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Ponder over Megatrends Unleashed by PPP fad
- Published on 16 January 2016
(Image courtesy: www.pppinindia.com)
“Some countries have a legal framework for PPPs. The Committee recommends an assessment of whether enactment of PPP law will facilitate expansion of PPP into sectors including health, urban transport and other social sectors,” says the Committee on Revisiting and Revitalizing Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model of Infrastructure headed by Dr. Vijay Kelkar, Chairman, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
This innocuous observation by the Committee shows that it has failed to capture the big and true picture of the state of PPP in the country. The fact is that PPP has already become the rage in the healthcare sector with its reach extending from multi-specialty surgery camps in the countryside to intensive care unit (ICU) in Government hospitals.
Invitation to private sector entities to set up diagnostic centres, hemodialysis units and cardiac units within Government hospitals has become fashionable. So are efforts to upgrade and operate existing hospitals as PPP multi-specialty centres. The governments and their appendages are also not found wanting in promoting greenfield hospitals under different PPP formats.
Similarly, PPP has made inroads into the education sector with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) being the disgusting example of all that is wrong with PPP.
Should Prime Minister Write his Year-end Self-Assessment Report?
- Published on 01 January 2016
(Image Courtesy: narendramodi.in)
If I were Prime Minister and if I were to write my year-end, self-assessment report (SAR), what would I do? I would structure SAR around several indicators of performance in five areas.
These are 1) Foreign Affairs, 2) Governance including supervision and monitoring of Council of Ministers, policy formulation and pursuit of institutional approach; 3) Cooperative Federalism; 4) public outreach both via social media including Mann Ki Baat and ground-zero interface with stakeholders such as victims of social atrocities and agrarian crisis; and 5) My conduct as a parliamentarian including as the Leader of the Lok Sabha.
As a conscientious karm yogi with grounding at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), I would take up first the last indicator – the toughest one on which not much has been said and written in depth.
Rahul Gandhi’s barb –‘PM Modi does not have the guts to face the House (Lok Sabha)’ haunts me most as it got prominent coverage in media in August 2015.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek OBrien's jibe ‘please grant a visa to the Prime Minister of India to come to the Rajya Sabha’ rankles in mind even after one year. Other notable MPs’ taunts at my sparse attendance in Parliament are also unforgettable.
I sense people have noticed the contrast in my facial expressions under two different situations - when I sit in Lok Sabha and when I am travelling abroad to restore Indian pride, attract foreign investment and advance our strategic interests.
Before any critic says that my contrite expression at Lok Sabha seat is similar to that of a reluctant school boy forced to sit in a classroom, I must rush to Parliament library to retain my claim as the country’s Pradhan Sevak (prime servant). Library is the best place to reflect and to compare my conduct in Parliament with that of my predecessors.
FATF gets into war mode to Counter Financing of Terrorism
- Published on 22 December 2015
(Image Courtesy: FTAF)
Every global crisis serves as an opportunity for international governance bodies to reinvent or revamp their respective regulatory framework. Paris-based anti-money laundering (AML) authority Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the latest case in point.
FTAF is currently revisiting its AML and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) regulatory guidelines in the wake of growing terror incidents sponsored by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the West.
FTAF is now firing all cylinders on CFT front after ISIL-linked Paris terror attack in November 2015 and subsequent mass shooting in California by couple of Pakistan origin.
FTAF says it is determined to “contribute to efforts to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL as a terrorist organisation.”
Right to Work means Right to Wait for jobs in India
- Published on 16 December 2015
(Right to Wait for Jobs! Image Courtesy: jharkhandemployment.nic.in)
“Can you imagine any liberty being enjoyed by a citizen who goes about hungry for want of employment, who is haunted by the fear that his family would be without food as he has not got work?”
“Have we made any provision for such an individual? Can such a man have any interest in the administration except to blow it up? Unless material insecurity is eliminated, personal freedoms are paper safeguards and worth nothing.”
That was Sardar Hukam Singh putting soul-stirring questions at Constituent Assembly (CA) on 21st November 1949. He was debating draft constitution prepared by a committee headed by Dr. B.R.Ambedkar. Mr Singh and a few other CA members unsuccessfully pitched for inclusion of right to work (RTW) in the charter of fundamental rights of citizens.
RTW & other vital issues raised at CA are more valid today as Kal-Chakra (eternal cycle) of population explosion, unemployment, poverty, crime and environmental degradation is deepening its scars on the country.
It is indeed sad that these five inter-connected issues don’t figure in the #IntoleranceDebate engineered by pseudo-intellectuals and other vested interests.
Alas, Parliament too virtually avoided these issues during the two-day discussion beginning 26th November 2015 on ‘commitment to India’s Constitution as part of 125th birth anniversary celebration of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.’ Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who thankfully participated in the discussion, frittered away a golden chance to put RTW on the national agenda. He should have pitched for requisite constitutional amendment to shift RTW from Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) to Fundamental Rights in the Constitution.
If Mr. Modi acts on this political challenge, he would be completing the task left unfinished by one of his predecessors, V.P. Singh. Except for Singh’s National Front Government, all ruling political alliances have got overawed by RTW.