Many of you may have seen this photograph of Raju Narayan Swamy, IAS 1991 circulating on the internet with the title, “Every Indian Must Read and Share This. Pls Share”

The note accompanying the photograph mentions, among other things how…
After a decade of meritorious service in IAS, today, Narayanaswamy is being forced out of the IAS profession.
Leaving aside the fact that it is practically impossible to force anyone out of IAS, let us continue with the note (emphasis added)..
…Mr. Narayanaswamy is on the verge of leaving IAS to go to Paris …

..and below the surface to understand the real causes of what you see around you.
As an example, see this recent news-report about pending RTI applications…
Staff shortage results in a pile of 19,000 pending RTI appeals in Maharashtra
Does this surprise you? Probably not.
Which is why I keep making the point that the real solution must be to focus on “Open Government” rather than another law or more babus…That is how things should be..We don’t need a law (RTI) and then additional bureaucracy (staff to deal with RTI applications). Far better to insist on openness, …

Quote of the Week from the HT:

I believe and I claim that you can count the number of corrupt leaders of the political class.

Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi

From a recent news-report on Arvind Kejriwal’s visit to Lucknow (whose title is interesting in itself: गलती थी मोदी की तारीफ,आन्दोलन सांप्रदायिक हुआ तो अलग हो जाऊंगा’  - Modi’s praise was a mistake, will leave if movement becomes communal), a few excerpts & quotes that might set you thinking:
केजरीवाल ने बताया कि जब भी कोर कमेटी का विस्तार होगा, उसमें दलित व मुसलमान को भी शामिल किया जाएगा। बैठक में तय हुआ कि अब पोस्टर हिंदी के साथ उर्दू में भी छपेंगे।  [
[loose translation] Kejriwal said that whenever the core committee is expanded, …

Here is the set of slides that formed the backdrop of my talk on Politics, Governance and Entrepreneurship at IIM Indore last month…
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Politics, Governance & Enterpreneurship
View more presentations from B Shantanu

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The complete video of the talk is here.

Dear All: I finally managed to upload the video of my talk and Q&A at IIM-Indore on 1st Sept ’11…Here is the entire playlist (also below):

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These are my favourites of the lot:

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Interestingly, in an Op-Ed for Pioneer written a few days later, Shashi Shekhar made a point very similar to the one I mentioned in the Open Government, Information and RTI clip (emphasis added):
Hard questions need to be asked on why the focus of the RTI Act was not on creating an open Government where information was freely available, thus …