IAS=Indian Azadi Service

In a recent Walk The Talk show Mr.Shekhar Gupta asked the new Chief Election Commissioner of India Mr S Y Quraishi:

N R Narayana Murthy is taking the lead in asking for the civil service to be reformed. Out of sheer frustration, he is even asking for the abolition of IAS. He says it has no accountability.

• I beg to differ on that. You can abolish the IAS but you will have to substitute it with some other organisation. Can you guarantee that they will be different?

From AI:

• “The Government of India has released the findings of the first ever survey of the Indian Civil Services. The report titled "Civil Services Survey - A Report" surveyed officers from all 3 India Services (The Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian Forest Service (IFoS)) as well as officers of 7 Central Services. In total, the Survey covered 18432 officers belonging to the ten selected services. Out of the total questionnaires sent, 4808 officers responded to the survey which is 26% of the total universe.

• The survey was conducted to assess the perceptions of civil servants on 11 major thematic areas including work environment, transfers, postings, integrity to harassment and discrimination. Read the full report online the pdf version of the report here.”