manufacture to the point of sale. Thus the VAT collection should have

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PRESENTS

MEMORY CLOUDS The Hon’ble Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on April 21, 2015, on Civil Services Day, gave a clarion call to record and upload the memoirs of senior and experienced civil servants. Hence... gfiles brings you a compilation of reminiscences by senior civil servants which were published in gfiles between 2007 and 2015. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from the wealth of experience of veteran civil servants. Pre-order the book in advance to avail of the one-time offer of `720.

Featuring Prabhat Kumar BG Deshmukh MC Gupta Kripa Narayan Srivastava V Selvaraj Sushil Chandra Tripathi Romesh Bhandari Devi Dayal Reva Nayyar VP Sawhney SK Mishra Dr G Sundaram KC Sivaramakrishnan Nitish Sengupta Vishnu Bhagwan Gen Noble Thamburaj Baleshwar Rai Arun Bongirwar Arvind S Inamdar Madhav Godbole Ved Marwah Trinath Mishra Vineeta Rai Arun Kumar Rath Ajit Nimbalkar TR Kakkar Najeeb Jung MS Gill Shovana Narayan Lt Gen JFR Jacob Brijesh Kumar Surrinder Lal Kapur Yogendra Narain and many more...

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For further information or queries: Mail us at editor@gfilesindia.com or log on to www.gfilesindia.com/memoryclouds

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GOVERNANCE economy gst

been at least `10 lakh crore. However, the same is at `5,94,300 crores, indicating nearly 100 per cent evasion. In the present GST Council recommendations, 90 per cent assesses below `1.5 crore turnover are kept exclusively with the States. This shall lead to mushrooming of a large number of proprietorship concerns by taxpayers in order to remain below the threshold turnover or underreport their turnover to remain out of dual tax administration, thereby incentivising the dishonest taxpayer and generation of black money.

N the European Union, when GST was being implemented from 2006-11, there was massive evasion of duties known as the “Carousel Fraud” (or the “Missing Trader” fraud) where there was a GST evasion of 200 million euros. This fraud was possible as different member-states of the EU could not cross check data which was being submitted to other states. Similarly, if 80 per cent of all assesses are kept beyond the control of the Central Government, the States would not be able to monitor linked transactions happening in other States being conducted with the purpose of tax evasion. With the recommended assesses base, the GOI will be collecting only `3,70,000 crore in comparison to the current `4,80,000 crore – a loss of `1,10,000 crore. The cause of concern is that there will be more tax evasion, as in any case, the tax-evading States will get compensation from UOI for five years with 14 per cent escalation each year, but from where will the UOI get the money to compensate the States! However, the Indian Revenue

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Service (C&CE) as a committed service and CBEC as a committed organisation are determined to make GST implementation a big success story. This is because both IRS and CBEC have decades of successful experience of indirect tax administration, courtesy excellent expertise developed by them in handling complex nature of Central Excise duty on manufacturing of goods and Service Tax which was a brand new concept in India in 1994 (Services contribute 56 per cent of the Indian economy). The IRS & other officers under CBEC have handled the work of assessment, audit, adjudication, etc., very efficiently and effectively, which has been

appreciated by the trade and industries all over India. The officers have successfully changed themselves from pre-1991 era in a positive manner after liberalisation of the Indian economy in 199192 so much so that a recent survey conducted by FICCI and KPMG on behalf of the Government (with a sample of 45,000 plus participants) revealed that 72 per cent of the respondents saw perceptible change in the policies of CBEC, 45 per cent saw attitudinal change among senior functionaries, 51 per cent acknowledged improvement at the ground level, 76 per cent respondents found improvement in customs clearance

process while 75 per cent said they were highly satisfied by the IT enabled services of CBEC. This proves the enthusiasm and readiness of CBEC and IRS officers to continuously change as per expectations of the public and the need of the hour. The CBEC is doing its job of tax administration in quite an efficient manner which is also evident from the Cost of Tax Collection as displayed in the graphs. Thus, India is much better than countries like Australia, South Africa, Russia Argentina, Brazil, Germany and even Japan in this regard. India is not the first country to implement GST. We have several examples of other countries that faced this transition and found it to be not smooth, as teething problems will always remain. However, CBEC and its officers having years of experience and high level of expertise can achieve the results desired by the Government of India. CBEC is capable of handling CGST and IGST completely, as has been proved in the past, CBEC officers can handle all GST related work very efficiently and effectively including assessment, adjudication, auditing, etc. It has come up to the expectations of the taxpayers of India and all officers are committed to make GST a huge success in India. In post GST era, the Centre and all the States need to work together and IRS and all officers under CBEC are confident that they can implement and execute GST in a very efficient and effective manner and bring out a smooth and successful roll out of GST. g The writer is from IRS 1984 batch, and is President, All India IRS (Customs, C. Excise & Service Tax) Association

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

GOVERNANCE income tax tn pandey

Reforming the Income-Tax Act The tax system of a country needs to be tailored in accordance with the state of society, economic composition of taxpayer groups, stability and efficiency

N an era of voluntary compliance under the Income Tax Act, 1961, where nearly 99 per cent of incometax returns are being accepted without any scrutiny, the tax law has to be simple, easily understandable and concise for compliance regarding disclosure of incomes and payment of tax. For this, the tax law, rules and returns, to be filed, need to have the above stated attributes. But, successive governments, including the present one, do not seem to believe in this thinking. Each year’s Finance Act add, modify and replace the sections of the IT Act in a big way as could be seen from the following numbers of clauses in the Finance Bills for the last four years (see table). Years

No. of changes in the Finance Bill

2014-15

2015-16

2016-17

112

2017-18

Besides the changes in law, substantial changes each year are made in the IT Rules also, whose number too has grown large with so many annual changes. The IT Act was enacted in the year 1961 with 298 sections. It had, on March 31, 2016, 745 sections though

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the number shown in the IT Act continues to be 298. If the changes made by the 2017 Finance Act are also considered, the number will go above 800! The growth is made by adding alphabets to the main section such as ‘QQA’ (in section 80), HHBA in section 80 and BBDA in section 115, etc. The efforts towards simplification got blunted because of the personal ego of the UPA Finance Minister, Shri

For future, the tax changes, to be made, need to be divided in two parts– changes of a technical nature and amendments, requiring policy decisions with long-term impacts Chidambaram, who, instead of entrusting the work to an expert body, like Law Commission (the 1961 Act was drafted on the basis of the recommendations of this Commission) or to a specially constituted Commission for this purpose, headed by a Judge of the High Court or Supreme Court, with members from various disciplines, like law, accounts, economics, tax policies, decided to get the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) drafted under his supervision by an In-house Committee of Tax Officers.

This was a fatal decision. Even after nearly eight years of work in the two terms of Shri Chidambaram, a simple, short, easy to administer DTC could not be enacted. In the budget speech for 2014-15, the present Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, was led to observe that the government will review the DTC in its present shape and take a view in the whole matter. Some suggestions of the Group were accepted and in the next year’s budget exercises, the idea to have a DTC drafted by Shri Chidambaram’s in-house team was dropped saying there is no great merit in going ahead with the DTC as it exists today. Since then, there is no talk about the reform and simplification of IT Act. The tax system of a country needs to be tailored in accordance with the state of society, economic composition of taxpayer groups, stability and efficiency. There are certain basic aspects, which are to be kept in view in designing a tax structure or making changes in the existing law. These, briefly are [i] Simplicity; (ii) Stability; (iii) Equity; (iv) Controllability; (v) Neutrality; (vi) Elasticity/flexibility; (vii) Efficiency; (viii) Acceptability; (ix) Progressivity; (x) Ability to pay, etc. The Meade Committee in UK, in its report ‘Structure and Reform of

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Direct Taxationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, published in the year 1968, has mentioned the following attributes of a sound tax system: (i) A good tax system should be horizontally equitable. (ii) A modern tax system may be so construed as to be capable of vertical redistribution between the rich and the poor. (iii) There will be some clash between the criteria of economic efficiency (which requires low marginal rates) and of vertical redistri-

bution (which will require higher average rate of tax on the rich); but a good tax system is one, which minimises this clash and permits a given redistribution with a minimum loss of efficiency. (iv) The final choice of re-distributional aims for a tax system involves basic value judgments about the nature of good society, which are matters for political decision(s). There could be conflicts between various attributes. For example, all deductions and exemptions allowed in the individual income-tax law are intended to ease the burden of the tax

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and bring it more into line with the abstract and imprecise concept of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ability to payâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and yet every deduction and exemption complicates the law. But, an efficient tax policymaker has to reconcile various conflicting considerations to design a good tax law.

OME suggestions to achieve this are: Â&#x2021; (QWUXVW WKH ZRUN RI UH designing of a new law to an expert committee as suggested earlier.

The Committee need to work on a whole-time basis with adequate staff to give its report in 12 months and the IT law be re-enacted on that basis. Â&#x2021; )RU IXWXUH WKH WD[ FKDQJHV WR EH made, need to be divided in two parts viz:* Changes of a technical nature; * Amendments, requiring policy decisions with long-term impacts. Technical changes are those arising from loose drafting, shortcomings coming to notice, inter-alia, on the basis of court decisions, softening the harshness of the existing law,

changes, having short-term impacts, etc. Policy decision changes are of a strategic nature, changing system of assessment; bring new concepts hitherto not existing like Dispute Resolution procedure regarding GAAR, retrospective amendments, etc. Â&#x2021; 2QO\ WHFKQLFDO DPHQGPHQWV should be made through Finance Bills, barring those needing urgent action. The policy changes should be made through Amendment Acts after their examination by the Finance Ministryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Committeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s examination, where necessary. In suggesting changes, the need for transparency amongst others like the following should be indicated: [a] What is sought to be achieved; [b] how it is proposed to be achieved; and [c] what would be the reaction to the proposed changes in the existing social, economic and political set up, mentioning the relevancy of changes to be made. In summing up, it could be said that changes in the IT Act need not be a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fate accompliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the country. The law should not be changed in haste and in ad hoc manner. Tax reform is a broader concept and has to aim seriously at improving the working of tax laws from the angle of taxpayers and tax administration on a long-term basis through efficient functioning of tax law. For this, the pre-requisites are the 8 Ps, viz. political will, purposive clarity, perspectives, perceptions, planning, patience and perseverance. The ad hoc exercises as are being done currently cannot be conducive to having a simple, efficient, revenue yielding and easy to administer IT law. g The writer is former Chairman, CBDT

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

FIRST STIRRINGS naresh chandra saxena

Man of Ideas NC Saxena, who never shied away from calling a spade a spade, is arguably the only civil servant who has done over 100 research papers on governance, forestry, fiscal policy, poverty, nutrition, rural development and minorities

HANKS to his height, Naresh Chandra Saxena, born in Bareilly, got a head start in school. When his father, Krishan Swaroop Saxena, a Class III State government employee, took Naresh for admission in a school, a primary teacher asked him to solve some simple math puzzles. “I was six year old. The teacher asked me to do some sums, which I did successfully. Then looking at my height, he told me to go and sit in class five,” Saxena (75 and about 6 feet 3 inches tall) recalls, disclosing how he never had to do first four primary classes. Owing to the skip, he did his first masters in physics from Allahabad University when he was still in his teens. Since he was not yet eligible for either appearing in an exam or applying for a job, he utilised the time for doing a second masters (in mathematics). Saxena’s first inclination was to get into academics. Therefore, he started teaching in the university. However, he did not quite like the atmosphere. He says there was rampant ‘groupism’, ‘casteism’ and ‘dirty politics’ in teaching. Dejected with this, he appeared in Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination in 1963. He says his English and General Knowledge were poor and interview did not go off that well. On April 4, 1964, the day the UPSC result was to be announced, he went

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to a theatre in Allahabad to watch an English comedy, Knock on Wood. When he returned from the movie, his senior in the neighborhood, RS Gupta, called him to his house and told him to touch his feet. He told him that he had topped in the IAS examination at all India level and his name had been announced on All India Radio (in those days names of top ten of the civil services examination were announced on the radio). He visited office of Amrit Bazar Patrika, a local newspaper, to confirm the news. Saxena joined Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration as a probationer on June 25, 1964. He observed his 22nd birthday over a month later in the academy and was youngest in his 1964 batch.

For formulation of a good policy, he believed, good domain knowledge was a must. Continuation of studies and busy postings made his first 15 years in the IAS very exciting. During this period, he served as City Magistrate in Kanpur and District Magistrate in Aligarh and Agra

However, the academic in him never left. For formulation of a good policy, he believed, good domain knowledge was a must. Continuation of studies and busy postings made his first 15 years in the IAS very exciting. During this period, he served as City Magistrate in Kanpur and District Magistrate in Aligarh and Agra. However, once busy postings gave way to ‘an-hour-of-work’ positions, things started changing for the worse. To top it all, he soon realised that networking was not in his nature and he loved calling a spade a spade and throwing ideas through papers published in research journals and newspapers. In 1980 after he became Secretary, Land Reforms Department, in Uttar Pradesh, he issued a circular to all district magistrates, proposing that the government should acquire agricultural land of people earning more than Rs 10,000 a year from other sources. “Rs 10,000 in those days was a big sum,” he recollects. However, his idea was shot down contemptuously by the higher ups in the State bureaucracy and politics. At the same time, he wanted women to be given rights over land in families and was against allocation of tribal land in Udham Singh Nagar and surrounding areas to Punjabis. The then Chief Minister, Narain Dutt Tiwari, did not like any of these

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PHOTOS: RAVI BATRA

ideas. Saxena remembers having been told upfront by Tiwari, “Saxena sahib, you only stick to writing your (research) papers.”

UBSEQUENTLY, in September 1982, when riots broke out in Meerut and PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary), a State paramilitary force, was given orders to shoot at rioters, he criticised the handling of the situation. The result was that the then Union Home Secretary was extremely upset with him, gave him a warning after asking him how dare he wrote against the government. His research on backwardness of

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minorities and Muslims in particular in India threw startling results in 1983 during his short stint in minorities’ commission. “I came to a conclusion that essential conditions for minorities’ uplift do not exist. Firstly, all political parties should have same outlook towards minorities the way they have towards scheduled castes. Secondly, there should be no tinkering with the balance—Ram temple was unlocked when the government wanted to please Hindus and then Shah Bano verdict was overturned to please Muslims. This kind of tinkering will lead to more polarisation. Thirdly, there is no consensus— political and social—on how minori-

ties should be treated,” he claims. He felt there were high degree of prejudices among Hindus against Muslims, some formed by real events and some by biases. His paper got a lot of angry reactions. As a punishment for all these, he got posted in Indian Embassy in Afghanistan as a rural development expert from 1983 to 1985. He says since the rural areas were under Russian control, he got to visit a village much later in his tenure. In 1985, he did a paper for Mainstream magazine on which castes lost and gained lands during less than four decades after Independence. From 1985 to 1987, he was Joint Secretary in Union Ministry

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

FIRST STIRRINGS naresh chandra saxena

of Environment and Forests. Saxena did a doctorate on agro-forestry in India from Oxford University in Britain between 1989 and 1992.

N 1997, when Saxena was Secretary, Union Ministry of Rural Development, he got to know that district collectors and District Rural Development (DRDA) Agency officials in Uttar Pradesh were auctioning public funds meant for Employment Assurance Scheme (the scheme patterned on MNREGS promised 100 days of assured employment to rural poor). He wrote a stinging letter to the then state Chief Secretary, RS Mathur, demanding an inquiry. “There is an informal bidding among the departments, and whichever department is able to offer the highest amount of bribe to the Collector is able to get the EAS

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

His research on backwardness of minorities and Muslims in particular in India threw startling results in 1983 during his short stint in minorities’ commission. “I came to a conclusion that essential conditions for minorities’ uplift do not exist funds.” His letter alleged that 50 to 60 per cent of the funds were “thus spent on bribes, and the real benefit to the people is thus reduced by at least 50 per cent”. The communication led to an institution of an inquiry and suspension of a number of soil conservation officers. During this two-year stint in the

Rural Development Ministry, he also got on the wrong side of top bureaucracy and political class in Bihar. He wrote to then Bihar Chief Secretary, BP Verma, that the State bureaucrats were corrupt like politicians and spent only 2 per cent of the budget in rural areas. He was warned not to visit Bihar or be prepared to get his legs broken. From 1999 to 2002, Saxena was Secretary, Planning Commission. Here he incurred the displeasure of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with a critical report on the midterm evaluation of the ninth five-year plan. “Vajpayee asked me to make a presentation on tribal issues. The presentation talked about alienation, indebtedness, non-implementation of PESA—Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996— forest policy and displacement of

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tribals,” he remembers. During the presentation, Vajpayee seemed to have closed his eyes. Saxena thought the Prime Minister was tired and feeling drowsy. Later, he heard from NK Singh in the PMO that the Prime Minister did not approve of his report. The report was subsequently placed before the National Integration Council (NIC) and accepted. In a report on October 8, 2000, The Economist said that the report read like a ‘criminal chargesheet’. On the positive side, the report led to creation of Tribal Affairs Ministry in the Union Cabinet. Saxena retired as Secretary, Planning Commission, on July 31, 2002. In 2004, he was appointed member of Sonia Gandhi-chaired National Advisory Council (NAC). He served there for eight years (2004-2008 and 2010-2014). Here he successful-

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ly pushed for land rights for women and pro-tribal forests act. The NAC proved a catalyst in legislation of Right to Information Act (RTI), Right to Education Act, Employment Guarantee Act, Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Act.

OWEVER, the council failed to push through a controversial communal violence bill. Saxena is critical of the Right to Education Act, Land Acquisition Act and the communal violence bill. He says, Land Acquisition Act creates too many committees and will only benefit civil society and the bureaucrats. He finds the Right to Education Act and the communal violence bill discriminatory against private schools and majority community, respectively. He is of the view that the former will place an additional burden on

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). Saxena is extremely critical of the role of the civil society and believes that civil society activists work with their hearts and not with their brains. In an article published on January 2, 2013 in Indian Express, he wrote that the NGO activists ‘are populists and cater to a constituency of habitual seminar participants….and believe in development being a zero-sum game where the poor can benefit only when the rich are losing out’. Saxena is arguably the only civil servant who has done over 100 research papers on governance, forestry, fiscal policy, poverty, nutrition, rural development and minorities. He lives in South Delhi with his Muslim wife, Naomi, and daughter, Jhilmil Breckenridge, who is married to an American Christian. g As told to Narendra Kaushik

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

STOCK DOCTOR dr gs sood

In a sweet spot

HE market is witnessing an unprecedented bull run post the BJP coming to power in four of the five states that have gone to polls recently for the simple reason that investors have started presuming a big win for the BJP in the 2019 general elections. Also, by that time, the BJP is likely to cross yet another hurdle of having a clear majority in Rajya Sabha as well giving it the full freedom to go in for bolder and big ticket reforms. If at all the market witnesses any correction, it would be more due to global reasons than domestic ones. The bull run may otherwise continue uninterrupted despite the valuations looking a bit stretched and there being urgency for the earnings to catch up. The BSE Sensex is trading at a PE of 22.3x Fy17 and 18x FY18 earnings. The mid-cap index is currently at 30.2x and small cap index at whopping 64.5x But investors should keep one thing in mind that stretched valuations may continue for longer than what most analysts may believe since that may be governed more by liquidity that happens to be in abundance and the fact that India continues to be a sweet spot in the world devoid of worthwhile investing stories. Also, though the investment cycle may not pick up any time soon due to stressed balance sheets of the banking sector and lower than optimum capacity utilisation in many of the industries/sectors, consumption has bounced back post demonetisation. Exports too have shown promise by registering high double-digit growth in February. The de-leveraging of balance sheets and softening of interest rates are

likely to be soon reflected in earnings. With both operating and financial leverage playing out for companies, corporate earnings will get a boost. Global news has by and large been benign especially post US elections, though concerns are being raised over the effectiveness of policies of the US administration or reforms getting delayed. News from China too has fairly been positive and most of the concerns appear to have been discounted by the market. However, analysts are of the view that looking to the current valuations, the market may struggle to give any worthwhile returns in FY18. The earning estimates too have been downgraded for FY18 and FY19 mainly due to lack of private corporate investment and implementation of GST that may

cause inflation to rise and growth to moderate. Strong FII inflows have made the rupee one of the best performing currencies in the world, though higher US bond yields and a stronger dollar may cause some concerns for emerging markets. The country may see considerable progress in reforms like land acquisition, labour reforms, foreign direct invetment, crack down on corruption and black money, and reforms in governance aimed at ensuring effective delivery of government services. Investors are advised to take stock specific investment calls with a time horizon of 2-3 years since the corporate sector is going to benefit largely due to the measures taken to widen the ambit of the formal economy and shrink the informal economy. g

Stock Shop BY

RAKESH BHARDWAJ

Nahar Spinning Mills (CMP ` 137)

NE of the largest integrated textile players in India with an ISO 9002 certification, the company has seven multi location plants producing superfine quality yarn being used by the manufacturers of fine quality garments for exports. The company manufactures a complete range of products that include hosiery garments, woollen knitwear and textiles, and cotton and synthetic yarn. Its products are exported to reputed international brands such as GAP, Arrow, Old Navy, Banana Republic, etc. Over 60 per cent of its products are aimed at export markets of US, UK,

France, Brazil, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Hondurus, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Egypt and Russia. The company has received many awards and achievements for its quality products. The stock is available at very attractive valuations with PE being at 10 despite the profits of the December quarter getting adversely impacted due to demonetisation as against the industry PE of 22. The current market price is at a steep discount to its book value of `222. The stock can be a multibagger with very limited downside since very low equity available as floating stock and big accumulation may take the stock to a very high level in 2-3 years.

The author has no exposure in the stock recommended in this column. gfiles does not accept responsibility for investment decisions by readers of this column. Investment-related queries may be sent to editor@gfilesindia.com with Bhardwaj’s name in the subject line.

gfiles inside the government

vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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www.gfilesindia.com

STOCK DOCTOR dr gs sood

www.indianbuzz.com

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

birthdays IAS officers’ birthdays Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

IAS officers’ birthdays Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

Kamal Kant Mittal

Vikrant Pandey

M Padma

C Murugan

CADRE : ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE : GUJRAT

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

Cadre : West Bengal

mittalkk@ias.nic.in

Vikrant.p@ias.nic.in

mpadma.ias@ias.nic.in

c.murugan@ias.nic.in

Vinay Chand Vadarevu

Niharika Barik

Sunil Kumar Jain

Dr Muthukumarasamy B

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

CADRE : CHATTISGARH

Cadre : Uttar Pradesh

vc.vadarevu@ias.nic.in

niharika@ias.nic.in

Sunilkumar.jain@ias.nic.in

mk.samy@ias.nic.in

Bhim Singh

Arvind Agrawal

Hage Khoda

PT Nalawade

CADRE : CHATTISGARH

CADRE : GUJRAT

Cadre: Union Territory

Cadre : Maharashtra

bhim.singh75@ias.nic.in

arvinda@ias.nic.in

Khodah@ias.nic.in

nalawade@ias.nic.in

Basavaraju S

MS Manivannan

Atul Kumar

Gulshan Bamra

CADRE : CHATTISGARH

CADRE : ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

Cadre : haryana

Cadre: Madhya Pradesh

basavaraju.s@ias.nic.in

m.s.manivanan@ias.nic.in

atul.kr@ias.nic.in

bamra.gulshan@ias.nic.in

Hira Lal Nayak

Srikant Nagulapalli

Hukum Singh Meena

Dr TV Somanathan

CADRE : CHATTISGARH

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

Cadre: Bihar

cadre: tamil nadu

hiralal.nayak@ias.nic.in

nagulapa@ias.nic.in

Meenahs@ias.nic.in

tv.somanathan@ias.nic.in

Rakesh Kmar

Amit Kumar

Mahesh Kumar Gupta

Ram Singh Thakur

CADRE : ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE : BIHAR

Cadre: Uttar Pradesh

CADRE : CHATTISGARH

Rakesh.kumar@ias.nic.in

amit.k12@ias.nic.in

guptamk1@ias.nic.in

thakur.ramsingh@ias.nic.in

Jagmohan Singh Raju

Swaroop P

Rama Raman

Shainamol A

CADRE : TAMIL NADU

CADRE : GUJRAT

Cadre: uttar Pradesh

Cadre : Himachal Pradesh

rajujs@ias.nic.in

swaropp@ias.nic.in

ramanr@ias.nic.in

shainamol@ias.nic.in

Neeraj Kumar Gupta

Nishant Warwade

PV Jagan Mohan

Girish SN

CADRE : UTTAR PRADESH

CADRE : MADHYA PRADESH

Cadre: uttar Pradesh

Cadre: Orissa

guptank82@ias.nic.in

nwarwade03@ias.nic.in

Mohanpj@ias.nic.in

Sngirish@ias.nic.in

Ashok Kumar Angurana

S Suhail Ali

M Dana Kishore

Anita Singh

CADRE : JAMMU & KASHMIR

CADRE : MADHYA PRADESH

Cadre: Telangana

CADRE : UTTAR PRADESH

angurana@ias.nic.in

suhailali.ias@ias.nic.in

kishorem@ias.nic.in

sanita@ias.nic.in

Praveen Kumar Kolaventy

M Angamuthu

V L Kantha Rao

S.M. Kendrekar

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

CADRE : ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

Cadre: Madhya Pradesh

Cadre : Maharashtra

kolavent@ias.nic.in

angmuthu@ias.nic.in

Kantha@ias.nic.in

sm.kendrekar@ias.nic.in

LV Subramanyam

Ashwini Kumar

Dr Rajiv Sharma

M Sathiyavathy

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

CADRE : GUJRAT

Cadre: Telangana

Cadre: Union Territory

subralv@ias.nic.in

kshwini@ias.nic.in

srajiv2@ias.nic.in

sathiya@ias.nic.in

Preetom Kumar Saikia

Rabindra Panwar

Mahesh R Zagade

Arvind Singh

CADRE : ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE : BIHAR

cadre : Maharashtra

CADRE : MAHARASHTRA

pk.saikia@ias.nic.in

panwarr@ias.nic.in

Zagademr@ias.nic.in

sarvind@ias.nic.in

Guruprasad Mohapatra

Preeti Sudan

Mini Antony

Aswathy S

CADRE : GUJRAT

CADRE : ANDHRA PRADESH

Cadre : Kerala

CADRE : ORISSA

mgprasad@ias.nic.in

sudanp@ias.nic.in

mini.antony@ias.nic.in

aswathys@ias.nic.in

16-04-1958

16-04-1981

16-04-1975

17-04-1979

17-04-1959

18-04-1975

19-04-1963

19-04-1958

20-04-1956

21-04-1964

22-04-1960

22-04-1961

22-04-1962

22-04-1979

23-04-1970

23-04-1960

24-04-1972

24-04-1973

25-04-1982

25-04-1978

25-04-1976

27-04-1959

28-04-1975

29-04-1960

30-04-1960

30-04-1969

01-05-1957

02-05-1977

02-05-1963

03-05-1964

04-05-1961

05-05-1959

05-10-1966

05-12-1967

06-05-1956

07-05-1958

07-05-1964

07-05-1976

09-05-1975

10-05-1956

10-05-1973

10-05-1965

11-05-1956

11-05-1982

12-05-1977

12-05-1964

13-05-1965

13-05-1958

14-05-1963

15-05-1977

For the complete list, see www.gfilesindia.com

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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IPS officers’ birthdays Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

Soorya Thankappan

Siddh Nath Gupta

Sanjay Bainiwal

K Ramachandra Rao

CADRE: ORISSA

CADRE: WEST BENGAL

CADRE: AGMUT

CADRE: KARNATAKA

soorya@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

sngupta@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

sanjayb@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

kramachandrarao@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Gaurav Yadav

S Narayan Singh

Rajeev Sabharwal

G Venkataraman

CADRE: PUNJAB

CADRE: ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE: UTTAR PRADESH

CADRE: TAMIL NADU

gauravyadav@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

snarayansingh@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

rsabharwal@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

vankataraman@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

S Sarvesh Raj

Bibhuti Bhushan Pradhan

Satish Golcha

RG Kadam

CADRE: TAMIL NADU

CADRE: JHARKHAND

CADRE: AGMUT

CADRE: MAHARASHTRA

sarveshraj@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

bibpradhan@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

satish@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

kadam@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Prashant Anand

PS Sandhu

Bhanu Bhaskar

Arun Kumar Sinha

CADRE: JHARKHAND

CADRE: KARNATAKA

CADRE: UTTAR PRADESH

CADRE: KERALA

prashantanand@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

pssandhu@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

bhanubhaskar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

arunkumar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Alok Mohan

Akshaya Kumar Mishra

Mukesh Sahay

Binod Kumar Singh

CADRE: KARNATAKA

CADRE: RAJASTHAN

CADRE: ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE: UTTAR PRADESH

alokmohan@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

akmishra@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

mukeshsahay@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

binod@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Sanjay Kundu

Arpit Shukla

Ram Singh

Ashish Bhatia

CADRE: HIMACHAL PRADESH

CADRE: PUNJAB

CADRE: GUJARAT

sanjaykundu@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

arpit@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

ramsingh@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

ashishbhatia@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Guite Thangkhanlal

Sandeep Goel

J Rajendran

Balram Kumar Upadhyay

CADRE: RAJASTHAN

CADRE: AGMUT

CADRE: TAMIL NADU

CADRE: KERALA

thangkhanlal@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

sandeepg@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

jrajendran@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

bkupadhyay@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Sanjay Srivastava

Padam Kumar Garg

SS Trivedi

Anita Punj

CADRE: GUJARAT

CADRE: KARNATAKA

CADRE: GUJARAT

CADRE: PUNJAB

sanjay_s@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

pkgarg@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

sstrivedi@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

anitapunj@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Jaijeet Singh

Ranjan Dwivedi

SN Seshasai

SR Samuel

CADRE: MAHARASHTRA

CADRE: UTTAR PRADESH

CADRE: TAMIL NADU

CADRE: JAMMU & KASHMIR

jaijeetsingh@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

rdwivedi@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

seshasai@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

srsamuel@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Keshav Kumar

Deepak Choudhary

Sandeep Shandilya

Anand Kumar Srivastava

CADRE: GUJRAT

CADRE: ASSAM-MEGHALAYA

CADRE: TELANGANA

CADRE: RAJASTHAN

keshavkumar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

cdeepak@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

sandeep@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

aksrivastava@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Rupinder Singh

K Padmakumar

AK Surolia

Arun Jeji Chakravarthy

CADRE: RAJASTHAN

CADRE: KERALA

CADRE: GUJARAT

CADRE: KARNATAKA

rupinder@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

padmakumar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

aksurolia@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

arunjejic@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Saurabh Srivastava

B Shiva Dhar Reddy

Anand Pratap Singh

Jacob Thomas

CADRE: RAJASTHAN

CADRE: TELEGANA

CADRE: HIMACHAL PRADESH

CADRE: KERALA

saurabh@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

shivadhar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

apsingh@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

jacobthomas@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

Rajesh Kumar Yadav

Niket Kaushik

Atul Verma

N Shivakumar

CADRE: WEST BENGAL

CADRE: MAHARASHTRA

CADRE: HIMACHAL PRADESH

CADRE: KARNATAKA

yadavrk@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

nkaushik@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

atulverma@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

nshivakumar@mail.svpnpa.gov.in

16-04-1976

22-04-1966

16-04-1969

22-04-1964

17/04/1988

23-04-1959

17/04/1984

23-04-1963

18-04-1965

24-04-1961

18-04-1964

24-04-1966

20-04-1961

25-04-1966

20-04-1963

26-04-1961

21-04-1964

26-04-1956

21-04-1961

21-04-1971

21-04-1963

22-04-1973

26-04-1976

27-04-1965

28-04-1966

29-04-1971

29-04-1964

30-04-1969

30-04-1967

01-05-1973

01-05-1958

02-05-1969

03-05-1956

03-05-1959

04-05-1960

04-05-1964

05-05-1960

05-05-1971

06-05-1965

07-05-1966

08-05-1968

08-05-1960

09-05-1963

09-05-1971

10-05-1962

10-05-1970

11-05-1967

12-05-1973

13-05-1967

14-05-1967

15-05-1960

15-05-1962

For the complete list, see www.gfilesindia.com

www.indianbuzz.com

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

birthdays Lok Sabha Members Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

Lok Sabha Members Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

Thangso Baite

Smt Anupriya Patel

PK Sreemathi Teacher

kd.patle@sansad.nic.in

INC Outer Manipur (Manipur)

Apna Dal Mirzapur (Uttar Pradesh)

CPI(M) Kannur(Kerala)

B Senguttuvan

t.baite@sansad.nic.in

anupriyasingh.patel@sansad.nic.in

pk.sreemathi@sansad.nic.in

06-05-1956

Kariya Munda

Pradan Baruah

Konakalla Narayana Rao

senguttuvanb.adv@gmail.com

BJP Khunti (Jharkhand)

BJP Lakhimpur(Assam)

TDP Machilipatnam(Andhra Pradesh)

Shailesh (Bulo Mandal) Kumar

kariya.munda@sansad.nic.in

baruah.pradan@gmail.com

knro12699@gmail.com

06-05-1975

P Karunakaran

Meenakashi Lekhi

Sidhant Mohapatra

shailesh.kumar19@sansad.nic.in

CPI(M) Kasaragod (Kerala)

BJP New Delhi(NCT of Delhi)

BJD Berhampur(Odisha)

karunakaran.p@sansad.nic.in

meenakashi.lekhi@sansad.nic.in

sidhant.mohapatra@sansad.nic.in

Keshav Prasad (Kushwaha) Maurya

MK Raghavan

Janardan Mishra

C Mahendran

BJP Phulpur(Uttar Pradesh)

INC Kozhikode (Kerala)

BJP Rewa (Madhya Pradesh)

AIADMK Pollachi (Tamil Nadu)

mk.raghavan@sansad.nic.in

janardan.bjp@gmail.com

mahendran.c@sansad.nic.in

Muzaffar Hussain Baig

Jayant Sinha

Bijoy Chandra Barman

Natubhai Gomanbhai Patel

J&KPDP Baramulla (Jammu and Kashmir)

BJP Hazaribagh (Jharkhand)

AITC Jalpaiguri(West Bengal)

BJP Dadra and Nagar Haveli

jayant.sinha19@sansad.nic.in

bc.barman@sansad.nic.in

dnhmp2009@gmail.com

Shivaji Adhalrao Patil

P Kumar

Anto Antony

Rama Devi

SS Shirur (Maharashtra)

AIADMK Tiruchirappalli (Tamil Nadu)

INC Pathanamthitta(Kerala)

BJP Sheohar(Bihar)

anto.antony@sansad.nic.in

rama.devi19@sansad.nic.in

Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy

Kamla Devi Patle

YSR Congress Party Ongole (Andhra Pradesh)

BJP Janjgir-Champa (Chhattisgarh)

17-04-1953

20-04-1936

20-04-1945

21-04-1952

21-04-1963

21-04-1971 p.kumar@sansad.nic.in

Naranbhai Bhikhabhai Kachhadiya 25-04-1955

BJP Amreli (Gujarat)

28-04-1981

30-04-1965

30-04-1967

01-05-1956

01-05-1957

01-05-1960

04-05-1949

04-05-1950

04-05-1966

04-05-1972

05-05-1949

05-05-1966

yvsubba.reddy@sansad.nic.in

mpamreli@gmail.com

Ram Charitra Nishad

Subhash Patel

BJP Machhlishahr (Uttar Pradesh)

01-05-1964

joice.george@sansad.nic.in

Dr (Prof) Prasanna Kumar Patasani 27-04-1946

BJD Bhubaneswar (Odisha)

prasanna.patasani@sansad.nic.in

Prof Ravindra Vishwanath Gaikwad 27-04-1960

SS Osmanabad (Maharashtra)

prof.ravi@sansad.nic.in

Dr Ponnusamy Venugopal 28-04-1952

AIADMK Tiruvallur (Tamil Nadu)

p.venugopal@sansad.nic.in

08-05-1946

muzaffar.baig@sansad.nic.in

08-05-1956

shivajirao@sansad.nic.in

General (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh (Retd.) 10-05-1951

BJP Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh)

vksingh.mp@sansad.nic.in

AITC (West Bengal)

SDF (Sikkim)

Naba (Hira) Kumar Sarania

roy.mukul@sansad.nic.in

h.lachungpa@sansad.nic.in

Ind. Kokrajhar(Assam)

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

Meghraj Jain

Nominated

BJP (Madhya Pradesh)

(Adv.) Joice George Ind. Idukki (Kerala)

keshav.prasad@sansad.nic.in

Lachungpa

subhash.patel@sansad.nic.in

26-04-1970

07-05-1969

Mukul Roy 17-04-1954

BJP Khargone (Madhya Pradesh)

RJD Bhagalpur (Bihar)

Rajya Sabha Members Apr 16, 2017 — May 15, 2017

ram.charitra@sansad.nic.in

25-04-1978

AIADMK Vellore (Tamil Nadu)

01-05-1969

10-05-1967

saranianabakumar@yahoo.com

24-04-1973

Dr Ravindra Kumar Ray

Sachin.t@sansad.nic.in, mp@srt10.in. Meghraj.jain@sansad.nic.in

BJP Kodarma(Jharkhand)

Shwait Malik

KK Ragesh

02-05-1958

13-05-1943

ravindrak.ray@sansad.nic.in

29-04-1963 BJP (Punjab)

CPI(M)(Kerala)

Satish Chandra Dubey

Shwait.malik@sansad.nic.in

kk.ragesh@sansad.nic.in

BJP Valmiki Nagar(Bihar)

Anil Desai

Tiruchi Siva

02-05-1975

13-05-1970

satishchandra.dubey@sansad.nic.in

02-05-1957 SS (Maharashtra)

15-05-1954

DMK (Tamil Nadu)

Elumalai V

Anil.desai@sansad.nic.in

Tiruchi.siva@sansad.nic.in

03-05-1955

AIADMK Arani (Tamil Nadu)

v.elumalai@sansad.nic.in

Sushree Uma Bharati 03-05-1959

BJP Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh)

uma.bharati@sansad.nic.in

SEND YOUR GREETINGS…

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For the complete list, see www.gfilesindia.com

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

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Hurrah! NEW LOOK!

years

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For the complete list, see www.gfilesindia.com

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

Tracking

For a complete list of appointments & retirements, see www.gfilesindia.com

NALINI NETTO

ANITA KARWAL

The 1981-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre has been appointed Chief Secretary of Kerala.

APPOINTMENTS IN HIGH COURT Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh has been appointed Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court. Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan has been appointed Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court. Justice Hemant Gupta has been appointed Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Justice Rajendra Menon has been appointed Chief Justice of the Patna High Court. Justice Pradip Kumar Mohanty has been appointed Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court.

SUMIT MULLICK The 1982-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre has been appointed Chief Secretary of Maharashtra.

JS DEEPAK The 1982-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre has been appointed Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to the World Trade Organisation, Geneva.

KK SHARMA The 1983-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre has been appointed Secretary Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

NUTAN GUHA BISWAS The 1983-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre has been appointed Chairperson, Inland Waterways Authority of India under the Ministry of Shipping

U VENKATESWARLU The 1986-batch IAS officer of the Tripura cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Social Justice & Empowerment.

NIRANJAN MARDI

T JACOB The 1984-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre has been appointed Secretary (AS level), Union Public Service Commission.

SUBRATA BISWAS The 1985 batch IAS officer has been appointed Assistant Chief Secretary, Home, in Kerala.

The 1986-batch IAS officer has been appointed Principal Secretary, Home, Prohibition and Excise Department, in Tamil Nadu.

APURVA VARMA The 1987-batch IAS officer has been appointed Principal Secretary, Tourism, Culture and Religious Endowments Department, in Tamil Nadu.

Moving On: IAS officers retiring in April 2017 ANDHRA PRADESH

Jagdish Chander Sharma (1985)

JAMMU AND KASHMIR Gazzanfar Hussain (1998)

MAHARASHTRA SS Zende (1993)

ORISSA

Dr Sangram Keshrai Ray (2001)

RAJASTHAN

Hansa Singh Dev (1994)

TRIPURA

Saumitra Bandopadhyay (2002)

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

The 1988-batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy.

DEEPAK KUMAR The 1990 batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre has been appointed Executive Director at Joint Secretary level, India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO).

ASHOK KR PARMAR The 1992-batch IAS officer of the Jammu & Kashmir cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

MIHIR K SINGH The 1993-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries.

MANOJ KUMAR PINGUA The 1994-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

TEJVEER SINGH The 1994-batch IAS officer of the Punjab cadre has been appointed Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister in Punjab.

G JAYALAKSHMI The 1995-batch IAS officer of the Andhra Pradesh cadre has been appointed Director General, National Institute of Plant health Management(NIPHM).

UTTAR PRADESH

CHANDRAKAR BHARTI

UNION TERRITORY

The 1996-batch IAS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Defence Production.

Kunwar Fateh Bahadur (1981) Pradip Bhatnagar (1982) Ved Prakash (2002) Sanjay Kumar Srivastava (1980) Janak Digal (1985) Hage Khoda (1992) Alok Swarup (2001)

WEST BENGAL

Bharat Chandra Saha (1997)

MOHAN CHAUHAN The 2000-batch IAS officer has been appointed as member of the Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (HPPSC).

ANAMIKA SINGH The 2004-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre has been appointed Deputy Secretary, NITI Aayog.

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PINGALE VIJAY MARUTI The 2004-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre has been appointed Private Secretary to Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Railways.

PRIYANKA BASU INGTY The 2004-batch IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre has been appointed Regional Director (Deputy Secretary level) in the Staff Selection Commission, Kolkata.

RUBAL AGARWAL The 2008-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Shri Saibaba Shirdi Sansthan Trust (SSST).

RAGHVENDRA SINGH The 2013-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre has been appointed SDO, Jainagar, Madhubani.

RINA MITRA The 1983-batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre has been appointed Special Secretary (Internal Security), Ministry of Home Affairs.

DR DOLEY The 1986-batch IPS officer of the Jammu & Kashmir cadre has been appointed Director, Sardar Patel National Police Academy (SPNPA) Hyderabad.

DINKAR GUPTA The 1987-batch IPS officer has been appointed ADG, Intelligence, in Punjab.

ARUN KUMAR SHARMA

RESHUFFLE OF IAS OFFICERS IN WEST BENGAL PB SALIM has been appointed Secretary, Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department; JOYOSHI DAS GUPTA has been appointed District Magistrate of the District of Darjeeling; SAUMITRA MOHAN has been appointed Additional Secretary, Health and Family Welfare; PRITHA SARKAR has been appointed Commissioner, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation; SUNIL KUMAR GUPTA has been appointed Principal Secretary, WRI&D Department with additional charge of Fisheries; INDEVAR PANDEY has been appointed Principal Secretary, PWD with additional charge of Principal Resident Commissioner, New Delhi, West Bengal and MD, WBHDCL; S SURESH KUMAR has been appointed Principal Secretary, Disaster Management and Civil Defence; MANOJ KUMAR AGARWAL has been appointed Food Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Food & Supplies; ANIL VERMA has been appointed Principal Secretary, Self Help Group & Self Employment Department; ANOOP KUMAR AGRAWAL has been appointed Secretary, Planning, Statistics and Programme Monitoring; ANURAG SRIVASTAVA has been appointed District Magistrate of the District of Burdwan; Y RATNAKARA RAO has been appointed District Magistrate of the District of South 24-Parganas; SHARAD KUMAR DWIVEDI has been appointed District Magistrate of the District of Murshidabad; TANMAY CHAKRABARTY has been appointed District Magistrate of the District of Malda; PRABHAT KUMAR MISHRA has been appointed Secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms & e-Governance; PRADIP GOBINDA CHAUDHURI has been appointed Financial Advisor, Agriculture Department; GOPAL CHANDRA DAS has been appointed Financial Advisor, Food & Supplies Department; TALLEEN KUMAR has been appointed Principal Secretary, Paschimanchal Unnayan affairs; A SUBBIAH has been appointed Commissioner, Medinipur Division with additional charge of MD and Vice Chairman, WBECSC.

Public Service Commission with additional charge of Chairman, State Level Police Recruitment Board, AP and Inspector General of Police (Training).

SIDDHARTHA NATH

SAI MANOHAR

BIRENDER SINGH YADAV

The 1995-batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre has been appointed Joint Director, Chandigarh and SIT.

The 1997-batch IFS officer has been appointed Ambassador of India to the Republic of Togo, with residence in Accra (Ghana).

JYOTI NARAYAN

The 1987-batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre has been appointed Joint Director CBI (Policy and Anti Corruption) in the CBI.

The 1996-batch IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre has been appointed Joint Commissioner of Security (Civil Aviation), Bureau of Civil Aviation (BCAS).

BK UPPAL

MANJEEV SINGH PURI

The 1991-batch IPS officer has been appointed Chief of Vigilance Bureau in Punjab.

The 1982-batch IFS officer has been appointed Ambassador of India to Nepal.

ALOK RANJAN

The 1982-batch IFS officer has been appointed Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs.

The 1991-batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre has been appointed Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL).

ATUL SINGH The 1995-batch IPS officer has been appointed Secretary, Andhra Pradesh

www.indianbuzz.com

RUCHI GHANSHYAM

ASHOK WARRIER Ashok Warrier has been concurrently accredited as Ambassador of India to the Republic of Gabon.

The 2003-batch IFS officer has been appointed Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office.

SURESH CHANDRA GAIROLA The 1982-batch IFS officer of the Maharashtra cadre has been relieved to join as Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education (ICFRE).

SUNITA SINGH The 1987-batch IFS officer of the Maharashtra cadre has been appointed Chief Vigilance Officer, Rural Electrification Corporation Limited (REC), Delhi.

D BALA VENKATESH VARMA The 1988-batch IFS officer has been concurrently accredited as Ambassador of India to the Andorra.

P SUBRAMANYAM The 1992-batch IFS officer of the AGMUT

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

Tracking

For a complete list of appointments & retirements, see www.gfilesindia.com

cadre has been appointed Conservator of Forests, Regional office, Chennai

appointed Special Duty(Legal) in Legal Cell, CBEC.

KAMAL DUTTA

DEEPAK CHATURVEDI

The 1994-batch IFS officer of the AGMUT cadre has been appointed Deputy Inspector General of Forests, Department of Land Resources.

The 1983-batch ITS officer has been appointed Chief Vigilance Officer, Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), Mumbai.

RENU SINGH

The 1986-batch IFoS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre has been appointed Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

The 1997-batch IFS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre has been appointed Director, National Zoological Park, New Delhi.

NARESH KUMAR

VINOD KUMAR TIWARI

VENUDHAR REDDY NUKALA The 1988-batch IIS officer has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Investment & Public Asset Management.

The 1999-batch IFS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre has been appointed Deputy Inspector General of Forests, National Afforestation Board.

NIVA SINGH The 1988-batch IRAS officer has been appointed Joint Secretary, Ministry of Minority Affairs.

RAJESH KALLAJE The 2001-batch IFS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre has been appointed Senior Deputy Director, Forest Survey of India, Bangalore.

VANDITA KAUL The 1989-batch IPoS officer has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Financial Services.

RAJA RAM SINGH The 2006-batch IFS officer has been appointed Joint Director, National Zoological Park, New Delhi.

DR BINOD KUMAR SINHA The IRS-IT officer has been appointed Principal CIT, office of Principal CCIT, Delhi.

RUBY SRIVASTAVA

RAMAN KANT MISHRA The 1990-batch IFoS offcer of the Punjab cadre has been appointed Additional DG, Joint Secretary level, National Museum, Ministry of Culture.

SANDHYA SHUKLA

The 1986-batch IRS-IT officer has been appointed Director (Finance), NPCIL, under the Department of Atomic Energy.

The 1991-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Financial Commissioner, ESIC under the Ministry of Labour & Employment.

YVST SAI

BHANU PRATAP YADAV

The 1993-batch IRS officer has been appointed Managing Director, AP Brahmin Welfare Corporation Limited, in Andhra Pradesh.

The 1992-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Joint Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy.

DINESH BOUDDH

The 1997 batch IPoS officer has been appointed PMG (BD), Bangalore, Karnataka.

ARVIND VARMA

The 2004-batch IRS-C&CE officer has been appointed Deputy Secretary (NC) in the Department of Revenue.

SHAILENDRA DWIVEDI

AKSHAY JOSHI The 2006-batch IRS-C&CE officer has been appointed Deputy Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.

ANISH GUPTA The 2009-batch IRS(C&CE) officer has been

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

ASHOK KUMAR The 1997-batch IPoS officer has been appointed PMG, North Region, Muzzaffarpur, Bihar.

KAMLESH KUMAR TRIPATHI The 1998-batch IP&TA&FS officer has been appointed Director, Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj.

RAJUL BHATT The 2000-batch IPoS officer has been appointed Director, Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT).

RAJEEV UMRAO The 2001-batch IPoS officer has been appointed DPS (HQ), Lucknow, UP Circle.

RANJIT SINGH The 2003-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Senior Deputy Accountant General (RS), in the office of Principal Accountant General (Audit), Punjab, Chandigarh.

MAHENDRA SINGH The 2007-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Senior Deputy Accountant General (Admn/Pens) in Accountant General (A&E)-II, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh.

YS TADVI The 2008-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Senior Deputy Accountant General (A/Cs, VLC), Accountant General (A&E)-II, Nagpur, Maharashtra.

PRATIBHA AGRAWAL The 2009-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Deputy Director in the office of Director General of Audit, Defence Services, New Delhi at branch - Delhi Cantonment.

VARUN AHLUWALIA The 2010-batch IA&AS officer has been appointed Deputy Director (AMG-V), in Director General of Audit, Economic and Service Ministries, New Delhi.

The 1997-batch IPoS officer has been appointed DDG (IR &GB), Postal Directorate.

SHRI PRAKASH

BP SRI DEVI

RIJULA UNIYAL

The 1997-batch IPoS officer has been appointed DDG, Technology, Postal Directorate.

The IRS-IT officer has been appointed Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax in Tax Policy Research Unit (TPRU).

The CSS officer has been appointed Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

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www.gfilesindia.com

...by the way Recruitment is an issue...

Julania gets a free hand

he Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has an uphill task as there are nearly 150 top ranking vacancies to be filled. The public sector head-hunter is working hard under the Chairmanship of Sanjay Kothari. The way the headhunters work is becoming demanding day by day; insiders feel that there should be more board members to conduct the interview and select competent professionals. PESB has to fill as many 108 board level positions in a stipulated time-frame. Reportedly, out of these 108 posts, 32 are MD/CMD level posts and 76 are Director level posts. It may be noted that for want of revision and approval of revised criteria for board-level posts, PESB had stopped advertising vacancies after June 10, 2016 and took time till February 27, 2017 to come up with the first advertisement, i.e. for the post of MD, BPRL. Since February 27, PESB has advertised as many as 43 posts including 24 MD/CMD posts. The latest post advertised on March 31, 2017 is of Director (Project & Services) CONCOR. PESB is now busy preparing the ad for 8 more posts of MD/ CMD and 52 posts of Director. The paradox in the whole process is that PESB is merely a recommending body; the actual selection is the job of concerned ministry and Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC). Even after the selection of the candidate, the file may be kept in the concerned ministry for months together as the ACC does not find the recommendation appropriate. A case in point is National Mineral Development Corporation where R Sridharan is holding charge as CMD for more than a year now. g

www.indianbuzz.com

nown for calling a spade a spade, Madhya Pradesh Additional Chief Secretary Radheshyam Julania seems in no mood to leave the State, though he was empanelled by the Centre for deputation in New Delhi last year. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, on his part, is also keen to retain this result-oreinted competent 1985-batch IAS officer till the assembly election due in December 2018. Their mutual bonding is so strong that the Chief Minister has sent signals to the bureaucracy to not mess with Julania. Defending this, Chouhan’s close aides point out how the IAS officer as principal secretary in the water resources department overhauled the irrigation system. His untiring work in the department helped Madhya Pradesh a great deal in winning the Krishi Karman award for best agricultural growth year after year in India. Last ef year, Julania was elevated as Chief Secretary and posted in Panchayat at and Rural Development Department. The new portfolio provided him with opportunities to interact with subordinate IAS officers, particularly collectors, more regularly. And atleast half a dozen of them suffered from Julania’s tongue-lashing for laxity. ty. His frequent videoconferencing with subordinates invariably resulted in at least a couple of lax officers being suspended on the spot. Julania’s first victim was controversial IAS officer Ramesh Thete, Secretary in the department. Thete even threatened to lodge an FIR against his boss and commit suicide. The Chief Minister then eased Thete out of the department. Thete’s replacement, Dipali Rastogi, refused to work under Julania. The government yielded to her request but did not shift Julania. Another IAS officer and Badwani Collector Tajasvi Nayak was publicly scolded by Julania during a departmental conference. Last month, Commissioner of Panchayati Raj, Santosh Mishra, was admitted to Bhopal’s Hamidia Hospital after suffering a mild attack following a clash with Julania. Bureaucratic circles were agog with speculation that this time round, the Chief Minister would take action against Julania. But the Chief Minister once again sided with Julania and shifted Mishra to the secretariat. g

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gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

...by the way No more corruption? More than meets the eye

he Union Territory of Daman, Diu and Dadra Nagar Haveli (DD&DNH) somehow manages to be always in the news for many reasons. First, it’s sandwiched between Maharashtra and Gujarat. Second, its administrator is autonomous and directly monitored by the Home Ministry. Third, Gujarat being a dry state, Daman, Diu becomes the marriage hub in the season and liquor flows like water. Fourth, it’s a politically volatile place. Fifth, it’s the hub of all kinds of smuggling activities. Some of Mumbai’s most powerful gangs operate from here. Most Joint Secretary rank officers are always ready to move to DD&DNH. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi quietly changed the administrative setup of DD& DNH. He appointed his trusted former home minister Praful Kodabhai Patel as its administrator and has done away with the appointment of an IAS officer. Then, SS Yadav, a 1995-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre, was appointed as advisor to the administrator. How he got this plum posting is still a mystery. Yadav was the blueeyed officer of former Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dixit. He has served as Secretary to Arvind Kejriwal too. Wait and watch DD &DNH carefully in the days to come. g

gfiles inside the government vol. 11, issue 1 | April 2017

obody can claim in Haryana that he/she has bribed Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. His integrity and honesty is beyond reproach till now. It’s an excellent sign and warning to all that corruption ridden Haryana has got a Chief Minister who’s intentions are above question. But is the Haryana government following the dictum of its leader? Some say corruption has subsided in most offices. Ground reality indicates the opposite. The HUDA (Haryana Urban Development Authority) offices are full of corruption. Nobody can get their work done without greasing palms in Tehsils and Districts. The biggest victims are sometime Haryana government employees themselves. Of late, there is a new trend emerging from Haryana Police. Every week, Police Headquarters is releasing the transfer orders of minimum 200 constables. gfiles has analysed the transfer orders; it has been observed that constables who are serving on plum postings or in big cities are being transferred to the rural areas. On further investigation, it was found that there are no such instructions from the Chief Minister’s secretariat to transfer the force in such a way. Dr KP Singh, Director-General of Police, is a very strict and no-nonsense administrator. Then who is doing it. Manohar Lal Khattar has recently streamlined the teachers’ transfer system. It appears Khattar has to streamline amline the police and policing both. g

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years

Regn.No.DL(C)-14/1161/2016-2018 Licence No. U(C)-03/2016-17, Licence to post without prepayment Posted on 7th & 8th of every month at SPM SRT Nagar, Post Office, New Delhi 110055 R.N.I. No: DELENG/2007/19719. `200, vol. 11, issue 1 | Date of Publication: 5/04/2017 | Pages 76