Government Versus Governance

Government (noun): The group of people and/ or organisations with the authority to govern a country or a state.

Governance (noun): The action or manner of governing a state.

The advent of Narendra Modi on the national stage has popularised the term “more governance, less government”. On the face of it there seems to be a contradiction. Government is what delivers governance, so how can diminishing the doer; improve what is to be done.

The resolution to this contradiction can be found in a witty exchange between Sir Humphrey Applebee (cabinet secretary) and Bernard Wooly (private secretary to the PM) in the British tele-series Yes Prime Minister:

“Sir Humphrey Applebee: Bernard, what happens at the moment if there is some vacant land in say, Nottingham and there are rival proposals for its use?

Bernard Wooly: Well, we set up an inter-departmental committee: Department of Health, Department of Education, Department of Transport…Treasury…Environment etc. Ask for papers, hold meetings propose, discuss, revise, report, redraft, report back…

Sir Humphrey Applebee: Precisely, months of fruitful work, leading to a mature and responsible conclusion. But if we have regional government, they would decide it all in Nottingham, perhaps in a couple of meetings…the complete amateurs.

Bernard Wooly: It is their city.

Sir Humphrey Applebee: …and what happens to us?! Much less work!...so we have much less power…and if the right people don’t have power…you know what happens…the wrong people get it….ordinary voters!”

Clearly the problem arises when the government (noun) becomes an organism of self preservation rather than a mechanism of delivering governance as it should have been. It is at this point that governance declines and the size of the government increases. And like with any other organism interested only in self preservation as the body of government grows it requires more resources, gets an ego to match and sets up mechanisms and processes that further only its existence at the cost of its true function.

For example, in 1985 India had 55 secretaries and 42 government ministers. Today after no less than 30 commissions have studied downsizing (1947-2007), the government has swollen to 79 ministers and 145 secretary and secretary equivalent positions.  

           Source: White elephants article by SHANKKAR AIYAR, NEERAJ MISHRA  JUNE 18, 2007

Virtually every third member of the current ruling alliance is a minister, indicating that the government has not expanded to meet any governance needs but perhaps to create jagirs that can be conferred in exchange of political support. Off the bat, several ministries seem to have lost relevance or appear redundant. Steel, Coal, Mines, Telecom and IT, Minority Affairs, North East, Railways, Statistics, Textiles, Labour, Parliamentary Affairs, Overseas Indian Affairs, HRD, Health & Family Welfare, Social justice, Women and Child Development, Youth affairs etc is an illustrative list of a few that that could be scrapped, relegated to department status or merged. Perhaps a detailed blog on this specifically might follow.

Bimal Jalan (former RBI governor) stated sometime in 2007, “If one wants to improve sports facilities for women in rural areas it is not one but seven ministries (Rural Development, Social Justice, Sports, Youth Affairs, Finance, Women and Child Welfare and Panchayati Raj besides the Planning Commission) who will be involved”. As such, multiple ministries create complexities and there is always someone else to pass the buck to, thus diminishing accountability. 

As the government now exists to grow itself, it creates structures and regulatory frameworks to justify its size. I believe that this has resulted in an “Us and Them” problem in India. “Us” being the ordinary citizens and; “Them” being the government machinery. The way India’s government operates makes it difficult for citizens to identify with it as a partner, and many feel more like pawns rather than participants in the government. Therefore ordinary citizens try to steer clear of dealing with the police, municipality, courts etc. (how many times have we heard “police ki na dosti acchi, na dushmani” in popular media without a single eyebrow being raised?). The kindest view of the government I’ve heard is that the government is our “mai-baap” (parent), which is in itself sad. Government should be an enabler, not a crutch and certainly not a nanny.

The ‘break’ between the ruler and the ruled has manifested itself in curious ways in India. Anecdotally, we have all witnessed fellow Indians breaking rules. It is usually as simple as stopping ahead of the line at traffic signals (or not stopping at all), breaking lines for admission forms in colleges, offering bribes at police stations or traffic cops or customs etc. In fact the biggest democracy in the world has the dubious reputation that parents teach their children how to offer bribes or how to bargain down a bribe. A person who unabashedly breaks the law is considered ‘street smart’. Is it not bad enough to have a moral failing without having it glorified as well? Jugaad does not represent innovation in, but a breakdown of the system.

A 2007 Harvard study for the Quarterly Journal of Economics titled “Obtaining a drivers license in India: An experimental approach to studying corruption” made several interesting points. One of which relates to social attitude to paying bribes (which supports my point above) as follows:

 

Two alternative scenarios are put up for the sample universe in which the individual has been caught driving without a license.

Scenario A: The havaldar (officer) offers the candidate the choice of paying either an Rs3,000 fine or an Rs300 bribe. (Bribe is just 10% of the official fine)

Scenario B: The havaldar offers the candidate the choice of paying either a Rs500 fine or a Rs300 bribe (difference between doing the right thing and paying a bribe is just Rs200)

81% of the participants chose to pay the bribe under scenario A. It is however worth noting that even under scenario B a staggering 61% of the population chose to pay the bribe instead being a law abiding a citizen. The study also noted that there were no significant differences in the propensity to bribe across various groups in the sample population. As a country it is indeed worrying if 61% of its population chose to break the law even when the pay off was not commensurate with the benefit. 

            Harvard study for the Quarterly Journal of Economics called “Obtaining a drivers license in India: An experimental approach to                   studying corruption”

It almost seems like Indians, who are usually an exemplary expatriate group in foreign lands, seem to love sticking it to the government for the sake of it, given half a chance. It is interesting to analyse the genesis of how this “Us” and “Them” issue that has turned India into a nation of crooked Robin Hoods.

Consider this, the Retailers Association of India (http://rai.net.in/docs/List%20of%20Licence.pdf) spells out over fifty different permissions needed for starting various types of retail stores, as below: 

I am no expert, but assuming that only half or even a third of these permissions are required for any given store, it would still amount to a small entrepreneur wrestling with 17-25 different formalities (with perhaps a different government servant for each).

Interestingly, in his book ‘India Uninc.’ Professor R Vaidyanathan, studies bribes extorted from small businessmen (shops, roadside vendors). These bribes range from Rs10-Rs50/ day per victim and are estimated to add to a staggering Rs250 crore annually per non-metro city. Clearly, these bribes are likely in lieu of looking the other way when these establishments violate some rule or do not take one or more of any of these licenses and permissions. This is unfair to those shops who incur cost and face reduced profits to complete all these onerous formalities. Eventually, all shops are encouraged to break the law in lieu of greasing palms.

Similarly, in a study on truck transport industry carried out by The Centre for Media Studies it was estimated that bribes totalling to Rs22,000 crore was paid annually on the road. This is +35% more than India’s entire higher education budget for 2013-14. Truckers admitted that they paid bribes for failing to meet norms or to avoid delays. In fact now the situation is such that 60% of the times (as per the same survey) the officials don’t even give a reason before extorting money from truckers. There was a case in 2011 when a trucker who had not violated any overloading norms was mercilessly beaten to death by police/ RTO for refusing to pay a bribe nonetheless! If a truck driver is harassed and made to pay a fine anyway, why would he be bothered to satisfy the requirements of any road rules and licensing norms?

In the mind of this hapless small businessman/ trucker who is forced to pay, what relationship does he or she share with the government: a partnership? Or that of an extortion victim? What would be the reaction of such a person when presented with an opportunity to cheat on his taxes, for instance.

This seems like a cruel joke on Frederich Hayek who described the government as an entity that formulated and enforced policies that promote individual liberty. The state of affairs, such as it is, it doesn’t surprise me that a few small businessmen I’ve met describe the government as an obstacle course rather than a smooth highway. I believe the government has (successfully) tried to enhance its own presence and influence by installing a license/ inspector Raj of sorts (though arguably better today versus 20 years back). This license Raj red tape allows those in government to twist arms and becomes an easy conduit for bribe-seeking. This is because economies where regulatory control is too complex, time consuming, dependent on whims of government officials and generally opaque allows those in power (politicians and/ or civil servants) to extract their pound of flesh in return for withholding/imposing cost or benefit.

One way to further demonstrate the red tape – bribe link is by juxtaposing the ‘Doing business’ rank released by IFC-World bank as a proxy for regulatory quality with the ‘Corruption perceptions index’ released by Transparency International as the proxy for corruption. The scatter chart (below) clearly shows that countries with lean and efficient regulatory regimes display markedly lower corruption levels and vice versa. Admittedly, the data used is from 2010 but I believe that does not invalidate the point that is being made.

               Note: A high rank in “Doing business” indicates less friendly business environment, A high score in ‘Corruption  perceptions’                       indicates higher transparency, Source: Corruption, Institutions and Regulation (Feb 2010) by Michael Breen and Robert Gillanders

We find that the average corruption score for the top 20 easiest countries to do business in is 71.47, indicating low levels of corruption (least corrupt countries New Zealand and Denmark scored 91). On the other hand the 20 toughest countries to do business in clocked an average score of 24.47, indicating high levels of corruption. 

              Source: IFC-World Bank

Arguing that complexity is due to ‘checks and balances’ that are necessary to avoid some or the other pitfall does not hold true atleast in my mind. Does India have better checks and balances than Finland, for example? A Finnish entrepreneur can start a business in just fourteen days with just three procedures as per the IFC-World Bank report, what exactly are the checks and balances that Finland is compromising but India is not? How exactly onerous business rules contribute towards promoting individual liberty is not immediately clear to me. Is it then any surprise that the unincorporated space in India contributes about 45% to the national income, dwarfing the 15% by the corporate sector (Source: India Uninc.)? People are encouraged to stay off the grid than to assimilate.

Government involvement (or is it interference?) is not limited to the business commencement stage. Complex rules require the appointment of a large contingent of ‘inspectors’ to enforce them. A November 2013 article in ‘International Financing Review’ reviews the case of ‘Sanjiv’, a manager in a Mumbai textile store whose establishment faced about twenty inspections in a single year.  A CII-Deloitte study found that life is more onerous for manufacturing units that on average need to comply with nearly seventy laws and regulations. Apart from facing multiple inspections, units have to file as many as 100 returns a year. The data from the Deloitte study suggests that varying levels of management spend between 400 to 1,500 man days on compliance related activity. 

Source: CII-Deloitte report on Cost of Compliance in Manufacturing, January 2013

Sadly, the labyrinthine mechanism and their extra-legal shortcuts have become a method of co-opting businessmen and citizens. A September 2012 report in the NY Times ably demonstrates this. The article mentions a study looking at corporate contributions to political parties, which reveals that “Companies in technology and other service businesses — industries that require few government licenses or permissions — contributed almost nothing. The biggest donors were involved in mining, power and other sectors dependent on the government to obtain rights to natural resources”. If this isn’t telling the story of how businesses are co-opted by the system into bribing, I don’t know what is. I was unable to trace this study that is being referred to unfortunately. The larger point remains that it is no use crying “crony capitalism” without addressing its true genesis in the system itself. Businessmen not obliged to government discretion and ‘favours’ are less prone to funding political parties is what this study suggests, the others turn a vice into business strategy!

This deep entanglement between the private sector and the government for even routine operations is likely putting significant pressure on an already stretched bureaucracy. While this author has only limited data, a January 2012 report in ‘The Hindu’ (online) suggests that on per 100,000 resident basis, India has only about 20% the number of government servants as in the US (1,623 in India vs. 7,681 in US). Exacerbating the situation is the fact that almost 90% of (central) government servants belong to the lowest paid categories. This perhaps suggests that there is in fact a deep shortage of skilled staff that can actually handle the vigorous private sector interaction that is being regulated in by the government.

“Sometimes when there is talk of a minimum government one of the topics brought up is the size of the government. I don't want people to be sacked from their jobs. I endorse having the right size of government”

Narendra Modi

Source: The Hindu, Praveen Swami Jan 2012, Central Government data

Compounding the adequacy crisis, is the question of perceived inefficiency. Firstpost.com in 2012 reported a survey by the Hong Kong based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy. The survey ranked Indian bureaucracy as worst in Asia on the efficiency scale, lower even than Vietnam, Malaysia and China. The survey pointed out that bureaucrats in India are seldom held accountable for flawed decisions and it is extremely difficult to challenge them in case of disagreements. Firstpost.com also reported the survey as indicating that Indian bureaucrats are “game for under-the-table payments and companies tempted to play ball to overcome bureaucratic inertia”. Notably, this was not a one-off with Indian bureaucracy ranking worst in Asia for ten consecutive years.

                Source: Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd, http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/13/indias-bureaucracy-a-                             nightmare/

These twin issues of inadequacy and inefficiency coupled with virtually unbridled powers are best illustrated with the following example:

As per a November 2013 article by Anuj Gupta, India has around 70,000 registered boilers and only 250 boiler inspectors. Additionally, the law gave immense powers to the inspector that included shutting down a unit for inspection, and appointing agencies for repair and maintenance. This offered a fertile ground for corruption, right from getting an appointment of the inspector to not displeasing him lest he exercise his discretionary powers. In the words of Naveen Jindal (MD of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd), “For a long time, boiler inspectors have harassed many industries in the name of inspecting boilers. They are very corrupt and create problems for many industries. We have estimated that Indian industries will be richer by at least Rs 10,000 crore every year because of the new law”. I understand that the new law limiting the power of the inspectors was finally adopted in 2007 after a technical committee to study such changes was setup way back in 1972! The current status on implementation, however remains unknown to me.

In my view, this case best demonstrates the adequacy and efficiency issues with excessive government interference described earlier. Like in the case of the hypothetical retailer I mentioned earlier, isn’t it likely that the boiler owner used to consider the government a business problem rather than a business facilitator? Without making a moral judgement for now, is it then difficult to imagine this businessmen taking undue advantage of the government where possible?

As said by Hayek in The Road to Serfdom:

 “Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for”

While so far I have mentioned the business side of government interference, it is no less in the case of personal lives of citizens. To take a simple example, and without moral judgement, is the issue of permits to consume alcohol in Maharashtra. If memory serves me correctly, this is an over 60 year old law that was suddenly enforced about two years back. The cost of the license ranges from Rs5-Rs1000 but the penalty for consuming alcohol without a license is a fine of Rs50,000 or five years in jail, or both. This again exposes a law abiding citizen to the whims of the inspecting police/excise officer.

What is the logic of this law? If there exists a sound logic then why is this law only enacted in one state leaving the rest of India ‘unprotected’. Notably to obtain this license, an ordinary citizen “shall apply to the Collector of Mumbai City / Superintendent of State Excise Mumbai or officer authorized by the State Govt” (http://mumbaicity.gov.in/htmldocs/liquor.htm). The common thread in government policy making appears to be the forced interaction of the private sector (individuals in this case) with a public official with discretionary powers at the pain of severe punishment.

This theme continues in virtually every sphere of most citizens’ lives. It is possible for a customs officer at the airport to make an arbitrary assessment of the value of goods brought in by passenger and put him in a situation where he has to pay a bribe. In fact I’ve once noticed a helpful ATM positioned right behind the customs station in the Mumbai airport. Why else would anyone withdraw cash without exiting the customs area?

An ordinary citizen’s passport hinges on the local police station giving a satisfactory visit report. Buying land and constructing a house is such a black hole for me that less said the better. It is not a surprise then that those government departments that come most in contact with ordinary citizens exhibit higher bribe propensity (data from ipaidabribe.com):

This complexity has led to the ‘dalal’ (broker) and ‘jugaad’ (quick fix) culture in India. It appears sometimes that the government rules are deliberately made so complex that a citizen is left with little choice other than engaging the services of a ‘broker/ agent’ to get the work done. This is best demonstrated in the 2007 Harvard driving license study that was mentioned earlier. The study found that agents are important players in the process with over 70% of the candidates who got the license hiring one. In fact agents facilitated licences for even those candidates that did not take the driving test. Many of such licensees did not pass an independent driving test carried out by the survey team from Harvard. To quote “Individuals who hire agents to get their licenses are about 38 percentage points more likely to fail the surprise driving test”. So not only does the system make it difficult for deserving candidates to get licenses, it actively encourages bad drivers to get one.

The table below lays out the stark differences between candidates who hired agents and those who did not:

This is not a rant against bureaucracy or law making, but the very logic underlying the existence of the government in India. If the system created is conducive to the exploitation of the ordinary citizen and businessman, then inevitably someone in power will use it to exploit. Hayek put it succinctly when he said:

“The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work”

Usually in a functioning system, these negatives would have been named and shamed by the media. Sadly, the media in India seems to have dropped the ball if the overwhelming chatter on social media is to be believed. As lines between politicians, corporates and media have blurred (see Newslaundry’s graphic at http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/07/who-owns-your-media/), the role of a journalist of a society’s conscience keeper has become diluted. It appears that media has also fallen victim to the ‘co-opting’ mentioned earlier.

The Radia tapes and their alleged link to super star journalists exposes this link quite comprehensively. Without going into judging whether the merits of the tapes (for which I have neither qualification nor expertise), at the very least they indicate a very comfortable relationship that even senior journalists enjoy with their subjects. I am not sure how that helps the journalist to remain objective.

Journalism is printing

what someone else does not want printed.

Everything else is public relations.

-- George Orwell.

A study carried out by Rahul Mitra (Purdue University) called: “Organizational Colonization and Silencing in the Indian Media With the Launch of the World’s Cheapest Car”, examines the linkages between organisations and media houses to look at how the media supports an organisations interests whilst smothering dissent. The report concludes “…the organization–media nexus constitutes ‘‘a clear and present danger to citizens’ participation in public affairs, understanding of public issues, and thus to the effective working of democracy’’ (Herman & McChesney, 1998, p. 1). I have used a case study in India to show the specific strategies whereby this nexus may reify dominant interests and marginalize dissidents.”

The larger question remains, when the system makes everyone an accessory to its crimes, who will expose them?

In summation, a government that has lost sight of its true function (ie to promote individual liberty) tends to be a self serving organism. This organism creates regulatory, tax and other structures that are geared towards its own survival and growth. These structures eventually become a tool for exploitation of ordinary citizens to whom the government seems like an obstacle course rather than a friend. A group which is consistently systemically harassed will come to view the system as an adversary rather than a facilitator. This will breed a generation that will thrive on loop holes and jugaad (breaking the law, bribing officials etc) to get around the system. This is also deeply anti-market as only the established players will have the ‘connections’ and resources necessary to ‘get things done’ thus keeping new competition out. This only prompts regulators to make new, sometimes knee jerk regulations to plug deficiencies, thus creating a vicious cycle that results in the government growing in size and governance declining.

A tragic example of the attitude towards knee jerk regulations is the recent murder in Delhi of a student from the North Eastern part of India. One of the reactions from the political bigwigs in Delhi was: 

                       Source: Twitter feed (1PM on Jan 2, 2014)

Is the murder of an innocent student ‘legal’ now, that a new law is needed? Shouldn’t the idea be to enforce the existing law against killing someone instead of perhaps focusing on earning political brownie points by enacting another law? If the existing IPC did not deter this killing, why would another law (not even framed yet) be a deterrent to these criminals? The only thing that will deter crimes is implementation, not mere ‘enactment’ (pun intended). If one didn’t know better, the entire process seems to run on the classic political syllogism:

All cats have four legs. My dog has four legs. Therefore, my dog is a cat.

Translated thus for politician’s apparent quick draw view of law making:

This is wrong. Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it.

This loop can be broken only when the basis for law making is enlightened. Ultimately all laws are ‘distortionary’ in nature given that they can be differently applied to different people. Example: Let us say the government enacts a law that all restaurants should close at 10PM everyday. The enforcement agency (e.g. police) can approach a restaurant to give them a bribe in return for looking the other way if the establishment remained open after the stipulated time. This ultimately puts another restaurant, which wants to follow the law and not indulge in graft, at a disadvantage as the enforcers have a legal weapon to clamp down on it until it cracks and pays up. Thus the law, rather than improving society, actually ends up promoting graft and systemic decay.

It is this potentially damaging power of laws that needs to be recognised by politicians and ensure that only those that are absolutely unavoidable are enacted. Also, instead on concentrating on post-facto resolution of bribery, politicians must take a proactive and preventive approach to this monster of an issue. A lot of the anti graft mechanisms in India appear to focus on the after-math of the bribe (ie. post bribe being given)…even the proposed Jan Lokpal. Being penal in nature, there is a significant burden of proof required to actually enforce these anti corruption laws which making them less of a threat to the crooked.

This problem can only be truly addressed if politicians concentrated on creating a system that stymies the origin of a bribe demand/ offer in the first place. Right now the system appears to be too personality dependent, ie. someone is an honest officer, someone else is corrupt, but an enlightened leader can install a system that is less ‘proprietary’. India seems to be getting this wrong.

Some of the key steps that can be taken are:

• Scrap those laws/ rules that aren’t absolutely necessary (e.g. alcohol license in Maharashtra)

• Remove all ambiguity in the interpretation of existing laws, redraft if necessary. Clarity in laws is essential to curb discretionary powers of government servants. E.g: 66A of the IT Act is a classic example of how ambiguous drafting allowed authorities to clamp down on free speech.

• Restrict the discretionary powers of government servants.

• Adopt self governance, self certifications where possible to limit ‘inspector raj’. A classic example is that of Narendra Modi who scrapped the requirement for government boiler inspection at the state-level and passed the task on to the boiler owners themselves.

• Introduce single window clearance for business purposes and even for individual needs. There is no reason why applying for a gas connection, polling card, PAN card, Aadhar card, passport etc cant be through the same office. Enforce a strict time limit for compeletion of work with specific responsibility assigned. Impose automatic penalty for any official that misses the deadline without reason on more than 3 instances a year, for example.

• Rationalise salary structures to reduce the ‘need’ aspect of bribe seeking. Consider this, against the United Nations recommended police: population ratio 1:450 (and Bureau of Police Research and Development’s estimate of 1:568), India has just one 1 policeman for 761 people. It is interesting to note that this ratio is a sharper 1:3 for protection VIPs. Reminds me of a quote from the book, Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Under such stressful conditions, a police constable in Mumbai works for atleast 12 hours a day, and a starting gross salary of just Rs12,000 is hardly enough to sustain his family. Notably constables account for 33,000 of the 38,500-strong Mumbai force. If the backbone of law enforcement is perhaps forced to seek bribes to even make ends meet, it hints at the systemic weakness I pointed out earlier where people are encouraged to break the law. Scrapping of superfluous ministries, departments and extra-constitutional bodies will no doubt generate income to aid in higher payments to the deserving.

• Adopt eGovernance aggressively. Even for things like toll collection, use RFID tech for auto deduction. This will remove blockages at toll booths and reduce incidence of toll booth violence. 

• The solution lies in reducing the government superstructure, not add to it. Focus on implementing a lean set of laws instead of drafting a new set of impractical laws that simply cannot be implemented.

It is my belief that every new law/ rule/ amendment must be evaluated carefully on the touchstone of individual liberty. India should have as many laws as absolutely necessary, and not a single one more. The underlying logic should be: Make laws reasonable and simple to follow, punish severely those who, despite such laws, break them.

As people lose the “Us and Them” complex, wilful breaking of laws and offering of bribes will decline. I believe that Indians are, due to their ancient culture, naturally fair minded people. If someone is convinced that he will get a fair deal, his propensity to bribe, or to do ‘jugaad’ will naturally diminish. When people feel ownership over the government, I believe hooliganism and even religious riots will decline.

In conclusion, I am reminded of a cynical quip, “no politician will ever change the very system that put him/ her into power”. If this is the case then the political solution for this problem can only come from someone who is not a product/ beneficiary of this system. It is perhaps time to retire the ‘old boys club’ (in politics as well as bureaucracy). However, it is also my belief that the rebuild job cannot be left upto someone who has had no experience navigating the system. Anarchy is not the solution to imperfection and simply not belonging to the old boys club is not enough of a qualification to lead this change.

While reforming the system clearly requires team work it cannot happen without a leader who will incentivise removal of red tape and not the other way around. India needs someone who has exhibited vision and delivered clear results whilst dealing with this same system in a constructive way. India neither has the time nor the patience for empty sloganeering nor to be a guinea pig for hit-or-miss experiments. What is needed is a strong, decisive leader to make the changes needed that will overhaul the ‘logic’ of government, whilst retaining the essence of our democracy.

Disclaimer: My sincere appeal is to readers to appreciate the intent of this write-up. The intent remains to see India as a free, fair prosperous nation that ensures opportunity for all with no discrimination. I do not claim to be an expert in administration nor do I wish to paint all politicians, bureaucrats etc with a wide brush. These are some stray thoughts that have crossed my mind during various interactions and I decided to put them down here as succinctly as I could. While I have taken care to ensure the correctness of data and charts I am by no means in a position to guarantee it. I do hope this blog post inspires everyone in a positive way rather than taking offense, which is is no way intended.