Skill India Mission: Challenges and Opportunities

I have new article on the performance of Skill India Mission which was launched five years ago. The Mission faced many challenges and thereby achieved few outcomes of providing short term skills training to youth with job placements. A slice from the article is below:

"We need to break away from the structured perpetuating silos in social sector policies and focus on the web of skills through a decentralised manner in every sphere from kindergarten to university, thus enabling children and youth to get equipped and find opportunities anywhere in the world."

"I admire Rajaji because he had a vision for India"

This is an interesting interview of Maharani Gayatri Devi who was Swatantra Party Member of Parliament. 

MGD: I never regretted being in politics, I never regretted being in the Swatantra Party, I never regretted being a chela of Rajaji’s. He believed that India should be really free.

SG: If you look at the two personalities, he and Nehru, both towering personalities, where did they differ?

MGD: Both were great friends. When Pandit Nehru had to send somebody to America to talk to Kennedy, he chose Rajaji. I admire Rajaji because he had a vision for India.

India, China: ancient civilisations, different paths

I have new article in SO website by Centre for Civil Society.

My article on India- China's ancient civilisational roots and their social, economic and political paths looks what many commentators especially the strategic geo economic commentators tend to ignore the historical past, they go upto 1962 or the times of Nehru or Patel letters!

"If anything, India could do well to learn from Deng himself: “… political independence and economic independence are inseparable. Without political independence, it is impossible to achieve economic independence; without economic independence, a country’s independence is incomplete and insecure.” With such leaders at the helm, little wonder that China has reached the stage it has."

The Life and Legacy of VKRV Rao

Embracing Decentralisation to Speed-up Smart Cities Projects

I have new article in the CPPR blog about the assessment of five years of implementation of smart cities projects in India:

The main arguments are in the below para:

"The dismal performances of Smart City Mission projects are attributed to many elements such as lack of good governance and decentralisation at urban local bodies’ level even after the Constitutional Amendments made close to three decades ago. Moreover, Smart City Mission projects mainly were faced with lack of political leadership to drive effective transformations at national, state and city levels; the lethargic bureaucratic planning, project designs minus citizens’ participation; complete dilution of mission guidelines and norms of special purpose vehicles (SPVs); not including subject experts from industry and public policy practitioners in the planning stage itself; lack of transparency in detailed projects preparations by private consultancy firms; and more importantly, corruption in tendering process with political interferences, especially in Tamil Nadu. Also, there were no links between the actual projects initiated and initial reports prepared by private consulting firms involving citizens for feedback."

Nani Palkhivala and C Rajagopalachari Speeches-1971

An Economist Looks at 90: Tom Sowell on Charter Schools and Their Enemies